hey everybody!!! Well im in the beginning stages of setting up my grow and i have a burning question that just popped up a few days ago Now i just finished reading jorge cervantes marijuana horticulture grow bible and in that book he put me under the impression that if i wanted to flower Xamount of plants under 2 1000w hps then i would have to veg the same plants under 2 1000w (preferably metal hallides) Coming on here i have read multiple posts where growers are flowering Xamount under 1000w but are onlly useing 250w or 400w for veg... or using 600w for flower and only 150w for vegative...etc. So my questions.... how much veg light do i NEED compared to flower light for the same amount of plants?? Please help this has been bothering me and can't seem to find an exact answer in any exiting threads Edit: I only plan on vegging for 3-4 weeks
i say the more light the better.....that being said...i veg with a t-5....by far not my strongest light....go figure
There is no particular "ratio" of light you need in veg vs. what you will have in flowering. You could veg under those HPS lights if you wanted but you would be wasting alot of electricity. Alot of growers veg under Fluorescent lighting or lower wattage MH to provide just enough light for vegetative growth so that you can prep it for flowering. When you switch to flowering thats when lighting becomes most important so the high wattage HPS are more appropriate to use. Also, your plants will grow double to triple in size while flowering anyway.
First off welcome to the site and grats on starting your grow. Now Jorge is a good guy, dont get me wrong. I have his book on pdf and his 3 videos. I too thought Hey, this guy knows his shit. Then I came here. After reading multiple threads here I found alot of the advice he gave was correct, however it was outdated or "simplified". When it comes to Vegging and Flowering This is what it boils down to. Vegging requires 24/0 - 18/6 hours of light in the 6500k (Day light) spectrum. This is when your plant is setting up its roots and beging the foundation for your much anticipated Flowering stages. Due to the longer light periods your able to get away with less light. Flowering requires 12/12 hours of light in the 2700k (soft light) spectrum. Because this is the stage that will give you what your looking for at the end you want as much light as you can put in to get those bigger buds. This stage is crucial because of the shorter light periods. For more info and well more to read check out the link under my sig pic. It has a section of links that deal with nothing but lighting and also gives you the numbers and science stuff.
thanks for the quick responses everyone! i will definitely check those links out bro, thanks. so if i wanted to flower 20 plants under 2 1000w or 3 600w... around how much t5 wattage do you think i will need for the veg stage?? I know its difficult to give exact answers because you don't know the location, set-up, strains, nutes, etc. but any ballpark answer will greatly help. Right now im just trying to solidify how much equipment, lighting, and power i will be using.
Im under the impression that it more comes down to sq foot coverage than anything. So you'll need enough T5 light to cover the space your 20 take up in Veg, or 10 or whatever if you're rotating your crop. Plus you clone room/space lights..yadda yadda yadda. The more light the better always, but most of us growers are confined by space and $ and the heat it all will generate. I believe there is a chapter in Joerge's book on grow room setup, with charts for lamp coverage but I dont know if it talks about T5s...
[quote name='smoothkriminal'] so if i wanted to flower 20 plants under 2 1000w or 3 600w... around how much t5 floro (or MH) wattage do you think i will need for the veg stage?? QUOTE]
It really depends on how big you're gonna let your plants get in the Veg stage. Its all about coverage. If you get a 4 foot T5 fixture with 8 bulbs you'll be running 432 Watts and have a coverage of about 4 x 2 feet.. so typically about 8-10 Small plants then continue to veg under your HPS lights for a short while before you switch to flowering. If you're growing 20 plants my recommendation for you is to get a 1000 Watt Metal Halide bulb and veg all your plants under that and as they grow put them under the 2 1000 Watt HPS lights for the remainder of the Veg time before switching to 12/12 flowering period. You could even veg them from start under an HPS just fine if you wanted to but the MH for Vegging would be optimal. Check to make sure your Ballast supports Metal Halide bulbs, most do, and if yours does then you can just use one of the ballasts and fixture that you will be using for the 2 1000W HPS setups.
