CFL Growing-PICS

First off, Im going to say that CFL's are definatley
not even close to the best light source money can buy but they
work well for people who:

-Have a tight budget
-Small grow space
-lack of ventilation/heat concern
-people who dont smoke more than a few grams a day(Still reccomend HPS)
-Are not sure if they will be good at growing and want to try with a cheaper/smaller set up for experimental purposes
-SOG'rs or SCROG'rs
- Micro grows

Marijuana isnt as easy as growers make it look, it requires a little bit of reading but mostly trial and error and discussing with other growers locally or on this website.The easiest way I think is to make sure you start with proper soil mix. Organic is the best way period. Better taste/more tastes (broader palate)and just smoother and a cleaner and more potent smoke. Make sure to use a soil thats black and rich with compost.Include worm castings and feed with Indonesian bat guano during flowering weeks 3-6 ( on an eight week strain). I ensure that my soil mix has lots of perlite for drainage(helps to flush aswell), about 30% I think.

We need to make sure our plants get a few things in order to achieve a harvest:

-Proper lumens per square foot ( 4000-5000),wattage has nothing to do with it, its the lumen per square foot. A 42 watt CFL red spectrum typically puts out 2800 lumens. If we have a 2x42 watt CFLs per 1.5 square feet, this gives us a 4200 lumens per square foot. This is enough for proper growth of the Cannabis plant, although that 5000 mark would make the plant grow better and even 6-8000 lumens per sq.ft would be amazing, but temps and humidity is a going concern so usually the amount of lights we can use becomes limited untill we get a larger room or higher powered intake/exhaust fans

-Temps between 25c to 30c (70-85f?), anymore or less is pushin it(although I did grow the Citral under 30-34 celcius and it turned out great.Cooler temps would have made denser buds tho and probably even more yield)

-Light proofing is key otherwise your budding plant can go hermi and I consider this not worth growing atleast not under CFL's

-Good PH'd water (6.2-6.6)

-Ventilation and air movement ( exhaust/intake along with a regular fan for circulation)
The least expensive way of reducing the heat in the grow room is to vent out the heat and replace it with cooler air. Sounds simple right? Well it is, but what most beginners forget is that you can't blow the hot air out without a way for the cool air to get in to replace it. The best way to setup a venting system like this is to mount one exhaust blower on the inside of the grow room up high to blow the heat out, and another blower on the outside mounted down low blowing cool air in. Hot air rises, cool air settles.

Exhaust blowers are rated or sized in Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) of air, like "265 CFM". This is the amount of air the blower will move in one minute without any restrictions on the intake or exhaust. If a blower is rated at 265 CFM but it's connected to a 25 foot long tube like a dryer hose, it's not going to move 265 CFM because of the resistance in the hose. Aluminum tubing with smooth inside walls creates less resistance and the blower runs more efficient. So what size blower should you get? Well it just depends on how fast you need to exchange the air. If your grow room is 6 feet wide, 6 feet long and has an 8 foot ceiling you have 288 cubic feet of air in the room (6x6x8=288). So if your blower is rated at 265 CFM, and it has no restrictions on the intake or exhaust side, it should take about a minute to replace all the air. Of course if the air your replacing it with is already hot, it doesn't do much too cool the grow room. So it's best to draw cool air from outside.

If we cant intake air from outside, then its important to have a cool room and an open window.( window mounted a/c units work wonders). Say your growing in a closet or box inside a room, typically the inside grow temp will be 2-10 degrees celcius warmer than the rooms temp. This means if we need a grow room to be 26-28 celcius, then the outside room would need to be around 22 celcius.Ventilation is one of the most important steps in any grow room wich people tend to over-look.

As long as we are growing the same way as described for a regular soil garden such as an HPS powered garden, we will yield between 0.25g-.75gs per watt.

--THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HPS AND CFL--

If youve searched CFL grow on google, you may have found alot of info. This is because it is a working way to grow Marijuana. If you have read one of these articles/threads then you may have noticed people talkin trash about CFL's for growing, but like I said not everyone can grow HPS or are restricted to certain levels of heat, etc.

So lets actually see what the difference is.

In my experience, Ive been able to pull off 120 grams off 390 watts CFL lights, mostly 42's (42 watt cfl bulbs). So 0.30 grams per watt . This was achieved with one plant from seed,grown under 18/6 for 70 days and then flowered for 8.5 weeks.

In comparison, Ive heard of 400 watt HPS systems allowing around 2-4 of the plants I described under it while yielding around 400 grams(total of 4 plants).

This means that CFL generally puts out 0.3grams per watt VS HPS at around 1.0grams per watt.

This means that if you smoke a pound a year, you need a constant CFL grow(12 months off 400 watts running), or 4 months under a 400 watt HPS.


In conclusion, CFL grows are 4 times the work and 12 times the cost in comparison to the resulting yield of an HPS.But do not be discouraged to try CFL before you get serious about growing indoors. I think that because CFLs are so much more work and harder, that theres more learning experience.

Here is my last grow using 100% organic nutrients and 400 watts (390) CFL, topped and trained:

Flowering week 1:




------------------------------------------------------------------

Week 2-3:





Week 3-4:

this pic wouldnt post
cfl_grow_cannachat - Marijuana Pictures, Photos & Videos - Grasscity.com Media Gallery
Massive growth

Week 5-6:

View attachment 404617





This has to be week 6 OMG!!

Week 7-8:



Dont fuck around mang lol





BUD PORN!



Dont be fooled, these buds were dense as hell, just as dense as most AAA buds around here but more potent and hella tasty. This is the harvest of most of the plant, I left almost an ounce of the bottom buds to fill in another week.





125 grams total from this plant, yeah boy!

I had fun with this one, was a great learning experience and the qp lasted 2 months, Im trying to veg at the same time so that by the time my vegging plants are ready, its harvest time for the flowers. I hope you enjoyed my first thread, please stay safe and stay medicated.

CT420

(Please feel free to post your CFL harvests/CFL Budding plants)

 

Thanks. And Im sure the HPS results will please you...hehe

If you remember, please feel free to post your results with CFL and your future HPS grow
Good luck !


CT420

 

I never said HPS would give 2lbs per plant, I mentioned how a 400 watt bulb would yield around 400 grams vs 120 grams from the equivelant of CFL watts. Good point how its the grower who usually fuks it up, this is true. But there is some learning you have to do about Macro/Micro nutes so that you can mix a good soil(less) mix that will give your plant everything it needs. So its not as easy as "tossin em in the wind" like you said...Good marijuana requires some effort and research. If you planted them in an old soil bed, chances are the plant will need some nitrogen and other micro nutes because the soil bed is depleted of all nutrients.If we didnt add Nitrogen at this time the plant would yellow up and die.This plants death would have been prevnted if the grower was experienced enough to know to treat his old soil before planting.

I AGREE IF YOU GET A SOIL THAT PROVIDES ALL ESSENTIAL Micro and Macro nutes then you shouldnt have any problem, just water and let grow.