More is always better(The Golden Rule). While that is true, what if you just don't want to grow a crazy number of plants (I know it's fun and all).

If your intention is to grow maybe 2-4 but no more than 4 plants, is 250hps suitable? Surely there are people who don't grow more than 4 plants right?!?

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I'd say three plants at most. It only covers a 2sq.ft area.

250w should be fine

But, you'd probably want to consider a switchable ballast and do an MH bulb for vegetation and HPS bulb for flowering, or maybe a full spectrum bulb.

I'm doing my first grow with 6 plants under a 250w Full spectrum MH with 6-10w Red Grow LED clusters, although i've got a couple of the plants without direct red from the LED's cuz i'm using about 3 for my biggest girl (and my favorite)

Some pics from Nov 3rd (the seedlings are gonna get trashed or stressed to death by expirementing, i was just messin around with bagseed for fun, my others are all from clones)

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4 plants is fine. you just can't let them grow very tall or you'll lose out on canopy penetration and lumens. utilize LST and topping techniques for best results.

good luck.

4 would fully flowering plants would putting a 250w pretty much to it's effective limit, but it would work. it's fun. it's addictive and unless you have some horrible experience the firstime, you're gonna want to expand

6 plants is what I do with a 400w. They aren't getting sufficient light with just a 250.

Oh yes, I agree, growing is really a blast! At the same time, I want to enjoy the challenge of seeing what a 250 can do. I am definitely going to try LST.

I was following Root Development vs Plant Growth

And thought it would be interesting to come up with some mini versions of the DIY systems using smaller equipment.

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LST is the only way to get dank harvest from a 250w. the lamp needs to be close to the plants.

I've been doing LST to mine and they seem ok. I think at least the plant with 3 LED's on it is doing as well as if it was under 400w(but then again I don't know much,this is my first SUCCESFUL grow (so far) ). the others are definately more stretched. check out my 16days 12/12 thread let me know if they're lookin okay!

For 2-4 plants yes a 250w would work okay, but a 400w would be better.