Hey all, i was going to put 6 or 7 autoflowers(3 gallon pots) in my 4x4. Plan is to put that real estateyo use.
Now the light I have is Spider Farmer SE5000, 480 watts. Is that enough?
I know there are some quidelines as for watts per plant, but there is also quidelines for the light cover area in squarefootage?
Am I going to fail miserably?
I suspect that you are about 200 watts shy of what you need. That said, many folks are quite happy with less light than is optimal.
I shoot for 45 - 50 watts per square foot. I think that many folks shoot for 35 - 40 watts per square foot. You are at 30 watts per square foot.
If that is the light that you have and you want to fill the tent, give it a try. If you like the results, then you are golden. If you want better results next time, you will know what to do. 
@merlin44 I also have the G3000, but to put that in the same tent would need some kind of engineering…
Ok. Maybe I’ll go with 6 plants and see what happens…
The worst that will happen is your buds will not be as large and not as dense than if you had more light intensity. Useable buds nonetheless.
This a little on the smaller side for a 4x4 but not ridiculously small. You should be able to grow decent plants with this but will be short of the maximum harvest potential.
@dbrn32 I have the 3x3 on standby so maybe on the flowering stage I can move a couple of plants there under the 300w light. It’s in the latter half of flowering the watts matter more am I right?
Would the 480 watts be good until mid-flower?
It’s less about wattage and more about ppfd’s or usable light intensity at the canopy. You’re gonna want about 800-1000 ppfd at the canopy for flower I believe.
You are absolutely correct. Many growers don’t have a PAR meter. That is why we speak about watts per square foot and/or watts per plant to accommodate the majority.
I just finished 8 plants in 3 gallon pots using Two 200 watt. Great results. I think youll be just fine. 5 remain until I get home in a couple hours
I have successfully used 480w for a 4x4. Trick is the footprint. Stay in it with the 6. Will have space around edges of tent bare but you will get good growth in the lights print. Size of tent matters not. Amount of plants that fit in its print counts. A little more wont hurt but you can get good yields under 480w. Just dont expect wall to wall with it. Also if doing 6 a straight up grow vs. Lst will serve better in my opinion.
There’s a formula conversion for lux I use as i don’t own a PAR meter. Trusting that my light is putting out photosynthetically viable spectrums I have been able to use it with success. Most phones have a sensor that is better than an average cheap lux or PAR meter off of Amazon.
PPFD. LUX
These are the ppfd to lux equivalents and suggested light levels
100 | 5256. fresh cut clones rooting
200 | 10511. rooted clones + seedlings low end
300 | 15767. rooted clones + seedling high end . low end veg
400 | 21022. veg
500 | 26278. mid veg . best light level . low end bloom
600 | 31533. high end veg. low/mid bloom
700 | 36789. mid bloom .
800 | 42045. mid/ bloom
900 | 47300. high end bloom
1000 | 52556. high end bloom
1100 | 57811. start of redundant
1200 | 63067. redundant
Yes, I was thinking about this while sitting in the sauna just now. My thinking was that the watts/plant is so vague as the plants can be really different. Watts/squarefoot makes a bit more sense to me but still there is room to wiggle with the light distance. So I came to the same conclution, it’s the ppfd that matters. The plants don’t know exactly how many watts my light has.
@JMBLeaf I’m only growing autoflowers, am I correct that the light demand is a little lower on autos? I haven’t gone over 950 on my grows…
@Storm how about topping? Will the plants widen up much?
I would treat autos completely the same as photos in regards to nutrition and light requirements. It’s probably a little more difficult to fine tune when you decide to up the light intensity+nutrition however.
But please take that advice with a grain of salt- I don’t grow autoflowers haha
They will not. Here is a mother topped every branch for clones. She goes to flower very soon. Will be loaded with tops and take up little square footage.
And do it early.
Still a good looking start. You can always adjust if your dissatisfied down the road.
The amount of plants doesn’t really matter is more of an issue with photons per square foot.
Thank you all for your advise. I’ll go with the 6 plants and go from there. I think I’ll go with one strain only, to keep things more uniform hopefully. Tropicana Cookies was compact and the buds were really sweet and dense.
Can’t wait to start the new run…! I’m sure a week in Spain with my growmies and the 3 day- weedfestival there willhelp with the anxiety.
