Hi all, I need advice from some experienced growers. I'll be planting 3x auto flower Northern Lights soon. I've gotten my head around most of the process, but I have a problem with light. I was planning on growing on my balcony in FFOF soil and just sticking with the FF trio just to play it safe, and doing scrog to keep the plants low and fruitful. But my balcony spot gets intermittent direct light in the morning that is halfway blocked by tree foliage I can't remove. I was considering putting some reflective material around the plants if outside to increase the light? I also have this outdoor closet I was considering putting a cheap CFL in to veg the plants in. I am also wondering if I can't simply put a shelf and a 200-300 watt grow light in there, just the bulb, and surround the closet in mylar and have that be sufficient to flower? Attached are pictures for reference. My emphasis is low cost and efficiency. Would I still have a good harvest with the intermittent sunlight on the balcony? Sometimes it is a bit stronger than the picture, but then the sun moves to the other side of the building for evening. Temps will move from 90-80-70 over the next couple months.
What if I set up the outdoor closet with this fixture and these lights . I'm not looking for a scientific breakthrough, just a medium success! Maybe use only 1-2 lights for veg 18-24 hrs/day, then switch to all 5 lights full time for flower?
Unfortunately that one light won’t be good for veg, not powerful enough :/ I’m not sure what the rule for daylight is, I bet you can find some information on optimal growing areas outside ! But if you’re going with the closet I would spend the 60$ on one of those blurple led lights from amazon over that light you have in there ! They’re relatively decent especially if you’re growing one or two plants at a time .. do some research on lighting! It’s very helpful in the long run
Ok thanks for getting back. Do you think that outdoor closet would work fine? I’m seeing people using wood grow tents in the garage etc have some success. I’m generally seeing a minimum of 6 hours direct sunlight a day for outdoor, but I’m not sure if light scattered through a tree would count as good direct light. ha
If the outdoor closet is light tight, it should work great. When it starts to flower you don’t want any light leaks, it tends to confuse the plant while in the dark period of the day and causes a mess of problems! As for that light that’s in there, definitely gonna need an upgrade. Do you live in a place with hot temperatures? Some plants don’t like DIRECT sunlight as it tends to get hot, so maybe a through the trees wouldn’t be a huge problem! Really the only way to tell is to try it. I would familiarize yourself with what “stretching” is and what it looks like- you can easily tell after a couple of days of the plant is growing fast and thin, means it’s stretching up looking for more light - and go from there.
Great post dude. Yeah I live in a place with hot temps but I'm definitely leaning towards the closet. I'm figuring a 250/300 watt light would do the job for 2-3 plants in the closet. Probably would repaint the walls white for better reflection. My main things now are figuring out light and also a shelf. I'm considering getting a light from this dude, 600 Watt metal halide with a 1000 watt ballist. He says he has both veg and flower lights, and that I can turn the wattage down with the ballist. Is that too much, or would it work?