Can you have too much light?

Drgreenz said:

after about 10,000 lumens, cannabis will begin to stress and possibly start to bleach.

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Too much light will bleach your plants...is 10,000 lumens the max a plant can absorb? Can't answer that. Light bleaching is caused entirely by too much light. I believe if you would have read a link posted by someone earlier, you would have had an answer without all the debates.

Picasso345 said:

Get away from thinking light per plant - try and think sq ft wise. One person might have one large plant or 16 smaller ones in a SoG set-up to get the same yield.

Years of experimenting by thousands and thousands of growers have shown that the most efficient set-up is close to these.

Anything over these suggestions is too much in my opinion and a MUCH better use of your lights instead of piling more lights on one grow and chasing diminishing returns, you should just start another grow using that next light instead.

• Primary light (no natural light) coverages for the different grow light wattages are as follows.
  • 100 watt lights: 1.5FT x 1.5FT growing area
  • 150/175 watt lights: 2FT x 2FT growing area
  • 250 watt lights: 3FT x 3FT growing area
  • 400 watt lights: 5FT x 5FT growing area
  • 600 watt lights: 6FT x 6FT growing area
  • 1000 watt lights: 8FT x 8FT growing area

• 

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Well if I have done my calculations correctly (I hate math so im probably wrong lol) I would be using just about the amount stated in your chart. The room is aproximately 129 sq ft (I think) and there is 4 x 600 watt lights in that space. Does that add up?

you have to consider more than just area coverage with the lights though.. example... style of grow... i believe sog grows work best with lower watt lights, just more of them, because you dont need to penetrate through the canopy as far or as deep.. where as if you only grow a few larger plants youll need a larger light for penetration to get the most out of the entire plant.. from what ive read most people use a wat/sq.ft ratio of 50ws/sq.ft.. so if your room is 129 sqft you would ideally need about 6450 watts for it... your 4-600s (even if you use the chart) still fall short... if you go by the chart your short about 1 light.. if you use the 50w/sqft your just about half of what you need... its so hard really when you talk about other peoples grows though because there are WAY WAY to many factors in growing and grow houses and people and technices and it makes it hard to give advice... i mean.. are you happy with your results?? do you want more out of your plants?? if you do, adding 2 more 600s would be a good idea (assuming your room is roughly like 12x12 and not like 15 x 9 or something like that).. or even maybe getting some light movers to help distribute the light around better... what style are you growing in?? i personally am thinking about not using 4 1000 w lights in my flower room thats about 8x8x7... here are my reasons and please someone stop me if im WAY outta line..

1. electricity is cheap as fuck where is live (about 4 cents per kw/hr)
2. im gonna have about 15 hopefully 4 to 5 ft tall plants so i need a TON of pentrating power
3. heat build up is not a concern (i think) because i am planning on using air cooled lights and venting in another room, plus i have an a/c in the room plus on average the room stays around 50F.. add in lights and the such and it should bring it to almost perfect conditions
4. money is not too much of an issue as far as making sure not only am i safe but that everything stays in balance (plan on spending just as much making sure the room and everything is perfect as i am on lights and the such... no cutting corners here)
5. im just that crazy


oh.. and one question thats been brewing in my mind... and no matter where ive read i cant get the answer... is the 10000 max lumens based on the total intial lumens of all the bulbs added up or how many lumens can hit the ground?? think of it like this.. if the inverse law states that we lose lumens by the square of the distance from the light source.. and the sun can still put 10000 lumens on the ground.. then a 5 foot tall plant of any kind, at the top of the plant, is getting hit with a ton more lumens than 10000... so is it that most sun light gets wasted by plants (if they can only absorb 10000 lumens) or can plants absorb more than that but just dont use it as easy??

like with a car... the more horsepower you put in it the faster the car goes.. but the higher the total horsepower the harder it is to get more horsepower out of it... i mean its a lot easier to make and engine (just the engine) go from 150hp to 250 hp than it is for an engine to go from 1500 hp to 1600 hp... assuming all the pistons and shit get upgraded along... i dunno.. just an idea i had... smoked some bobble kush this morning and i feel like a bobble head.. lol

Okay, well if you are going to go all in here, make sure you line every square inch of that room with reflective Mylar. I want to see a pic of that room when it is FULL ON..... Don't worry if your camera doesn't have a flash.... you won't need it.






out.

M Blaze said:

Well if I have done my calculations correctly (I hate math so im probably wrong lol) I would be using just about the amount stated in your chart. The room is aproximately 129 sq ft (I think) and there is 4 x 600 watt lights in that space. Does that add up?

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The chart says a 600-watt light covers an area 5ft. X 5ft. that is 25sq. ft. If you divide 129sq. ft. by 25sq. ft. you get 5.16.

You have to consider coverage and not just total watts.

actually room is done... not using mylar though... im using black and white poly... it was easier to work with.. here is the long and short of it all..

was growing in a single room with satellite iv lights in my basement.. which worked until my basement flooded.. saved 5 out of 15 plants

had to move locations and quick..

set up a new room with a seperate veg from flower.. spent a lot in getting the black and white poly... switching to hydro so a system and nutes were in that purchase.. ended up droping a little over 3500 and broke the bank for now..

sooo... i can only utalize the veg space due to lack of lights right now.. and ill prolly have to run this cycle (flowering the 5 soil plants i have left) and 1 more cycle (hydro sog) on the veg side until i can afford 2nd hydro system and lights and some other stuff...

BUT..

since im new.. dont have much rep.. all that.. i could sound like a douche bag thats just talking shit.. so to dissprove that i will do this... as soon as i can get a digital camera.. or get a cord to hook my phone (has a 5 mp camera) to my computer ill at least post pics of the room and that.. ill start a grow journal for the first sog hydro so everyone can see that im not full of shit (which seems to be everyones thing on here.. No pics.. NO proof.. then your full of shit).. and so anyone interested in satellites iv's or what floros can do they'll have that... and you better bet as soon as i can all those lights hooked up that ill have that posted also.. im really excited to see the outcome of it...


if your interested in following my plants (the ones i have flowering, the new ones once these are done flowering) or you want to check out my setup for giving me advice (ive never had a setup quite so big so i could definatly use any advice i can get) ill do what i can to get some pics of what i have going now and the room and everything...???

thats what i was saying brick.. wether you look at it from a watt/sq.ft, lumens/sq.ft, or recommended coverage of lights, he still need more lighting for such a large space... what if he place the 600's a little closer to the outside corners or the room and had a 1000 watt in the middle.. so itd creat and x pattern from the top view

------------------------
l l
l 600 600 l
l l
l 1000 l
l l
l 600 600 l
-----------------------l

thats rough... real rough.. but you get the point.. that way the outside edge of the garden would be lit well and the 1000 in the middle would make up for what he loses in the middle from moving them out further... i think the light lost in the middle of the room from him moving the lights further towards the corners would be more than a 600 could make up?? i dunno tho... just a thought..