Any suggestion please 🙏

SoG is by far the most efficient technique because the turn around time is as low as possible. To avoid the usual confusion sorrounding the term - SoG is NOT filling out a grow space with plant mass any which way. SoG is specifically a technique where you grow: - Many small single cola plants in small pots (~4 plants per square foot) - with the light schedule at 12/12 from seed/clone to harvest, i.e. no veg time 5x5 is a pretty big tent, and if you wanna grow SoG in it you better have a well-sized clone factory on the side or a lot of feminized seeds to spare, since you're looking at 9 rows of 9 plants, that's a plant count of 81! That's a growing machine that consumes an input of 81 seeds every 10-13 weeks or 81 clones every 7-10 weeks. SoG is an amazing method and pretty easy to do, but it's extremely important to be on point with watering since the small pots can critically dry out quickly.

yield is correlated to size of the canopy, not necessarily number of plants. If you fill the tent, you'll get your yield. More plants generally means less vege time, which will also save money. There's obviously a ceiling to that benefit (common sense). Genetics will dictate whether the potential is a super yield or an average one. It takes clones to consistently hit higher marks. From seed you whould have lower expectations, by comparison, and expect it to be more volatile harvest-to-harvest. 5-gallon pots are quite large. These'll be good for 6-8 weeks of vege plus the typical flower length range and can likley push even longer without too much problem. This size pot is fine for a plant that will be 4sq ft to 6sq ft each, just guessing. Six of these plants would probably take up more than a 5x5. You can probably use 3-galllon pots with a 6-9 plant setup. Fwiw, i use 5-gallons. I do ~6 week vege or a bit less. Canopy per plant is about 2x2 (4sq ft). I under-fill a bit, because i don't need the full 5-galllons. I fill a little larger than 4x8 area with 8 plants. I choose this because it gives me enough vege time to take some clones. If i didn't need 30-40 plants to do a SOG i'd definitely do that and probably save 3 weeks of vege time. The other thing is i'd suggest a number that fits the shape of your tent. it'll be easier to train a square canopy rather than an oblong canopy. Symmetrical growth is generally easier. It's not impossible to do other things, either. Tetris that shit up, if you feel like it. Whatever you do.. you can always check if you have too much or too little medium. You'll have lots of 'empty' medium with few roots in areas of root zone or overpacked roots, or a happy well-colonized medium. You can easily adjust from there. i would defnitely use a trellis for anything but sog (small plants have no need)... just the risk of running into "1" floppy plant is worth it. Tying up indidivual branches and such to support it is a pain in the ass 2x over.. .once when you do it, then when you harvest. Scrog helps visualize filling the space and recognizing when to flip to flower too. So, to review relative to this limited topic of filling a tent... canopy size (assuming all other factors are good) = yield. Number of plants = vege time required to grow that 'canopy size' I'd also suggest not going wall-to-wall.. leave 4-6" away from the wall for light to encompass plant and airflow.

Light is the limiting factor of yield, not plant count. A 700w light can only produce a fixed number of photons; whether those photons are captured by 6 large plants or 25 small ones, a full canopy will maximize that specific light's potential. Fewer plants = more time to fill; the harder you push to maximize, the bigger the pots I'd recommend. You will rapidly crash the metabolic race car. The bigger the medium, the bigger chemical inertia can be built each day. Anything less would leave gaps in the Calvin cycle due to shortages. Understand that when you talk about "max yield," you are not achieving that below 86F(without CO2) or below 95°F (with CO2). Newbie growers are not recommended to go above 77F Higher temp = higher transpiration. 90% of plants' water use is for cooling. Yield doesn't come without moving massive amounts of water. That only comes with a lot of heat. Can't achieve "max yield" with water tanks that run out 2x a day from said high heat. 6-5 gallon at a steady 74-77F; if you exceed temps, the root zone dries too fast, and she will experience, near the end of the day, an EC spike even for a few hours; the stomata close, CO2 uptake drops, and shortages immediately stall the Calvin cycle. Doing this in repeated cycles can be devastating for the metabolic pathways that control how the plant grows, wasting vast amounts of ATP doing so. ATP that could be used for growth. Want real yield? Do 4x15-gallon. But that requires everything dialed in perfectly, with a strong knowledge of the ins and outs. Good luck buuuuuudy

SOG is better for yield in long run. But I'm managing to get pretty close doing scrog. its not easy though. for maximum yield you need quick turn around if i had the space/plant count I would do like 9 7-gallon pots 2 week veg maybe from clone, 3-4 from seed, of a slimmer structure plant or 80 gallon pot with one plant, of a monster yielding variety with 8-12 week veg. I know that last one sounds crazy but. very risky doing it that way but possible. that's with living soil if not doing living soil you could get away with smaller pots

try and keep it as simple as possible if your quiet new to growing.. easy for you and your skillset and easiest to learnfrim mistakes quickly instead of being inundated with problems.