How hot is to hot.

My plants always grow the best at between 72-75 degrees...but that is not always possible with my particular set-up...Most plants like that range but you can grow in higher temps...it seems if things get over 86 degrees my plants get stressed and the growth almost comes to a halt...as far as airy buds go..I cant comment on the science...I dont know enough about it.

 

I had 4 plants grow over the summer when it was over 90 degrees for about 2 weeks. I did what I could but most of the time the plants had to deal with it. I had to water a little more than I should have had to because the moment they got dry they would get extremely droopy and dead looking. I used cfl's and it was my first grow, so the buds were already airy. Now I'm wondering how big they would've gotten if it wasn't so damn hot.

 

Well, one thing you want to stop is stretching. You want to keep the growth nodes as close together as you can for more buds.... CFL's buds are airy because they just dont put out as much light as a MH or HPS...the more light the better.

 

greater than 85 and mj stops growing for most strains.. some..but not many can withstand constant temps around 90F. most grow best between 70-75 airy buds mostly depends on how much light they are getting and how close the lights are to the plant. the closer the nodes usually the more dense they are.. sativas are usually more fluffy since they like to stretch more than a pure indica. they will become more spaced out and stretchy usually no matter how close the light is. sometimes feeding the right amount/type of nutrients can make the buds tighten up also. theres many factors

 

Well, I used to grow with CFL's because they are ecomonical and do not produce a lot of heat...but when I decided I wanted more from my plants, I got a HPS...and my yield more than doubled...but they cost more and run pretty hot...there are trade-offs....but in my opinion, HPS is the only way to go...no matter what wattage your CFL is...it will never out-bud a HPS. You said your plants were stretching towards the light, thats the only reason I brought up the stretching...but youre fine with what you described...

 

that's only true if you can keep the hps close enough to the plant, without getting too hot, to where the number of lumens on the plant are higher than the cfl..

so i keep my 150w hps lamps about 4" away which lets say the lamp puts out 16k lumens at the bulb so just a random guess.. about 10k lumens on the plants surface. the 125w cfl is 5k lumens at the bulb.. no matter how close the cfl, you wont get that 10k lumens like the hps... but now say you pull that hps off to certain distance to where the plant is receiving 5k lumens or less it would be the same as using a cfl at a close distance.

 

I cant argue with your logic....plus I was using four 27 watt CFL's...probably not many lumens...my HPS is 400 watt..55,000 lumens...not really a fair comparison...but you are still not going to get a huge yield from 5k lumens.

 

i know what you mean.. once i switched from cfl to hps and just used my cfls for supplemental i was amazed. even using the 125w cfls to a 150w hps is more than 3 times brighter and can keep it almost the same distance away with decent ventilation.

 

Hey chiefsitanchief, sorry about hijacking your thread, you got any pics of your ladies?

 

cfls work just fine, if you can control the heat and afford it go with the HPS. Mid 70s is where you want to shoot for temp, but start to get worried if its getting over 85.

 

Depending on how into it you are you can get a surface thermometer which will measure the surface temp of the leaves which should be 80-85 ish then you will really know what's to hot!