CFL grow, one plant - Feed Pleaseeeee!!

IamAbigMan

Active Member
Well i've grown outdoors twice and have been successful both times. FIrst grow i yielded 200g off one plant. ON my second grow i had sometihng like 600g for three.

Anyways, this year i wanted to try a grow with cfls, but only one plant. I was thinking about 4 42w cfls for the entire grow. Is it enough light to veg and flower?

I have the grow station set up already i just want to make sure this would be enough light for one plant?

Please reply!
Thanks
 

zvuv

Active Member
Does it have to be CFLs? HIDs give you a lot more bang per watt. What kind of grow space do you have. If you can handle it a 400W MH would be great and easily give 200gm of bud, quite a bit more with practice.
 

IamAbigMan

Active Member
Well i have a wooden box that is 6 ft talls and 3 1/2 ft wide. I dont really have the money to be spending on lights like that, THats why i wanna use cfls since i heard they were a lot cheaper.
 

ant1408

Well-Known Member
im pretty sure that will work i grew with only one cfl i think it was 40W then i switchd to a 75w
 

dman8168

Well-Known Member
you will be fine,just keep bulbs close and get some good reflective material. also the smaller the space the better for cfl.just harvested a 14 inch girl,grown in a 18" tall x18"deepx24"wide, used 196watss cfl, got a zip and a half.frosty as hell and tight buds.dont believe the cfl haters. good luck and happy growing.
 

zvuv

Active Member
Well i have a wooden box that is 6 ft talls and 3 1/2 ft wide. I dont really have the money to be spending on lights like that, THats why i wanna use cfls since i heard they were a lot cheaper.

CFLs are not really cheaper than HIDs when compared as dollars per oz of dope. CFLs are a cheap way to get started. You can get going with 150W of cfl for about $30 or so which lowers the entry barrier for new growers. Also you can augment your light in small steps spending a few dollars at a time. But a 150W HID lamp will way outperform that 150W cfl setup.

I just bought a 250W MH ballast kit for $35 and a bulb for $20. Another $20 for sundry items like plugs and a mogul socket and for $75 you have a setup that would go head to head with a 500W cfl light. Bear in mind too that with cfls you spend most of your money on bulbs which are consumable. For HID, there is a one time investment in the ballast etc but after that a new bulb is $20.

I was vegging my plants under 250W of cfls. They grow nicely but very slowly. I replaced my cfls with a 150W MH lamp and the plants grew more in one week than they had in the past month under the cfls. I also have a lot less trouble with burnt leaves since the plants are several inches away from the MH lamp whereas the cfls had to be very close.
 

Stickystickyganja

Well-Known Member
You can grow a plant with that small amount of light, just dont expect the same results as your outdoor lol. Make sure the bulbs are real close and its bettter to have CFLs horizintal above the plants the hanging down like some ppl have.
 

matthebrute

Well-Known Member
i agree with above post BUT, to answer the question you are asking...yes you should get a decent yeild, if you are only going with 4 lights for the entire process you may want to get 2 5000k and 2 2700k (i believe thats the spectrum ratings) because the plant will use the 5000k spectrum in veg stage and it will use the 2700k spectrum for flowering. where the lights are so cheap i would suggest buying 8 bulbs total and swap them out when you change the light schedule.

also like the above guy said get some good reflection. if you dont have the money for the mylar or acess to an emergency fire blanket you can paint the room a good glossy white and that will give you good reflection.

if you are unhappy with this 1 plants yeild then i would look into a MH setup as they might be expensive but they are known for thier production.

also something you have to take into consideration is the heat that a MH bulb creates opposed to the heat a CFL creates, you have to deal with this heat somehow so that can be as simple or complex as you want. and also if you want to start growing more than 1 plant to a time setting up a ton of CFL lights can get to be a pain in the @$$ as well.

bottom line is, for 1 plant 4 bulbs should be good and for just 1 plant its probally better that you use CFL, upgrading the number of plants will mean upgrading the amount of lighting your going to have to use and then you might want to look into a MH system.

hope this helps :)
good luck and happy growing
 
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