600W LED grow- watts per square ft (or meter)?

Hey everyone,

I'm about to go ahead with my first grow; everything is almost planned out but i have a final decision to make. How big will my grow room be?

I'll be running ~600W of COB leds (probably Cree CXA 3070's - see LED section) as they're doing well at the moment, in a stinkbud setup (aero clone + veg, NFT flower). Temps will be controlled by a mini split AC and i've set aside the cash for a (de)humidifier depending on what the RH is like when the room's setup. I'll be running CO2 (hence the mini split) and it'll be sealed (as a friend gave me a free CO2 cylinder)

Question is, how many watts per square ft (or per square meter) should i be aiming for with LEDs? I was looking at a 4' (W) x 4' (D) x 6' (H) room, but this is a little too small for the standard stinkbud NFT system. Should i stick with this size of a room and cut down the size of the NFT system, or go for a slightly bigger room?

Of course, the answer depends on what you recommend in terms of watts per square foot. I'd like to hit 0.7gpw on my first grow, then possibly 1gpw future grows with Scrog and LST.

Any help is much appreciated!

Hey rambo, 600 true watts of LED's will cover a 4x4 nicely. You seem to be worried about the room size due to the nft fixture size. The two don't necessarily contradict each other. As long as the area where the plants are sitting in the fixture are covered by your 600w in a 4x4' area you're good to go. The room can be a little bigger to allow for room to garden/maintenance and hold the res end which is probably what takes your fixture over the 4x4, but that's not a problem, you want the 4x4 (or as close as possible) area to be where your plants are under, other than that no worries.