Which is better for flowering: indoor hps with high co2 or outdoor in sunlight?

My plants will be inside under hps and co2 for about 5 hours then I can move them outside for another 7 hours. I have been doing this for the first 5 weeks (going on 2nd week of preflower). But which flowers them better, inside with lots of co2 and light or outside, under sunlight but no co2? Is outdoors going to get me double or just slightly more? For convience I'd rather just keep them inside but if it's worth the trouble on sunny days I'll keep moving them.

What size light she under inside? Personally I think moving them in and out wont make much difference and it sounds like a bit of a hassle anyway. Indoors can get you just as big nugs if not bigger than outdoors. Either way id suggest to pick one and stick to it.

I have a cooled 600 hps for about 12 plants (4x4). I can get the tips within 6". I'm actually surprised with the answer that keeping them indoors would work as well especially don't want to discount the added yield of the lower buds (but they are short at only 16" when pushed to flower). I forgot to check for node staggering before flowering but this is my first grow in about 17 years

I'd say outdoors in direct sunlight beats artificial light any day. People get 1lb+ outdoors. I'm sure there's a far less amount of people that get that indoors under any light

Are you saying in the same amount of time (clone to dry about 12 weeks) the outdoor plant will get far more weight for same square area?

This is an odd question, one that might not have been considered/attempted before. I might try some inside with co2 for the full 12 hours and others in/out for 5/7. I can probably tell in a week or two which is out performing and report back the outcome on this thread.

Indoor is faster... Outdoor is bigger

Using the sun as your primary light source and extending the photoperiod with a HID is the only way to go, except for the hassle. Even better is starting your seeds in soil and as soon as they pop the soil move them to full sun all day, then supplement the photoperiod with artificial.

BTW, having a 600W HPS within 6" of leaves is really asking for trouble. That is more f.c. than the sun and will soon bleach out the chlorophyll. Are you trying to turn them into canaries?

"Using the sun as your primary light source and extending the photoperiod with a HID is the only way to go, except for the hassle." Good, I thought this was the best thing to do.

As far as how close the plants are, I always thought you want them as close as possible without burning or the leaves turning up? I just checked and the middle one is about 4". It's hot but no less crazy hot than it gets on some days. Their color is good but today they are all moving into 3 gal pots so the light will have to be raised to shine on them all.

I was worried about nodes not being staggered before I pushed them to flower but I just checked and they are. I guess clones makes them staggered to begin with, another nice feature of using clones.

Hal

M Blaze said:

What size light she under inside? Personally I think moving them in and out wont make much difference and it sounds like a bit of a hassle anyway. Indoors can get you just as big nugs if not bigger than outdoors. Either way id suggest to pick one and stick to it.

Click to expand...

I thought there was a bug crawling on my screen, but it's your signature

doobnVA said:

I thought there was a bug crawling on my screen, but it's your signature

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haha

doobnVA said:

I thought there was a bug crawling on my screen, but it's your signature

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I don't feel so bad now. Looks pretty realistic on a LCD TV.

doobnVA said:

I thought there was a bug crawling on my screen, but it's your signature

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Haha Me too!! thats f'ing great!

The main thing about indoor/outdoors is the control you can have over the plants. Outdoors, you are slave to light cycles. Indoors, you can control them, as well as everything else.

If it's big yields that you are looking for, then yes, outdoors will inevitably produce more than a CO2 enriched environment any day. This is because the sun contains the full color spectrum that plants require. Also, the energy it gives off is far superior to even a 1000w light.

However, why not have both? Why not have a CO2 enriched glass greenhouse outside?


-AR