I have grown many legal plants before indoors and outdoors so growing isn't new to me. However this will have to be entirely done indoors so I am wondering how much lighting I will need. I plan on growing 3 females so should I get a 200W, 400W or 600W HPS lighting system?
Oh, the height is like 10 feet, I have a bunch of other closets I could use too, I just think this one would be the easiest. The dimensions I gave you were surface area.
Chemwiz, you can use any of the above, but keep in mind yield will be more with more light. That said, closet grows require some creativity to keep heat build up under control. You can vent into the attic, or out the closet door if security isn't an issue. Some general guidelines: You need a minimum of 40W/ sq.ft. of HID lighting for a decent grow. Anything below this and bud density will suffer greatly. With proper environmental control you can go up to 75W/sq.ft.; experienced indoor growers can go even higher. 250W is generally considered the minimum HID for a quality grow. 400W is a very good indoor starter system. Heat is manageable and bud quality improves. 600W is overall the most efficient wattage of HID lighting for the indoor grower. Meaning lumens per watt has the highest light output ratio. As to yields for the various wattages, the gold standard is 1/2 gram per watt per month of bloom time. Assuming a two month bloom cycle (pretty typical) equals 1 gram per watt for the grow. Three plants can fill a grow area for any of these wattages. You just need to veg a little longer and perfect your training skills with LST, topping, or super-cropping. Or you can increase the number of plants in a same sq.ft. area for improved yield. Last, consider a panda film curtain across one end of the closet. Unless you go hog-wild and install light movers, a typical 400W grow area could be 3. 600W in the same area could be managed with experience, or you could expand the grow area to 3x4 and still get better bud quality than the 400W. The rest of the closet would be wasted space unless wattage increases and light movers are installed. Let your needs be your guide. Now, the only thing left is to go do it!!! Hope this helps, bestaluck to ya.
that's a large area, filling the area with adequate light will be a large grow, 2-3 lights. so I would section of 4 feet with white plastic sheeting and have a 600w as long as your ventilation can keep up with the heat it producing. if not I would go with a 400w. a 250w only really covers about a 2'x2' area so is probably unsuitable for you