From a fellow grower:
I attempted to grow 2 auto flower plants using a single 75 LED light in an enclosed room. Although conscious of the temp, humidity, lighting and water, the size and quantity of the grow leaves a lot to be desired.
Strain: Blue Dream
Type: Auto Flower
Climate: Indoor
Medium: Pot for Pot Superb Soil/Kit
Light Type: 75 watt LED from Pot for Pot
Light Schedule: 18 hours on/6 hours off
Temperature: (consistent day/night) 72°
Humidity: (consistent day/night) 49
Ventilation: Consistent forced air room circulation
Seedlings planted: 10/15
Please see pic attached. As of 12/9 plants have been moved to a grow tent. A new 4 x 4 LED 150 watt with dimmer is on the way.
Plants just seem to be struggling. Unfortunately I added additional nutrients to the one plant to see if it would help, and now the leaves are burning up.
They’re starving for light. That light will veg those decently but to transition to flower a higher wattage light would be needed. Is that a 32” x 32” or 2 x 2? I would say at least a 200 watt light for flowering plants in that tent unless there was only 1 plant and a 100 watt would probably work. Tagging the community lighting Guru @dbrn32
Thanks, the tent is 4x4 and I have since added a150 watt LED light that claims to cover a 4x4 area. Looks like I need to go even higher. Expensive learning curve!!! Appreciate the feedback…
an expensive learning curve. so true and then you find you purchased equipment that wasn’t quite up to snuff so you have to spend again to recover from the first bad purchase. i imagine that there’s no one here who hasn’t spent money that was less than well spent. but you learn and move on. LOL, some of us continue to spend money on stuff that looks like a neat to have solution but in the end was a waste. just research any next purchases, ask questions and wiser purchases will be in your future. good luck and make a lot of use of the forum. lot’s of very educated growers here that are always more than happy to help. unfriendly growers here don’t seem to last very long so ask away!
Thanks for your input! When saying a light with higher wattage, I wonder what is the best size LED for a 4 x 4 tent which claims to be sufficient for 2 plants, any recommendations? I would hate to jump to something too high which could then ultimately burn the plants. Thanks in advance for your help!
i’m no light expert and a lot of folks here use led lighting made by HLG. they aren’t cheap by any means but anyone using them gets great results. i personally use 2 HLG 260’s in my 4x4 grow tent and threw in my original blurple I unwisely spent money on in the beginning for the extra red light it produces. so I am running 3 lights in my tent. there are folks on here that grow with blurples from start to finish. Kingbrite comes to mind. others will chime in and there is a member here who is considered to be the light guru @dbrn32.
one other thought on lighting. you buy a light that is maybe overpowered, that is a better solution than one that is underpowered. make sure your light purchase has a dimmer and you can reduce it’s output to meet your needs.
Thanks so much for the information! So I will order a new light (500-600 LED). Next question is what is the proper light schedule for auto flowering plants in the flowering stage. I have read both 24 on and 18 on / 6 hours off with the LED 16 to 36" from canopy.
very few use a 24hr schedule on their auto’s. most use an 18/6 schedule. i find my auto’s are ready for a nap by the time 18 hours of light are done. for an auto, it will be whatever schedule you decide on thru out it’s life cycle. you don’t reduce lighting hours for an auto the way you do for a photoperiod.
a cheap timer for your lights is also a good investment. that way your lights are turned on/off automatically instead of you manually trying to keep up with it.
another thing you mentioned in your first post was about your plant burning after additional nutrients added. you can go flush that plant with ph’d water but the damage to the plant leaves won’t recover. get your nutrient levels back in order and the plant will grow new/better leaves and then just pinch off or cut the damaged leaves. a ph and ppm meter should also be in your future.
I don’t know there is a proper schedule. There are some different situations where one could probably justify one way where in a different situation a different schedule would be better. Imo your best bet is to use dli method and get to a good level of daily light energy. In my grow there would be no good reason to flower on longer than 12 hours, longer would be just wasting energy. If lighting is underpowered, then a longer schedule could be justified with autos provided they behave properly.
