Hi everyone, thanks for all your help so far. Today I'll buy everything and put together my room. As soon as it gets a bit warmer (tommorow or Mon) I'll get the clones and get started, if I can I'll get a cheap digital camera and start a thread to journal the grow. Here are my questions.


In the book Buds for Less it's stated that CFLs cannot support a healthy plant over 20 inches. I need some clarification, did he mean with his present set up (3 plants, 8 CFLs 2700) or did he mean no matter now many lights per plant?

When he said 20 inches, did he mean total lenght between the root & top of the plant or did he mean actual height. In other words can I use lst to keep the actual height under 20 inches even thought the distance between root & tip is over 20 inches.

That book says when in the flowering stage the size of the plant more than quadruples in size due to flowering before maturity. Does this mean that during the flowering period I'm going to need a bigger number of lights to handle more surface area?

If I'm using three 6500 bulbs per plant during veg, how many 3000 bulbs should I use per plant during flowering? (or a bulb for how many inches of plant?)

I read a post about topping in a way where you can get 4 colas (sometimes). (Uncle Ben's Topping Technique to get 2 or 4 MAIN colas) I'm not sure if the plant will be over 20 inches before you get 5 or 6 nodes, but after topping I'm sure you'll be back under 20 inches. Anyway, has anyone tried this method of topping while using CFLs and if so, how did it go? Also if I use this I'm guessing I should add about 2 more weeks to veg to account for the loss of plant material, sound about right?

Just one question that doesn't have anything to do with my first grow. I came across info on making super plants (columbian gold, hawaiin gold, NY Diesel Gold). The parent plants are actually created by genetic manipulation. For some reason none of the dispensories have any gold bud in any strain. In fact, the owners of the dispensories think that Columbian Gold is an actual strain that may have gone extinct. Question is this, does anyone know if the reason for no one knowing how to make these plants is because they're no longer considered marijuana after the genetic change and thus still illegal, or if it's just a lost art?

Thanks again for your help. During my first grow I'm also going to experiment with a "trick" that I read about in another book (marijuana Home Grower's Journal) that claims that this "trick" will get your plants to produce so much resin that the plant will actually become carmalized in resin. I hope this trick works so I can repay everyone by adding something of value. Stay tuned bud fans.

i think he means the light cant be more than 20 inches from the top of the plant
there are plenty of cfl grows on RIU with plants over 20 inches tall.

cfls need to be as close as they can get with out burning/stressing the plant

No the book actually says you can't grow a plant over 20 inches with cfls. Thsi is crazy because you could use enough cfls to equal any other light system and even the sun. It's just somebody else being anti-cfl.

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The guys definately isn't ani-cfl. He has his own permanent thread in the CFL forums (Buds for Less - CFL BOOK )

In the book he used 2700s for veg & flowering so there have been some advancements since it was written because he now recomends 5000-6500s for veg. in his thread. So I guess the book's been out a while.

The reson for the questions is to help me plan the set up. I can also get the answers to these questions as I go along with my first grow, but I'll save myself a bunch of trips to the hardware store if I get the answers first. Plus the less I have to figure out myself, the more experimenting I can do.

Anyway, if anyone can help answer some of these questions I'd really appreciate it.

P.S. Wether you know it or not, you answered most of my questions. I'm going to need a shit load of CFLs and I'll need more 2700s than 6500s. The only 2 remaining questions are......

Can I use "Uncle Ben's Topping Technique to get 2 or 4 MAIN colas" while growing with CFLs?

Why does no one seem to know how to make "super plants" (columbian gold, hawaiin gold, blueberry gold, etc...). Are these genetically altered plants no longer considered marijuana and thus illegal, or is this just a lost art? When you create superplants you change 2 parent plants into polynoids (or something like that) and you use their seeds to grow the super plants.

Just got back from the store and I didn't do as well as I thought I would. It does't look like I'll be buying the clones tommorow.

First off I got my question on the super plants answered and will be making some in a few months. I'll start a thread if the mod says it's ok, but I caution eveyone to buy the book before attempting it. I can't remember the name of the book right now but by the time I start the thread I'll have another copy and I'll name the book then. If you can't wait, the author is William Drake, he has 3 books & it should be pretty obvious which one you want.

Ok, new problem is finding affordable 2700 bulbs, affordable containers, 5000-6500 bulbs, and small thermometers that stick in the dirt next to the plant.

I think I did pretty good with what I did get. Perlite & a simple timer was easy. Micro Tip Pruning Snips should make trimming easier. Also found a solar moisture, light, & PH tester for the soil. I only really care about the PH tester but the light tester might be an interesting tool to use.

The dirt I got is EKO Organic Potting Mix (compost mix) which I'm pretty happy with. I always like to go organic when I can.

Now about the lights. I went to Home Depot, True Value, and Wal-Mart and the strongest I could find were 2700 lumens, it's a 42 watt (150 watt equivelant) and they're sold individually for $8 ea.. If I'm going to use 6 bulbs per plant for flowering and I'm growing 6 plants, those 36 bulbs are going to cost around $300 including tax. I was hoping to keep the cost lower, can anyone suggest a cheaper way to get them or where I might find volume discounts?

There simply were no bulbs over 2700 lumens at those stores. I'll check with any garden centers I can find tommorow unless someone can suggest a better place to look for the 5,000 to 6,500 bulbs.

The containers I'll hopefully be able to find at a garden center. The cheapest ones at Home Depot were $5 ea. They didn't have those cheap black ones. I'll also hopefully find those little thermometers at a grow center.

If anyone can help with the lights I'd really appreciate it.

Almost forgot, I spoke to a dispensory owner who tried CFL a few years back and was unhappy so she's anti-CFL. She seemed pretty convinced that Inica plants will grow better in this medium than Sativa plants. Any truth to this?

She used 2700s for both veg & flower so I'm sure that had a lot to do with it. But why isn't my concern. I just want to put the best plants in the soil for a CFL grow.

Help, I'm stuck. I think I'm misunderstanding something about the bulbs. I thought I was looking for 2 sets of CFLs, a set of 5000 to 6500 lumens to veg, and a set of 2700 to 3000 lumens to flower. But after 3 hours of searching on line, I'm starting to think that 5000 lumen CFLs don't exist. What am I misunderstanding?

Your mixing up the lumens (light intensity) with the kelvins (color temperature)

you want 6500K (kelvins) for veg and 2700K (kelvins) for flowering

I read over 1000 pages on this site before buying a bulb, took 3 months, there is alot (and I mean ALOT) of really great info here but it is sometimes buried in amongst other things, you need to find it kinda like panning for gold, read all day for one good nugget of info,,but trust me the nuggets are here!

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Nutes on a Budget, NooB Advice

Thanks, the reason for the confusion I guess is the book "Buds for Less", the book suggest using 2700 lumen lights for both stages. Maybe it was a misprint or maybe he just didn't list the kelvin or something.

So as far as lumens are concerned, the more the better for both stages (veg & flower)?

Thanks again