If a sproutling were new..no true leaves yet, just a couple nubs and a small stem...how far away would you place a light? (like say... a single 13w CFL)
super duper close... put the bulb as close to your hand till it makes your hand hot... if its too hot for your hand, its too hot for the plant... 13 watt cfl's run very cool... you can almost smash your plant with them
use your hand but for CFLS normally no it depends on your airflow as well I have 520 watts of Cfls just like a half inch away from the of my newborns but I have alot of air flow as well. When I moved the light closer I noticed a big change in grow so I inceased airflow to make it happen. Granted I am moving my lights much more often but whatever.
hahaha... yeah you can do that.. but what happens when your at the beach... you get wet and it gets windy.... you get dried out... so will your plant..... 3 inches is awesome... a oscillating fan is nice... set to low.... or something stationary... blowing close to your plant, so its not direct and does not dry out your seedling
how close to a sproutling should a small desk fan go? Should it look as if it is gently rustling in the breeze? or not actually move the leaves at all? =\
as close as you can get your fan,without drying it out.. each grow is different... experiment..... i usually try to cool my cfl's without directly cooling my plant.... this way i have a cool grow... and cool bulbs.. and my plants move a little...
If they do dry out, what is the usual procedure to reverse this? (other than moving / turning off the fan)
Personally I would keep the sprout from a 13w bulb the same distance away as the trashcan is, because that's where a 13w CFL belongs (as far as MJ growing). Light intensity for that wattage is very low, three inches is too far away. Perhaps you can use that bulb for the first week or two, one inch away, then you'll need something stronger.
Watts CFL/plant? On the guides they aren't (which I haven't totally not read ) they seem to only speak on 50+ wattage equivalency but I haven't found a formula to convert to that equivalency or a standard for cfl-wattage. Thanks guys for helpin. +rep all the way around.
You need 100 watts for the first plant and 50 watts for every extra plant of actual CFL wattage. Get some 40 watt or higher bulbs and some y splitters and get as much light as you can onto them. They are seedlings right now so they don't need much light until they get bigger but if you have 13 watt bulbs keep them as close as possible.
^These are bare minimums, not "what you need." And you cannot provide those total actual watts with a bunch of bulbs that each are too low in intensity to do much of anything. Use bulbs of 23 actual watts each (100w "equivalents") or higher. And ignore the "equivalent" wattages, that's only for comparison to household incandescents which is a meaningless comparison for growers.
Airflow is fine as low as you keep humidity on the high side. Basically in the middle of every 3 blubs is a Computer fan sucking air not pushing it. They hardly move let alone dance.