side lighting??

i was wondering...would putting the lights around the sides of the plants be better than above the plants? I have an area about 2.5ft x 3ft and 7 feet tall. i could put a bunch of four foot flouros on the walls and maybe just one light on top

i think the advantage of this would be that the entire height of the plant can get light. you could grow five feet high and get good buds all over, instead of just at the top. the only reason the top gets the best buds is because the light is there, right?

any thoughts on this? i might try it, just because of my space requirements. but could it possibly be a better way to grow?

im trying the samething except i have flourescent grow lights on the sides and a hps light above

Normally done like everchill is doing it. The floros are used to add the extra light on the sides that normally don't receive any indoors. It's very effective. Remember to use some sort of reflectivity along with this. Like painting your walls white or using polywrap.

In this case you will need to make sure the ceiling is reflective also. It will be interesting to see the results. VV

superstoner420 said:

i think the advantage of this would be that the entire height of the plant can get light. you could grow five feet high and get good buds all over, instead of just at the top.

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A better solution is to just grow short plants.

superstoner420 said:

the only reason the top gets the best buds is because the light is there, right?

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No, not really. Plants grown outdoors have their largest cola on the mainstem- and it's not because the ones below it are any appreciable distance further from the sun than the tops.

The top cola on the mainstem is the largest by virtue of the DNA programming of the plant. That's just the way she works.

If you don't want small buds, just don't grow the bottom 2/3 of the plant.



Check out Sea Of Green style growing, where you grow 2-3' tall plants, which don't need any side lighting- and only give you the top cola of the plant, nothing else.

I am also heavy on the idea of growing big plants with fat buds all around even though I'm constantly being told otherwise like here. Sea of Green seems to be all the rave right now... I'm going LST style. three big plants, thirty FAT Kolas

SoG has been all the rage for the last 10 years.

The only drawback to SoG is that you grow a larger number of smaller plants- and having a large number of plants around isn't so hot if you get busted.

also, sea of green requires a lot of floor area for the grow. i have limited floor area but 7 feet of height available. i don't think i should trim the bottom half of the plant if it can still get light from the sides. that's the real reason to trim the bottom, or am i mistaken?

ss420, if you have 7' vertical to work with, you almost have room to stack a couple of SoG gardens!

Buds on lower branches are always going to be small and fluffy compared to tops. The lower the branch, the smaller and fluffier the buds will be.

Even if you light from the sides, you of course realise that you won't get top-sized colas on the sides of the plants- but you're welcome to have a go! It'd probably help improve yield somewhat, but fluoros don't make the light intensity to make dense, tight buds.

I'm willing to wager a doobie or two that if you SoGged in your limited area, giving each plant only an 8" circle to live in and only HPS light from the top (at 40-50W/sq ft), you'd still get more bud weight, faster, and with better density than if you grow an unpruned 5' plant which fills your space (which will take a while just to veg) with top HPS and side fluoro lighting.

okay Al, i see your point. but let's say i have 4 plants growing in this space. they're about 2-3 feet tall and started flowering a week ago. what would be the best pruning strategy in this case? would i really need to cut anything, since almost all of the plants would get equal amounts of light? the buds may be light and fluffy, but if HPS is out of the question at this point, that's all i'd be able to get.

Mmm, I see, you already have them going!

What sort of light do you have in there now? Got circ fans going?

i have 10 4' flouros. a mix between grow-lux, cool-white, warm-white, and daylight bulbs. i have an intake fan and an exhaust fan. oh, and i have a compact flouro, i think about 20 watts, above the plants.

ok, fluoros have very poor foliar penetration. Don't expect solidly dense buds, though you will get buds. The more aggressively you prune back, the better the quality you will get from what you leave on the plant. I would be trimming back just about everything that can not be at most 2" max away from the fluoros.

Just so you know, for the 4-500 watts worth of fluoros you're running, you could be getting several times the light output, at much greater intensity, for much better foliar penetration and thus bud weight from a 400-430W HPS. Even a converted 150-250W HPS security light would make much better weight and density for you. You probably paid more for the fluoros than you would have for a small HPS.

To get through this grow, trim back everything to no more than about 2" off the mainstem and stack the fluoros vertically as close to the plant as possible.... and then go shopping for a little HPS.

i actually got everything except 2 of the fixtures and the warm-white bulbs for free. i paid about 25 bucks for the entire lighting. that's the main reason i didn't buy an HPS. but i didn't know HPS were needed for deeper penetration. i just thought it was about how many lumens you have.

but one more question...do HPS get significantly hotter than flouros? i'm in a confined space, so heat is definitely an issue.

I am using a 175w metal halide and added two 100 watt cfls on some clip lights shining down to some of the lower leaves. i didnt expect much to happen, but the side closes to the floros grows so much faster i have had to rotate it to keep it even

superstoner420 said:

but one more question...do HPS get significantly hotter than flouros? i'm in a confined space, so heat is definitely an issue.

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Yes, HPS lights do make a lot of heat, but there's several ways around the problem.

The ballast transformer for the HPS emits tons of heat, but it doesn't have to be in the grow room airspace. Putting it outside the room will reduce the amount of heat put into the room air.

You should have enough exhaust ventilation capacity to change the entire volume of the grow room air every 5 minutes, with the room being ventilated at least a few times an hour. That's mainly to provide enough fresh CO2 for the plants, but when the temp comes up to ~29C, the exhaust fan thermostat should trip on, start the fans and cool the room down in the process of exchanging the air volume for fresh air.

Sure, you can't argue with free (or very cheap) lights... but HPS are not really that expensive. Fluoros are not going to give you thick growth with good bud density. Give some thought to buying a 150-250w HPS security light and converting it for use as a grow light.

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