MallaJuana® netting is the original netting material used for SCROG SOG tutoring in medical cannabis (caveat: where local and state laws allow its cultivations).
Just like in the cut flower business, cannabis and hemp plants need a physical support system to allow their stems to grow towards the light source, artificial or solar as it may be. In a competing environment the most rigorous plant will overwhelm the ones that had a late start or that had an initial setback during the development stage. MallaJuana® grow net allows the grower to limit and confine each plant within a set area within the beds, tutoring the plants vertically and not allowing the larger and first bloomers to asphyxiate smaller ones.
By establishing physical boundaries for each plant, they will all be allowed to have access to the light source in an uniform way, and this in turn helps the grower produce more and even buds, allowing any phyto-sanitary treatment to reach each plant in the same quantity and dosage.
The SCROG netting (from its acronym for screen of green) technique or the similar SOG plant tutoring method (from sea-of-green) will hold each plant steady and not allow any branches to fall to the ground under the weight of its buds.
Buds that come in contact with the grounds will be damaged by humidity, insects or accidental stumping, and as the branch leans over to one side it will cover neighboring plants from the light source, impeding its full development or even maturity of the flower bud used for medicinal purposes. Furthermore, preventing the plant from leaning to a side will avoid any cracks in its stems, as these bruises or cuts become the entry points for pathogens as bacteria or fungi.
MallaJuana is usually installed horizontally just like in flower beds, using a multiple layer technique whereby the stem and shoots pass through various layers of netting as the superimposed meshes create an imaginary cuboids that support the hemp plants at various stages of growth.
This netting manufactured by the Hortomallas Group, an international group of companies that specializes in plastic trellis netting and bird control, is also used as an outdoors´ “plant wrap”, meaning the net is wrapped around the fully grown plant (cannabis can grow a full 10 feet-3 meters or more), and literally MallaJuana acts as a brace at 360 degrees, holding external branches from leaning towards the ground. When installed as a wrap the MallaJuana trellising net (that comes in 1, 2 or 2.4 meters in with) will be using the rigidity and overall balance of the full plant to hold the buds towards the sun. This method allows the plant to grow on its own, as the new branches will grow thru the net´s meshes and will require less training labor.
Just like in horticulture crops like tomatoes or cucumbers, one must consider that the constant manipulation of plants during pruning or tutoring will stress the plant and expose it to mechanically transmitted diseases, as the hands of the operators may contain spores, bacteria or viruses brought over from other plants or nearby cultivars, so reducing the hand-plant contact becomes essential for a good economic result for growing medical buds. More info for SCROG & SOG net here
