Cfl Proximity To Foliage

Greets and thank you everyone for your information and input, especially Garden Knowm.

I have grown by HID for about 2 years, then recently switched over to a more compact CFL grow. Always the same strain.

I can report absolutely no difference in potency of bud whatsoever. As far as yield goes, if you keep the lights close and have enough light, you will see the same yield, if not bigger.

Why? Massively less heat, and closer proximity of multiple lights to multiple buds. If you are flowering only a few plants at a time there is no need for HID. Otherwise, yes, the big time growers have much success with less maintenance.

I used to need the space of an entire bathroom, well-ventilated and cooled, to grow 1-2 plants under a 400w HPS. Now I can do it in a large rubbermaid trash can with 4 23w CFLs and a $1 PC fan cut into the lid pulling air up and out. There is also a hole in the bottom to allow airflow and cords to pass through.

I may need more light, as Garden Known suggests, but local stores don't carry larger bulbs and money has been quite short lately for me.

I hope this answers a few questions and allows people to realize there's nothing wrong with growing however you want to grow, and within your own limitations. Try, fail, then try again better. It's all a learning process, and it's all GOOD.

Thank you GK.

how it goen im fairly new to growing and i just built myself a nice new grow cabinet. the cabinet is 2x2x3 with a 250w with hood on top. any tips on making the best of what i got? advice is appreciated.

Hey whats happenin' er one, I'm back in the saddle again with another crop from floros. I will have some pics soon. I cant believe that this thread has grown so huge. Its great to see everyone again.

im new to this thread but ive seen your posts welcome back jolly

Is there any benefit to including an LED with a CFL grow?

For instance, if one were growing a fem with 2x43w CFLS, would adding a screw-base LED (blue for veg, red for flower) provide a noticeable benefit?

No Idea but I am doing a cfl grow with one plant and I'm using 5 42 watt cfls surrounding the plant and I am 6 days into flowering with GREAT results

hey everyone!!!!
i am growing with cfls for the first time also. i am realizing that these NL plants arnt growing as fast. i have 3 plants, 4 weeks old, like the one in my avatar, they are two feet tall. then i have 3 plants that are 6-10 inches, and 3 more seedlings. im about to flower all 9, because i dont have space for all 9 to get as big as the first 3. i just figured, i was going to begin to flower my two footers soon, and i wanted to experament with trying to flower the lil buggers.....for the hell of it. my main 3 are nl strain........the smaller 6, are just bagseed(cant be wasting nl seeds,lol), my question is:
i have a hooded 42w 3000 lumen at the top of my plants, 4 27w 1700 lumen around it, and also 5 13w 800 lumen dangling....... its like 10-12,000 lumens. is it enough light for these lil buggers????? and i have been using half warm white and half cool white to veg.....when i flower, shoud i go all warm white?????? i heard the redder spec is best for buds......i am an outside grower, so, this is a science project for me..............
thanks all.......

that light list is for each plant. there in 5 gallon pots. and if i read correctly, i shouldnt let em get much bigger.......right?????
if i start to flower a two footer, it should be over 3 foot before its done, i assume, and yeild no more then an ounce or two........i hope.....
input is much apreciated.....

Im growing with cfl also...i got 7 plants growing...today is a week for my babies and there about 2 1/2 inches...are they growing at the correct speed or do i need more light...they got 2 leafs with 2 more growing from the inside of the first two

im also growing with cfls only one plant tho,but atm my girl is 3 feet tall and i manage to keep a good amount of light around her

Garden Knowm has not posted here since March 09.

WHEN he wrote this thread, ALMOST THREE YEARS AGO a 65 watt bulb was the largest made and almost all CFL growers used 26 and 42 watt bulbs.
Today there are 105s, 200s, 300 watt CFLs and they are much much more efficient.

Hey a NewB herrr, with questions...

In other words; watts = heat?

Do we want more watts/kelvin/lumens??

Does the amount of watts/kelvin/lumens determine the distance between the light(CFL) & the canopy without burning?

. . . I've gotta bushy g13 just over a foot tall(branchin every wichway), under a 10w 6500k daylight CFL just chillin in my livingroom(good conversation piece), seems 2 me its doin ok... Wut does it NEED? more watts? Kelvin? Or lumens? Thanks

BoTyKlr said:

Hey a NewB herrr, with questions...

In other words; watts = heat?
Not necasarily. Depends on where the watts come from, HID (High Intensity Discharge Lights, or CFLs)
Do we want more watts/kelvin/lumens??

More lumens.

Does the amount of watts/kelvin/lumens determine the distance between the light(CFL) & the canopy without burning?

