Hi all, Another long time smoker, first time grower here! I've read the guides on this site and on others too, and it just seems like there's so much conflicting information out there, and I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice specific to my grow plan: I ordered 5 fem WW seeds the other day, which are winging their way to me just now. I plan to germinate 2/3 of these, in the hope of getting two female plants. This is my first question: how likely ARE feminized seeds to produce female plants? I take it its not quite 100%?? Second question: like I said, I plan to grow 2 WW plants over the next 3 months or so, and I'm def going to use CFL light. I was thinking of getting this: CFL with Reinforced Reflector: Basement Lighting Hydroponics and Plant Grow Lights Bearing in mind that I'm only growing two plants, could I get away with just getting the one dual spectrum bulb? Cheers guys!
For your first question, fem'd seeds have a pretty good rate from reputable dealers. Better than 90%. That doesn't mean you can mistreat them though. A stressed out plant will hermaphrodite feminized or not. From your 3 seeds you should just plan on keeping one of them as a mother plant in your cfl cabinet. Then you can get a better light and clone off of her once you get the basics handled. High wattage CFL bulbs aren't very efficient. They cast just enough heat that you have to keep them too far from the plants for the radiant light energy to be used. Lower wattage CFL bulbs, 40's and 20's, are perfect because they can be kept practically touching the plant and offer quite a bit of energy per watt within 1" of the bulb. For a decent sized plant though this can add up to quite a few bulbs, which means a lot of equipment and replacements as well. That CFL bulb could grow two plants, but it's just going to wet your tongue really and you'll wish you'd spent just a couple more bucks for more light. If you do go totally CFL look into the circular lights (not cfl, looks like a thin round fluoro) I hear people get very good results with them in combination with the twisty kind. I prefer to mix spectrums also, daylight and soft white. I am curious about cool white but haven't gotten around to them yet.
Thanks for the information man! I wish I'd have waited for a reply before buying that lamp! Anyway, I might get a couple of fixtures and add em to the set up later on - maybe get a couple of reds and just stick em on when I want to flower, what do you think? Cheers again