You guys have been very helpful with my previous question about trimming fan leaves, I have a couple more questions now that my girls are definitely in flower. I have been using 12- 100watt bright white(6500K) CFL’s for this grow, and read somewhere that going to 2700K spectrum lights during flower and beyond is advantageous? Yay or nay? My other question is these plants (WW auto), have flowers everywhere. Mostly out on the ends and a larger one on top in the middle. I have heard that some people remove some flower buds. I really don’t want to, unless it’s really a wise thing to do. Any advice? This is my first grow, as you can tell, and so far I have had zero problems with my babies.
Full spectrum CFLs do not produce enough light in the red and infra red frequencies for effective flowering. Plus running twelve of them must really affect your power rates.
Rather then looking at HID or Sodium lighting, both power hogs that require ballasts that produce a lot of heat, try looking into the newer LED lights. They are properly balanced for growth and flowering, create almost no heat and are extremely energy efficient. My unit is rated at 900 watts of power all in the red and blue spectrum and actually only draws 432 watts at the plug. They tend to be a bit laser like with little light dispersion to the sides, so sizing of the light is usually determine by the footprint it illuminates. But the manufacturers detail sheets will cover all that. Lastly they are trouble free and rated for years of continuous use. Definitely a win /win solution.
Thanks for your input. Being this is my first grow, I think i’ll stick with what I have. Maybe on the next one i’ll look at a different light setup. My two plants are doing really well so far, and the little buds grew a half inch overnight!!
MacGyverStoner
Bergman’s Lab Science Officer
Oct '14
T5 fluorescent lights are totally different than t8 lights. A t5 with 4 bulbs could potentially be a very good light for your dimensions for the entire grow. I’m not sure of the discussion you had with Latewood or what you guys had in mind so I can’t comment further on that.
I think you need to do some research and get a better understanding about lumens, LUX, or FLUX/PAR. here is a loose guide on lumens so you can have a general idea of what you need or what you might want to do. You might still have the best lights for veg or bloom with the 2 HPS. Vegging does not really need a different light, it is just vegging can be done with less light than bloom, blooming/fruiting needs the most intense light but veg can have intense light as well for better faster vegging growth.
Lumens(or equivalent PAR) per square foot:
No matter the type of light, if you can find the exact specs for its lumens/FLUX per square foot (or the equivalent PAR for red/blue only LEDs) you can use this as a loose guide as to what you need as minimums:
Seedlings and clones require about 400-1000 lumens per square foot.
Vegetative growth requires about a minimum of 2,000 to 3,000 lumens per square foot.
Flowering requires about 5,000 to 10,000 lumens per square foot, ideally, and can take possibly much more.
10,000 lumens is supposed to be about the average power of the sun at sea level on a clear day at high noon, or something like that, lol. 8,000 - 12,000 lumens is supposed to be about the average power of the full sun without any overcast or no clouds depending on altitude and potentially other factors.
It’s not ideal, but you can make do with 2,000 lumens for an entire grow if necessary.
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@garrigan62