How Much Power Per Plant?

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by StaffOfPower, Jun 19, 2014.

  1. Is 100 actual watts of CFL per plant good? Or is the 100W/plant thing just for HID?

    Another way to ask this, is, how many lumens does one plant need?
     
  2. Per plant is irrelevant when you don't know if the plant is 6 inches, or 6 feet.
     
    You want at the very least 50w per square foot of canopy, but more is better. 100w per square foot is a good figure to aim for 
     
  3. This may also help
     
    clone and small veg under T-5 lights 4 Bulb is fine
    Mature Veg you can still use T-5 maybe a six or eight bulb, I'd prefer 600 watts or better for mature veg
    Flower HPS lights at least 600-1000 watts
     
  4. Lighting and enviornment are sooooo vital to your success. Even more than nutrients sometimes.
     
    More light is better but it also means more heat. Shoot for as much light as you can get and keep the room at 75-77 degrees if you can.
     
  5. #5 StaffOfPower, Jun 20, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 20, 2014
    I understand that, but I can't afford to operate a 600w.

    If I do a really small grow, with 2 cfl fixtures ( 6 x 23w each)
    And put one plant under each fixture, what kind of a yield could I expect? I don't need anything big, nor am I expecting to get anything big. But I don't want anything tiny either.

    Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I'll be using the Low Stress Training method too. I've heard that's better to do with cfl grows.
     
  6. You can expect 2-4 ounces per plant if all goes well. Now having said that let me quantify a few things.
     
    1. Your veg time needs to be at least 4-6 six weeks. Of course flower will take how ever long it takes. Usually 7-10 weeks depending on strain.
    2. Strain plays a big part also. Sativa's will give you bigger yields but need more room. So it's a trade off on strains.
    3. Eventually the plants may out grow your lights. I have done complete crops under CFL's but used T-5 style lights with very good success. Great thing about CFL's is you can add more lights with little heat gain.
     
    Be sure to switch bulbs from 6500k for veg to 2700-3700k for flower. This number represents the sun brightness or warmth of the bulb. Veg need more white light (spring and early summer) flower needs more redish light (late summer and early fall). If this is too basic of info for you let me know and I'll ramp it up for you. I'm a commercial grower in CO but started in my basement like everyone else and have made every mistake you'll make. So if I can help you avoid some heartache I'm here for you my friend in weed.
     
  7. Hi, just read in an learning, bet I read at least 20/30 diff articles about light/lumens/watts ect and now I find a summary that covered everything I learned in a couple paragraphs or so. Don't no much bout using GC an rep an all that yet new thanks

    Sent from my Nexus 5 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
     
  8.  
     
    About 3 oz is a fair goal. You will be using up a total of 276 watts. A 250w HPS would cost the same to run and would almost double your yield. CFLs have their place  but when you hit the 250 mark you are better off with HPS. The heat output isn't much difference either
     
  9. Thank you for your input, I would be incredibly happy with that outcome.
    I realize those things about growing that you pointed out. The reason I am needing to use cfl is because I have all of the stuff already to make some nice fixtures similar to some others I've seen on this site before.

    As for the bulbs and the color temperature(k) I know that's the standard practice, but one question I had...

    I have bulbs in 3 different spectrums. 2700k, 5000k, and 6500k.

    I've vegged before under the 5000k with pretty great luck and I've heard spectral diversity can be extremely beneficial.

    So I was thinking, for veg, utilizing 6 bulbs per fixture, I'd go for having the bulbs aligned like this : (three bulbs per side, horizontally.)

    2700k 6500k
    5000k 5000k
    6500k 2700k

    Then for flower, leave the initial 2700s, and swap out the 5000ks for more 2700ks. And re arrange just to get the spectral distribution nice and balanced.

    Would that work? I've heard that mixing spectrums during flower can increase density / decrease stretching...?
     
  10. Multi spectrum systems are available and work pretty good. Pretty good to me means the plants continue to grow. Cannabis is a fast growing plant, so pretty good for a fast growing plant is only average. If you stick to only Flowering bulbs when flowering you'll have continued fast growth from veg to flower. 
     
    I know in theory you would think multi spectrum is good. But look at how red the sun is during harvest season.
     
  11. stretching is caused from the lights being far away from the plant. Keep your lights as close to the canopy top as you can (with CFL's you can get about 3" away from the canopy). With CFL's the lumens fall off very fast so really try to stay close to lights. Keep em as cool as you can.
     
  12.  
    Yeah those Kelvin temperatures will be fine. Changing Kelvin from vegging to flowering is unnecessary when using CFLs. If you have them mixed you can run them through the whole grow. If you prefer to change them then go ahead, no harm will come to them. I wouldn'keep bulbs on standby, just use them all throughout the entire grow. Keep them close, within a couple of inches of temperature allows 
     
  13. Harleygrower61:  So you're suggesting that I would experience better results if I used the multi-spectrum approach for veg and all 2700k for flowering?  And as far as the distance of CFLs from the canopy should be as small as possible.  I have vegged with CFLs before, I've just never done a whole grow.
     
