Enough light?

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by hisairness, Aug 5, 2013.

  1. I was thinking about doing 9 plants under a 600w HPS/MH and about 300w of CFLs, but do you think I could do 12?

     
  2. Please respond
     
  3. It would probably work out fine for 9, 12 would be pushing it.. It mostly depends and the amount of space your gonna have for each plant. I would suggest at least 100 watts direct light per plant.

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  4. Get a xxxl hood
     
  5. Ok, so I counted and its more like 530 watts of Cfls haha
     


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  7. Please re-respond

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  8. Someone love me

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  9. :(

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  10. #10 howando, Aug 6, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 6, 2013
    The problem with doing 12 is the surface area that you've got to cover with the lights.  If all your light is from one source, to fit in 12 plants some of those plants are going to be on the fringes and not get as much as the ones in the middle.  On top of that, if you grow them bushy, they'll shade each other and there'll be a fair amount of waste.
     
    Because you've got so many watts of CFLs as well and you 'counted them up', I presume this means that you've got something like half a dozen of them.  If so, then you can use these to cover a larger area, so you probably do have enough power to grow 12 plants moderately well.  However, if there's any sort of space issue and your plants may crowd each other, if you can't get enough decent light to the plants on the fringes of your setup, then you may find you get better results with 9 plants than 12.
     
    Actually I noticed on your other topic that you've got lots of vertical space but not much horizontal space.  There's not much point in growing massive tall plants, if only the tops of them are going to get light, because all the rest of the plant has plenty of budding sites but is going to waste.  Instead of growing 9-12 plants in a small but tall space, you could consider 6-9 plants, and top/fim them so that they have more top colas per plant, or go with more plants but keep them shorter, don't waste vegging time on growth that's not going to get enough light to produce bud.
     
    There isn't a right answer here - you've got enough power to meet the "100w per plant" rule of thumb, but if you have space constraints maybe there's a more efficient way to grow as much bud than just adding more plants and lights.
     
  11. Do 6 In a SCROG it will pay off and be more end product.
     
  12. #12 hisairness, Aug 7, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 7, 2013
    The space I'm working with doesn't exactly lend itself well to SCROG. I think I am going to have my 600w HID overhead, then surround them with the cfls about midway up. That way I will get fat colas and good lower buds... what do you guys think?
     
    Edit: Also Veg them as high as I can without burning them right?
     
  13. you can easily have those numbers but your not going to get more bud this way, a little quicker to veg though. the more plants you have in there the smaller they have to be.

    you could put 16 plants in a 4'x4' area each plant in a 1' square pot or bag lit up by a 600w lamp

    I wouldn't bother with the CFLs though, they work on their own ok, but if you use them with hps your likely to just end up shading the leaves from the hps. the CFLs need to be within a couple of inches of the plant whereas the hps needs to be much further away
     
  14. Jam all the CFLs in a 3x3x3 veg/starter space on 24-0 to get them up to 24 inch or so and use the 600 as pure flower side @ 12-12.. Get an endless cycle going
     
  15.  
    ^^^ this is what you want to do bro, for sure
     
  16. Thanks guys ill start a new journal when I get back from vacation

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  17. I just bought a 1000w 29x36 hood(5x5) 6" cooltube digital ballast, dimmable, for ~$250 off ebay. Got good reviews and I'm putting 10 under it. Just thought I'd let you know
     
  18.  
    the bigger the lamp the more penetrative the usable light is so it's usually best to have fewer plants and grow them tall. whereas smaller lamps, especially CFLs it's best to have far more plants and grow them much shorter
     

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