I am new to growing (I haven't started yet) but I have most of my set-up in mind, although I am a bit unsure about lighting. I generally understand the time on/off thing, but I am not sure about what type and how many lights to use. I really want to do it cheap and energy efficient. Now, I have read a lot about flourescents, and I understand they can work very well. My question is....can they take the plant through the whole growing cycle, or are they really only good for vegetation, like should I switch to HPS for flowering? I plan to grow like 3 to 6 plants in a relatively small area.
You can do CFLs all the way. There is a difference between HPS and CFL as far as quality/yield goes, but I'm unsure of the specifics. I would vote for CFL for VEG and HPS for FLOW, but that's just me. You can totally do CFLs throughout and end up with some bomb product. Search the journals, people have done it here. You need lots of watts/bulbs, though, and they have to be close to the plant. Plus, you need two different types of CFLs for the stages. VEG requires 5600K/DAYLIGHT bulbs, FLOW requires 2700K/SOFT WHITE bulbs. You can mix, though, just make sure you have more of one or the other for each stage. How many = 100w for first plant, add 50w for each one after. so 4 plants = 250w ideally Also, when looking at CFLs, only pay attention to the smaller number...the large one is the incandescent equivilant and means nothing (ie, 26w = 100w, only pay attention to the 26w)
