A question from a fellow grower:
I’m always on the lookout for new info but what I can’t find is a general ‘rule of thumb’ for how many watts a plant needs to thrive, depending on light source.
Honestly depends on area it’s in for the watt per plant
I don’t think it’s really that simple. There are numerous considerations to take it account such as the amount of lumens, the distance between the source, the area of coverage. A plant was kept in the bathroom that has the equivalent to 200 watt using 5000k LED in the ceiling socket and the plant remained dormant. Meaning it never grew nor did start to die. It then was moved into a homemade grow box big enough for just the plant and 1 LED light @ 100 watt equivalent about 840 lumens set about half a foot above it. With a deflector and the plant started to grow again, though the plant would be rotated half the day to get coverage in the other areas.
Yes, it depends on how big you want to grow the plant, and many other factors as stated. Usually you will see more of a watts per square meter or square foot. In this case it should be about 40-50 actual watts per square foot. Or about 500 watts per square meter.
Happy growing,
MacG