light phase question

Brick Top said:

The plants were vegged to 30 inches (2.5ft.) and they finished around 3ft. (36 inches). That is amazing to me since most plants will double to triple in height during flower and yours only grew roughly 6 inches (1/5th of an increase in growth instead of doubling to tripling as is normal).

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I've heard that plants double in height during the first phase of flowering, but I've never witnessed it. That might be because I yank anything that gets taller than whatever indica looking gems I happen to be growing at the time. Might have something to do with the fact that the 400w MH I'm using to flower sits RIGHT on top of the plants (I mean touching the tops).

My strategy will change a bit when I eventually come up with the cash for a 1000w ballast and bulb; the 400w just doesn't penetrate well enough to raise the light off the plants I care about. Dunno if my exhaust system is strong enough to keep the hood glass cool with that much fire burning anyway.

The closet I built to flower in is about 4x3x8. When I upgrade the ballast, I want to get enough lumens to hang the light at the 8 foot ceiling and still get decently dense buds on the lower parts of plants. I've never had a 600 or 1000w light so the heat might surprise me, but I've got a pretty strong td-mixvent exhaust fan pulling air through my hood now and it stays perfectly cool to the touch on top and bottom.

5 1000w's?! Man that's alot of light, how many square feet was your grow footprint?

One side of garage was 4x30 it was a long table that was slanted so I could water/nute and let all the drainage go into 20 gal buckets that I would take out to the outside plants and let them have the waste water/nutes. The other side was another 4x30 (Not 6' wide like I was thinking) Had another 5 lights there. But the heat was too much even with a ac built in wall I could not keep more than 5 lights on. The Garden turned out so much Bud it was crazy, I was harvesting at least one plant a week if not 2, and at least 5oz per plant top was 7.5.
I just think personally the 1000 was over kill. I veged until plants where 20" before I would put them out and even then by the time the plants where at the other end of table there was more than enough light for the lower buds. The 1000 has to be higher than a 600. and half way through the plant can be opened up with a little string and some pull to the side. Foot prints where large when I was in charge lol.