Hello. I'm planning to grow a couple of Northern Lights with fluorescent lighting (either CFLs or tubes). My closet is 52" by 20" (138cm by 51cm). It has a very tall ceiling and would allow me to let it grow wild, but would LST still give me extra yield? How many plants could I plant, with or without LST? Also, which lighting option should I go with, CFLs or tubes? Would using just 6500k for both vegetative and flowering stages be okay? Thanks in advance.
For CFL of either type (T5 tubes are technically CFL, but we can call them tubes, since it's not as confusing), you can't grow very tall unless you do LST or SCRoG or have a lot of side lights, since the canopy penetration on a CFL is not very high. You could use 6500K lights for both, but I'd recommend using a mix - put some soft white (2700K) bulbs in the mix. During veg, you want to have mostly daylight cfls, during flower, you want more soft white. I have been using high output T5s for early veg of seedlings and clones. I like them better because they don't put off as much heat as 42 W cfls. I seem to have more accidents (lamp burns) with 42W cfls, and I've started to shift away from them as a result. I really prefer to use CFLs for supplemental lighting. I currently am vegging in a closet with a 400W ceramic metal halide (much lower heat than a regular MH, I believe), and cooling with a small duct fan (which is a piece of garbage, but I haven't gotten around to replace it - it's not urgent but it's noisy as hell and I'd like to put something more effective in there. I am currently using a 4" inline fan with carbon filter to cool my tent, and I will probably move that into my closet and get a 6" fan for the tent when I finish this run.
Hmm, I guess LST is the way to go, then. Any idea on how many plants I'll be able grow at once? Would it be better to grow many smaller plants or fewer, bigger plants?