A CFL under 105 watts can be placed one inch to two inches near. HID lights are placed much farther away, they get much hotter.

. . . I've gotta bushy g13 just over a foot tall(branchin every wichway), under a 10w 6500k daylight CFL just chillin in my livingroom(good conversation piece), seems 2 me its doin ok... Wut does it NEED? more watts? Kelvin? Or lumens? Thanks

Click to expand...

MORE LIGHT, more bulbs, more watts, more lumens to grow.

In Flowering, you will need different kelvins.

WANT TO BE A CFL LIGHT EXPERT? READ THIS:

L I G H T S Page 7

THanks knowm......short and sweet

Haha my very first plant was done with nothing but 3 27W CFLs. Then I decided to grow with a friend of mine for profit and we bought a 1000 watt HPS light. It wasnt until after the clones from my first plant started reaching maturity that I realized they all (including the mother) were purple haze, or at least a shwag hybrid with some other unknown strain. The reason I didn't know before was because my first plant always had really light yellowish-green leaves from lack of light. So yeah, you need a lot of cfl bulbs, and they need to be very close. Good thing about it though, the lights dont usually burn your plants if the leaves accidentally touch them. Probably depends on the bulb though. Mine were 27 watt ones. I have seen one as large as 400 Watts though.

So that's my experience with cfl... never saw any buds from the cfl though, but I'm starting a very small stealth hydro cfl grow in my closet right now =P

I might be posting pics soon, if I can find my USB cable for the camera lmao.

lowryder420 said:

does any1 kno were to get decent seeds shipped to the U.S ??
thanks

Click to expand...

nirvana all the way... papaya has done wonders for alot of people

you guys make things too complicated. LMAO.

I use CFL bulbs as well.

I use 6500k for vegging; and 2600k for flowering.

You don't HAVE to have a mixed spectrum in order to flower a plant.. no idea where you got that info from.. but it's wrong. Way wrong.

If anyone has a questions about growing with CFL bulbs.. just ask me. I keep it simple.. and I'm able to grow and flower plants just fine with what I use.

Anyhow, need help with CFL growing? Just msg me.

Happy Holiday's!
peace

From Ed Rosenthal:

In the new Skunk Magazine there was a question in the "Ask Ed" section that just made my night last night when reading it...



The question was:

I intend to grow a single cannabis plant in a space 1' x 2'. What light would you recommend? I was think of using four 30-watt compact fluorescent lamps. Will this be enough? Cost isn't an issue but I am deterred from getting a high pressure sodium [light] because of the amount of heat the bulb produces.

Answer:

As you mentioned, you have several lighting systems to choose from, including compact fluorescents and high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. Among HPS lamps you have a choice between a single 100-watt lamp which uses a total of about 120-watts and emits about 8,800 lumens(73 lumens per watt) or a 150-watt lamp, which uses about 180 watts and emits almost double that-15,800 lumens (87 lumens per watt).

A 42-watt compact fluorescent (CFL) emits about 2700 lumens(64 lumens per watt). Four 42 watt CFLs use 168 watts and emit 10,800 lumens. Other size CFLs have a similar efficiency.

However, that is only part of the story. Plants use mostly red and blue light. Yellow and green light is of little use to them, so light that is emitted in these spectrums is wasted energy. Most of the light emitted by HPS lamps is in the yellow spectrum. Only a small amount of the emitted light is is in the orange or red spectrums, which plants use efficiently. Warm white fluorescents (2700 Kelvin) emit a greater portion in the red and orange sectors.
Although fluorescents produce only about 75% of the light per watt that the HPS does, the amount of light usable by the plant is equal or probably higher with the fluorescents. You may wish to experiment to see if adding a single cool white CFL to replace one warm white results in shorter, stouter stems and more vigorous growth. The reasoning is that warm whites don't emit much blue light, which the plants use for photosynthesis and to regulate their growth. The cool white bulb supplies the blue light.

My call for your unit would be to use several (three to five) CFLs with a total input of between 120-160 watts and mix the kelvins. Although the 150 watt HPS is a bit more efficient that the CFLs in total output, watt for watt the fluorescents provide as much useful light as the HPS lamp. Heat is another consideration. The HPS runs much hotter and emits more heat than the fluoescents.

Make sure to use reflective material around the garden so that any light escaping the garden is reflected back to the plants. Any light that doesn't get to the plant leaves is wasted.


Look at a lumen/watt ration of various CFL's. The higher the wattage of CFLs, the lower the lumen/watt ratio. This chart was submitted by Jerry Garcia, of RIU and edited for typos.

