I've been wondering about the amount of light needed to keep them in veg also. I would be thinking more along the lines of 2 600w MH lights at minimum.
Sounds like a good plan. I'm in the process of building a 15'x30' right now and planned on using 4 1ks. Keep this thread updated i'm looking forward to seeing your progress. Check out my thread if your interested: http://forum.grasscity.com/greenhouses/1107148-planning-building-new-greenhouse.html
Florescent lights will keep them in veg, no need to pay for the extra juice of running high wattage fixtures. All you have to do is calculate light hours and give them less than 12 hours of darkness I.E. sunrise is at 5:15 am, sunset at 5:45pm = total daylight hours 12.5, which his not enough to keep your plants out of bloom so give them at least and extra 4 hours minimum. Set a timer to come on at 5:00pm and run until 10:00pm. your plants WILL grow. Of course high wattage fixtures will put out heat as well which can be a good thing in the winter months. When it comes time to bloom you may want to run those lights on rainy/overcast days....If you keep your temp and humidity right with proper ventilation and dehumidifiers you can achieve an indoor quality end result with a little light supplementation. Lots of tech stuff to address on a project like this. The fusion of indoor technology and outdoor simplicity brings up a whole range of new variables! Fun stuff!! Good Luck....
1x 600 hps/Mh digital ballast light does 1 square yard really good for 9 plants, 400w does it poorly, 100 w will do 11/2 yard good but will give heat and condensation issues, with 600w you will get good growth in veg in Mh mode vs poor to average in T5/T8 flouro....do the math? Amazon.com: Purple Apollo brand 600w Watt Digital Dimmable Ballast Hydroponic Grow Light System with Gull Wing Reflector and Metal Halide(MH) and High Pressure Sodium(HPS) Light Bulbs, Cord + Rope Ratchet Hanger: Patio, Lawn & Garden
basically what you are gonna wanna do is what hypnoherb suggested, use the light to make the day seem longer. Im doing it in a smaller greenhouse with a 400w MH to keep em awake. i dont have any scientific evidence to back this up BUT im thinking in theory that the natural sunlight PLUS the added spectrum from the supplimental lighting will only help the plants to give them a better overall more complete lighting spectrum. just my 2 cents, good luck though man!
Re: Winter Greenhouse grow with supplemental artificial lighting quite simply there is nothing out there better than the most up-to-date LEDs - unsurprisingly Canadian companies are leading the way in growlights and the best out there by a long way is Growthstar LED | Grow with LED Lights | Horticultural Lighting massive ROIs and with say 4-6 hours of day usage (based on supplementing only) that works out to about 10 or more of use before you have to consider your next purchase
All I can add is that cannabis follows by the amount of darkness. So 24h is stressing it. Try 16-18. If it is an auto, 24h is fine, because then the recessive gene of ruderalis kicks in.
This is an old thread I used 6 600w mh, Actually the same setup you linked but rebranded. Ipower or something like that. One ballast went bad after two months but they sent me a new one in a week I can't tell if you're actually new or just advertising.
There's nothing in this thread about light dep. Glad you got your website plug in though. Nothing like taking advantage of a cause and saying it's to unite people.
Once again nothing here is about light dep. This thread is about the exact opposite. de·prived /diˈprīvd/ Adjective Suffering a severe and damaging lack of basic material and cultural benefits. (of a person) Suffering a lack of a specified benefit that is considered important. Example : He was clearly deprived of a decent education.
Glad I could be of service. Someone that spams for people to buy from their website in their posts shouldn't expect a warm welcome.
I must of missed the part where I was being rude. Your first 6 posts on this forum were spamming for people to buy your junk. 4 of them were very off topic. You can try to make me look like the bad guy, but most people here read english. A thread about rolling Another thread about lighting A thread about CA legalization, Almost on topic except you post an ad. Another thread about legalization, but again advertising your site.
Over past two years, many advances have been introduced both to LED grow-light fixtures and commercial greenhouses. I''d love to respark this dialogue with some chat on optimizing PPFD/DLI in auto light-dep, CEA commercial greenhouses. My curiosity involves ~ 1000 ft<sup>2</sup> twin-bay footprints (sum = 2000 ft<sup>2</sup>). The two regions I'm invested in are the Golden Triangle and NW Oregon (Portland, near the 45th parallel).