hautions11's Blog

Tomato flat screen training UPDATE
Jan 6, 2009 | 1:15 PM PST
Tags: tomato , tomatoes , flat screen training , ScrOG , hydroponic , organic
Today is the day. Dad has been monitoring the plants more closely than I lately and figured that one of Fat Mamma's shoots was tall enough to start the weave. Such was his enthusiasm that he came home on his lunch break and rolled me out of bed before it was even noon yet to commence the first step in the weave. Without further adieu, here is a step-by-step pictorial how-to on flat-screen training.

 
^first pinch the stem adjacent to the wire where the shoot has come up similar to the supercropping process. However, do not pinch and rotate and do not pinch from multimple directions as usual. You want to flatten the stem slightly so that it easily beds over the adjacent wire so that it looks like this:

^Obse
rve the flatness just above my left thumb. Next you will bend the plant over the adjacent wire as shown below. It should give quite easily due to the flattening process, if it doesn't, re-pinch and start again.

 
^bending^

Now that you have gotten the stem at a 90-ish degree angle along the "boarder" wire that separates the hole in the screen the shoot grew up through from the adjacent hole you are aiming for you can begin to pull it through like this:

 
^pulling^ 
Be careful during this step and bunch up the leaves so that they don't tear on the way through. If you did it right the hard part is over and the plant should now look like this: 
 
^neatly tucked beneath the screen^ 
Note how I've managed the leaves, pulling them through adjacent holes and letting them come to rest on top, the opposite of what is done to the plants that this technique was developed for. Now all that is left to do is poke the top of the crown through the next hole over, the third one involved in this process: 
 
^the completed weave^ 
Jobs a good'un. You may want to sort out the smaller leaves near the top of the crown and get them laying on top of the screen where they belong. Also, once the crown is in its final position I like to supercrop all of the horizontal stem section except for the very top node to lock the vine into place and toughen up the stem to avoid any abrasive effect that the wire might have on the skin. Now the crown will soon resume growth and turn upwards towards the light. Once it has gotten 3 or 4 inches tall we will repeat the process and the cycle will continue indefinitely. I hope this has been informative, good luck and happy gardening! 
-Zach