For example...

the 200w listed at 9250 lumens for a lumens/watt ratio of 9250/200=46.25

the 150w is listed at 7500 lumens for a l/w ratio of 7500/150=50

the 125w is listed at 6500 lumens for a l/w ratio of 6500/125=52

the 42w are listed for 2700 lumens, l/w ratio of 2700/42=64.28

I have some 26w that give off 1700 lumens for a l/w ratio of 1700/26=65.38

GE lists some 13w that give off 825 lumens for a l/w ratio of 825/13=63.46

So, according to these numbers the most efficient bulbs for growing are the 26w that emit 1700 lumens. If you used 8 26w bulbs (208 watts total) you'd be getting 13,600 lumens...4,350 more lumens than a single 200 watt cfl.

I suppose you need to purchase more sockets and cords and things to support 8 bulbs, but in the long run more lower watt CFLs seem like the way to go.

With CFLs, you need the DUAL SPECTRUM, red and blue spectrums. That does not refer to the color of the bulb that you see. It refers to the kind of rays, like UVA or UVB, or the color temp of the bulb, called kelvins.
CFLS come in 2700 kevins, 3000, 4100, 5100, and 6500.
Low Kelvin bulbs, like the 2700k is for BLOOM OR FLOWERING, 6500k is for the VEG Spectrum. The others are "MID" spectrums or in between.
IF you use the MID-range bulbs (4100) then also use the 6500 and 2700s for a balanced spectrum.
In outdoors, the sun produces different rays in the spring (VEG Rays called Blue) and late summer rays for the Bloom spectrum, the RED spectrum. The sun also produces green, and orange rays, but plants do not use them.


The Importance Of Mixed Lighting (Dual Spectrum)

It is common knowledge that plants absorb warm and cool spectrum of light throughout its life. But I find that the importance of mixed lighting is understressed throughout the growing community.
During the flowering phase of a plants life, Warm light is better utilized to increase the size of a plant's buds. As CFL growers we tend to pile up on 2700k bulbs to increase our yield. In most cases, growers assume that warm light not only grants us larger buds, but insures that those buds are of connoisseur quality as well. This is not to say that one can not achieve a very successful crop off of pure warm spectrum 2700k lighting. We see it all the time as members of the Grow Forum Internet community. But as CFL growers, almost all of us demand a higher efficiency for our dollar.
So what does this mean? Clearly I'm trying to emphasize the necessity of cool lighting during the flowering phase of a plants life. But why? Well thats simple. As many of you may have heard or read before, Cool lighting (6500k) introduces a UVB spectrum that benefits the potency of the buds our plants are producing.
" The writer's own experience allow for a more specific conclusion: If the UVB photon is missing from the light stream(a), or the intensity as expressed in µW/cm2 falls below a certain level(b), the phytochemical process will not be completely energized with only UVA photons which are more penetrating but less energetic, and the harvested resin spheres will have mostly precursor compounds and not fully realized THC(c).

Now it would be completely unreasonable to ask a grower using a 1000watt HPS to switch out for MH lighting even though it produces quality of the weed. Sticking with blue spectrum lighting in a plants flowering phase would greatly decrease the size of the buds and the yield of the plant. People using high wattage systems tend to grow for cash crop. No single person really needs a pound of buds.
" “Metal halide produce the best potent buds with less lumens for the money but better smoke. After years of testing with some friends who did want to keep THEIR recipe (more hps) I found their buds to be harsh, full of CBD, make me eat and sleep. The blue spectrum will give you a final product that have everything included:taste without curing, potency and yield.
For lower wattage growers who grow for self use, and are not on a low budget, it would be beneficial to replace their HPS with an MH for the last week or two of budding. This is because the last weeks of a plants life before harvesting is dedicated to the ripening of the buds, and not the growth of the bud itself. It would not greatly impact the yield of the plant, but have a great effect on the quality. Interesting, but this only applies to a few amount of growers that fit this category.
As CFL growers, we would be fools to ignore such information. It is astonishing that so many fantastic growers to not utilize cool lighting even to a small supplemental degree. We owe it to our selves to scrounge up a few bucks in change and take a drive to Home Depot. Buy a pack of 6500k bulbs (26watts tend to be popular, 42s are better) and set them somewhere not far off from your buds. Don't let your hard work return with unsatisfaction. Added quality with increased quantity(more light). Mixed lighting should be standard knowledge, not found in the advanced cultivation section.

Side Note: Reptile lighting found at pet stores is not ideal for UVB lighting. Yes they do emit a high % of UVB than regular CFLs but they output less light and emit over 12x more UVA light than UVB light which can harm your plant.

no response luvr?