Going to attempt a T5 only flower grow

Ive grown for over a few years now consecutive cycles indoor and have had good success. Ive always flowered under a 1k HPS. Due to rising costs of power (losing my PGE care program) and county ordinances. I've decided to retire the 1K and veg under a 4 bulb 2 foot t5, and flower under a 4 bulb 4 foot t5. I dont expect the results to be the same, but I'm hoping for good medicine, although probably not be as pretty or dense, but we'll see.

I topped the plants in veg, and im going to LST and FIM them and keep them really short and bushy and then when they go into flower im going to lay the t5 right on top of them with four 2700k bulbs.

I'll be using my soil mix which is a modified version of subcool's. Strains i will run for sure will be Kens GDP, Phantom Cookies, and Cherry Pie. I might run a OG or a Candyland also, we'll see when the time comes (which one performs better on this round thats finishing up). I currently am running my 1k dialed back to 50% to help with energy costs. I only had about 1.5k in lighting between flower and veg, but pge wanted to do a walk through and have me submit my tax form from last year. i dont mind the tax form but the walk through makes me nervous. I'm a medical user but i know PGE wont respect that.

It'll be a few weeks before i start the t5's in flower. I have to finish this current round first and then move the 1k out of the space.

I was considering just stopping growing but ive spent 5 years going through several dozen of california's finest cuts, fighting (and beating) mites, fighting (and beating) power mildew, gnats etc.. now i have about a half dozen strains ive narrowed it down to that in my opinion are some of the best around and i dont want to just give them up and have all this time wasted. figure some herb at a little lower quality is better than no herb (or street purchased herb with no respect to clean/organic medicine)

i'll update as things progress, feel free to follow along and chime in.

I'm subbed. Interested in seeing this grows progression.

This is interesting. Havent met very many people that go from 1kHPS to a t5. big jump. As a t5 only guy here i get great results flowering under t5s. I run a perpetual garden under a 4' 8bulb t5 with one plant scrogs. After everything i have tried for yield, SoG, Lolipoping, fim, toping, LST, My biggest yields are always from scrog. With a 4' 4 bulb t5 you could fit 2 plants under it scroged and come out with a solid harvest. I get 2 zips dried per plant and harvest a plant every other week. Im subbed, looking forward to seeing how things go.

I've been using 2 foot T5 HO for some time now and have decent grows, of course not as great as HPS but decent, you should have no problems, just a few pics, WW 7 weeks flower.

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Looks good how long do you run that white widow? That's like a 12 week strain right? Also in your guys opinion is it better to run all 2700k or throw in one 6500k bulb also? I'm thinking I might shut down, Let pge do their walk thru to reactive the care program, then just run the t5s to stay below the radar. Right now running my 1k at 50 percent and a 96 watt t5 for veg it costs about 250 a month for electricity. With care it'd be around 100. The 4 bulb 4 foot I have for flower uses about 250 watts so it should be even lower since I won't be using the 2 large fans and the inline fan for ventilation. I plan on running 4 plants under the t5 and hope to get between 4 to 8oz total. Damn care program has changed so much over the past few years. Used to be less tiers, no tax forms, no walk through. I don't even use a lot of energy and they want all this.

M4s I'm interested in your scrog method can you elaborate a little with pics?

my camera isnt working right now. but here is a link for the screens.
http://www.menards.com/main/shelving-visualizer/garage-basement/15-3-16-x-23-3-4-xtreme-garage-racking-wire-shelf/p-1469452-c-9540.htm
I get 4 screens per 8 bulb. I use 4 wood dowels 20 inches long per 3gallon pot. i just stick them all the way in the dirt and then zip tie the above screen to each of the dowels. Bamboo works as well. When i get my camera charged ill try and remember to snap a couple of shots.

I'm thinking of making a frame with pvc and zip tie chicken wire. I have done extra chicken wire. Pvc is cheap too. Do you use all red spectrum bulbs?

I do use all 2700k red spectrum. I would never ever ever ever ever use chicken wire. it can cut your plants, and its a NIGHTMARE to harvest from. That screen i showed you is made from 8ga welded wire. supports its self with 2x4 inch holes and at 3.50 a peiece you will spend that in pvc pipe and connectors. but its your $

Not at all appreciate the advice. I'm the new one to this so I'm open to all advice. I'll look into it and won't use the chicken wire. I saw one also where someone used string I thought that looked ok, gentle on the plants.

Strings fine. i used knitting yarn once upon a time. and string can flex so you can open it and close it. its harder to get it really tight unless you use something like clothes line. its got a plastic wrap on it and you can pull it really tight.

Sidewing: " Looks good how long do you run that white widow? That's like a 12 week strain right? "

I flowered it for 13 weeks then unfortunately I had to go to the hospital so my wife and I had no choice but to harvest, turned out to be decent smoke, whould have liked to go at least 2 more weeks but alas.

Ok I built a pvc frame 4 feet long and a little over 1 foot wide and 2 feet tall that is under the 4 bulb 4 foot t5. Couldn't go any bigger for this fixture. I built a second frame 3ft by 3 ft and 3ft tall. That one is for the hps light 1k running at 50 percent. I'm going to veg under the first cage to train it and Bush it out. Then move it to the bigger cage to flower. I'm going to run one more with the hps I think to see how good it'll scrog.