    GoldGrower:  As I said, I'm going to have two fixtures, two plants.  So maybe I'll have to do a littler experiment and see which provides the best results?
     
    Regardless of that, I'd like to sum everything up so far...
     
    - I should definitely use LST method
    - I should expect anywhere from 3oz total (from both plants) to 2-4oz from EACH plant
    - I should personally see which result I like best; multi-spectrum or single spectrum
     
    Sound about right?
     
  14. Yeah that's about right. Yield can vary a lot. Most grows I have seen with CFLs produce around 1oz per 100 watts. The number of plants is pretty irrelevant really. If you ScrOG, veg a long time, and make no cock ups you can just about double that, so that would be almost 6 oz in total. I personally think 8oz would be an unrealistic goal
     
  15. #15 StaffOfPower, Jun 22, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 22, 2014
    Alrighty, well I'm confident in my growing abilities, no cock ups lol. I'd be incredibly happy with "almost" 6 oz (; 
     
    Thanks for the help everyone, if anybody would have any additional tips for me about growing indoors in general, please share, I appreciate all the help I can get.  Otherwise though, I think my questions have been answered!
     
     
    ALSO:  I forgot to mention throughout this whole thread, the strain I'm going to be growing this time is Bubba Kush. possibly crossed with something else, but hopefully not :)  Now that I have my medical card, I'll be creating a journal too, when the time comes.  Got an outdoor crop to finish up first, though.
     
  16. Great thing about this plant is that there is a gazillion ways to grow and none of them are wrong if you get smokable product.
     
    Grow on Brudda.
     
    But as a commercial grower we have tested the multi spectrum, LED and even open hoods. We go back to tried and true.
     
    5000-6500 for Veg
    2700-3000 for flower
     
  17. in my opinion i wouldn't even mess with cfl's they just don't do the trick compared to HID's  If you are thinking of running cfl's they are ok for veg but that is about it.  I've compared cfl to HID and if you want good yield as, much better resin production, as well as faster more vigorous growth then go HID.  I'm not saying that you need to go get a 1000 watt set up but if you spend the extra dollars then you can get yourself a great 400 watt switchable digital ballast, and a good horizontal hood that has a good spread (4 to 6 plants). I say switchable because if you plan on vegging and flower in one room need both mh and hps bulbs (mh for veg hps for flower).  People always forget about the spread of light and how hoods can actually give you up to a 15 to 30 percent bigger yield as well as control heat issues. (if you buy the right kind). You will get much more light down into the canopy of your plants as well as give them a better light spectrum. Also if you go with a digital ballast instead of analog it will help with power cost and heat issues as well. I believe when i added my 400 to my veg garden it only jumped my power bill up to like 25 - 35 more dollars a month to run. Which pays itself off when you have a 2 to 3 times bigger yield then with a cfl bulb.  I like analog better because they are cheaper and easier to fix but do produce a lot more heat.  Another aspect would be LED.  I don't know much about LED since I do not use them but i do believe they are cheap to run and produce little heat as well. Just make sure to get something with a high lumen output. 
     
  18. Harleygrower: That's a great point!  I did an outdoor grow, they flowered in late winter / early spring, totally "wrong" season, and the buds were really airy and stretched, but it was still great medicine!  I'm confident I can do it "right" indoors though, even using this CFL setup.  I read on another thread that under premium conditions, 0.5g/watt could be expected with CFL grows.  I'd be happy with that, and it sounds like that number can be improved based on what you guys have been telling me.  So I feel good about it!
     
    djmygraine:  HPS / MH is not an option for me at the moment.  I'll eventually get there but CFL is pretty much my only option right now.
     
    One last question that I thought of today:  What size pot should I use for this...?  This grow is going to be soil, though I'm sure I'll migrate to hydro eventually. 3 gal?  5?
     
  19. I think half a gram per watt of CFL is not to be expected as such, a goal to hope for perhaps, and certainly achievable, but you have to be on your game for that really. 
     
    A couple of gallons will be enough for each plant grown under just 138 watts. You could use a 3 gallon if you wanted but make sure you use decent soil and at least 30% perlite. Big pots don't dry quickly and if the soil is wet for over 5 days you will be suffocating your roots 
     
  20. Not expected, but a goal I believe I can achieve. We'll see! I know my stuff when it comes to growing though, so yeah. And it's like someone else said earlier on in this thread, the good thing with cfl is you can add light whenever, if need be.

    Good to know. Would you consider 3gal "big", though?
     

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