LED lights wattage per plant?

Hi there

Im growing 3 auto-flowering seeds for my first grow and am thinking of going with an LED light setup. I have seen online that 3 plants would only need 100W but have also seen videos of a 4 plant setup with 2 X 300W LED panels while also being grown outside.

Would anyone be able to help me out with telling me how much wattage would be ideal for 3 plants, indoors?

Thanks everyone!

Thie is the main problem with LEDs. More then likely you have seen cheap Chinese LEDs on Amazon and Ebay that claim to be the best thing out there, they are not, I have a few of them that I use as side lighting with HIDs up top. When they say 100w more then likely it is running 50 watts and they are trying to claim it is equal to 100w. You will be very unhappy with that light (especially if it is the sivler one that only has blue and red lights on it-I have two and they are more like 15 watts). I usually go by watts per square foot. For LEDs I try to go 35 watts per square foot and for HIDs 45 watts, I find that if you go any less you have streeched out plants with airy buds that take forever to ripen. For three plants I wouldnt go with anything less then 250 Watts just so I would have a decent yield, so the two "300 watt" panels running at 150 watts wach would be ok, If I were you I would look into two different kinds of light that you may not have even considered, COB LEDs and small HID systems (150 watt). Most COB growers rave about the results and there are some inexpensive options out there. HID lights are the tried and true producer.
I have been playing with autoflowers and find that they are a little harder to grow then advertised, some phenos grow a lot taller then they are supposed to, some have needed a 12-12 kick to make them flower and you have kind of guess what nutes to give them by how long they have been growing, in a large garden like mine it is hard to keep track. If you have invested in some good lights and still have a crappy yield it could be your seed stock.
Good luck and Research Research Research

tinwagon said:

Hi there

Im growing 3 auto-flowering seeds for my first grow and am thinking of going with an LED light setup. I have seen online that 3 plants would only need 100W but have also seen videos of a 4 plant setup with 2 X 300W LED panels while also being grown outside.

Would anyone be able to help me out with telling me how much wattage would be ideal for 3 plants, indoors?

Thanks everyone!

Click to expand...

If your just trying to get er done, 2 of the 300w Mars/Viparspecta/Meizhi ect will do just fine. Do you have a tent? I run HID lights, but I have two LED tents for moms and testers. both are 3 x 3 and have two 300 LEDs in them. Heat can be a bit of an issue if you don't have ventilation, which I don't in LED tents. I just open them everyday and have a fan blowing. They do work though. I was extremely skeptical about buying them, but when looking at the price of building a cob light, I went cheap. I don't flower with them though, but I could see if you were building a high-powered Cree cob would definitely be worth it in the long run, but not for getting started. Good luck!

Look at it as watts per square foot, plant sizes will vary with strain and how long you veg. w/sq./ft. is a better guide for your space.

If you use those mars or mars-like blurple panels, go 40-50w/sq. ft. (actual output, not by the name - e.g. a "300w" is actually around 180w) in flowering or you'll get fluff and little weight. Quality is decent they just don't pull the weight you can with other techs. I've used some for almost 4 years but for the last 3.5 years I use them just for veg. They're quite good for veg.

If you go with COBs you can go 30w/sq. ft. and get both quality and weight, takes a little more investment but less wattage, more weight and better quality.

Here's 3x8' with 600w of 3590 COBs or 25w/sq./ft., don't expect donkey dick colas with blurple LED's though.

Again, for two or three plants, it's really not worth buying everything top of the line.
This is my 3 plant grow, 3weeks after flip with cheap blurples. I'm not advertising the brand so if you want to know you need to find my first grow thread.
This is just one plant.

Thanks for all the replies guys, loads of helpful info in there and I'm keen to learn.

Just wondering what exactly COB lights were? I've not heard of them before.

And if anyone had any opinion on CFL bulbs? I've seen a 300W grow kit with veg and flowering bulbs on ebay, thoughts about this for a 6ftsq grow space?

It will be in a fairly aerated and shaded room so i feel like I'll only need a simple fan near the setup for the heat. So I just need to figure out the best lights for that kind of setup.

Thanks again everyone!

I tried 8 cfl 23watt bulbs in a 2x6 closet and it needed ventilation. Since I didn't feel like cutting holes in my closet, I bought a tent. I got 4 cfls in addition to the led in case it gets too cool in there.

Plus I found the idea of constantly adjusting individual bulbs way tedious.

Cob= chip on board led. They are an led array on a small board. Much higher wattage than the standard 3 to 5 watt led panels. Do a search and you will find alot of options for lights you can diy, if you are a diy kinda person.

tinwagon said:

Thanks for all the replies guys, loads of helpful info in there and I'm keen to learn.

Just wondering what exactly COB lights were? I've not heard of them before.

And if anyone had any opinion on CFL bulbs? I've seen a 300W grow kit with veg and flowering bulbs on ebay, thoughts about this for a 6ftsq grow space?

It will be in a fairly aerated and shaded room so i feel like I'll only need a simple fan near the setup for the heat. So I just need to figure out the best lights for that kind of setup.

Thanks again everyone!

Click to expand...

if you are considering CFLs you would be better off with T5s. I use this in a 2ft by 4ft closet to grow 3 plants and the crop of photos I just harvested gave me 220 grams dry weight. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NMYLOBU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. people who have tried it say its very high quality and 2 or 3 hits gets them wasted. they claim it's much better than what they get at the dispensary or on the street.