I’ve just chopped a harvest that was flowered under a 1000w Double Ended HPS. Things were all very manageable but the plants got light bleached pretty hard. The fan leaves were almost all bleached to damn near white. I had some damage to some of the buds as well. Heat was not an issue but it would be hard for me to get the light further away from the plants tops.
Here’s my dilemma: This 1000W unit I have has a ballast where I can dial down the intensity to 75% or 50% output. I know that with standard single ended HPS the spectrum can suffer when you drop the ballast output down so I’m partially concerned about that. Is that a huge concern? Bigger concern than getting light bleached? Am I better off to buy a 600W DE Bulb and swap out my 1000w? I’ve never tried putting a lower wattage bulb in a higher wattage ballast but my understanding is that it works just fine (is that right?)
My other option is that I’ve got a HLG 135 R-spec. I use it mainly for vegging and it works great for that. I’ve flowered with it before but I’d like some input on whether that’s really enough light to flower a 3x5 tent or not. I’m not looking to buy another LED light so I’d rather either use the HLG or make a change to what I’m doing with this big ass 1000w set up.
Open to any and all thoughts please!