duuuuuude thank you!! Took me like a week and 2 different posts to get an answer like this, which is wild for grasscity. I only plan on vegging 3 weeks maybe 4 tops... if that's the case do you think a 600w mh would do the trick veggin 20 babies? edit: probably around 12-15 inches when i flip the switch
also... you suggested throwing them under the hps a little BEFORE i make the flip?? What's the reasoning for this? Could you go into a little more detail?? I don't think i've ever heard that before Just trying to soak up as much knowledge as i can before i dive in
A 600 Watt MH would probably cover about 4 x 4 foot space (5x5 would be pushing it) If you bunch your plants together very close you can probably fit 20 plants in that space but they're gonna grow quickly and will need space to branch out. At 12 inches I would think that your plant will need at least 1 square foot of space minimum 4x4 = 16 square feet so if you can get the plants to fit in a space of about 4x5 you might be able to get away with it. You can use your best judgment as they grow, it will be obvious to you that you need to space them out. Thats when you can switch them to the 2 1000 watt HPS's if you plan on vegging any further because like I said, HPS lights work just fine with Vegging too (Provided you remain on an 18/6 light schedule ofcourse). This way you can spread your plants out a little to allow light to penetrate the lower parts so they can grow branches. The more branches you have, the more bud sites. When you are comfortable with their size, all you have to do then is cut the light schedule to 12/12 to begin flowering. Do you plan on using the Sea of Green (SOG) or Screen of Green (SCROG) method at all? The SCROG method is very efficient and can give you a higher yield. It is a very well controlled grow allowing the best distribution of light to all your plants because it forces the buds to grow in an even canopy, forces your plants to increase branching, and keeps the height low. Let me know if you want some info on these methods.
once again thanks for the detailed response my man... i'll probably go with the 1000w mh just to be safe, and so i can fit some mothers up in there... u can never have too much light the only thing im worried about is using too much power I'm not using a sog and wasn't planning on a scrog i was going to do my first grow all natural. Although i'm kind of familiar with the scrog technique i don't know too much about it because jorge cervantes didn't cover it at all in his book. I'm about 5 chapters into greg greens book and i know he covers it in later chapters so i'm excited to read about it. But i'm a little weary on his book now that i found out he isn't actually a grower.... anyway i still wanna read about it. I mean are there really significant differnces in the yields?? What method do you use and have you done an experiment growing it naturally to compare yields?? I'm just not completely sold on it yet but i don't know much about it. I also don't like the fact that i won't be able to move my plants around and won't be able to thoroughly inspect them as well as i would if they were growing without the screen. Thanks for all the help and info man i appreciate it!
If you want to keep a mother plant alive for a long time so you can use it for clones for grow after grow you're gonna have to keep that plant in Veg state meaning 18 hours of light every day. That's gonna use tons of electricity. You can keep that mom going on just CFL's, T5's, or even T8 fixtures. My very first grow was with 4 plants under a 400 watt HPS... I did some LST but thats about it. They will easily get out of control VERY quickly and when 1 or 2 plants grow faster than the rest they will shade the plants next to them. Maybe you should go with less plants for your first grow, caring for 20 plants for your first run might get overwhelming. SCROG method is a simple screen (basically you make a table but the top is just a screen). I recommend a screen that has holes a little bigger than the holes in Chickenwire. As the plant grows, you bend and tuck the top branches under the screen allowing light to penetrate to the lower part of the plant. More branches shoot up and you do the same to them.. then you get even MORE branching. The more branches you have.. the more colas you have = more bud yield. You keep tucking the branches under the screen until it fills up then you switch to flowering. Your buds will then evenly grow in a flat canopy allowing light to evenly spread across all of your buds. If you just let it go naturally, your plant will grow in a Christmas Tree shape with more bud in the middle and less on the sides. Here's what it looks like from the bottom: And The TOP: