Early flowering

So for early flower. I'm at week 3. 4th week starts this Sunday. I have ppfd around 500, lights are like 14 inches away. Using kingbright led. So I heard when they flower is when to start cranking up the ppfd. What do they mean by this? So by week 4 should I crank it up to 900 ppfd? Is for a little later in flower? Msbe week 5 or 6? When should I start with nutes as well? I'm using fox farm happy frog. Just transplanted at week 2. So it should have a pretty good amount of nutes currently. Mabe around week 8 or 9 it may need nutes? What you guys think? Just trying to dial in with my lighting strength, distance, and nutes. I know prev I can't give nutes to soon.

Should I start slow? Mabe increase up to 600 ppfd this week and up lights a bit? What's your suggestions? What should your ppfd look like for ever week for autos. Clearly for seedling a veg you don't need much. Prob at this stage I don't need to much either, I just dont want to wait to late to start increasing power.

I run 700 to 800 ppfd right after flip straight thru finish. Without CO2 theres really no reason to go much higher.

pegboy said:

I run 700 to 800 ppfd right after flip straight thru finish. Without CO2 theres really no reason to go much higher.

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What do you mean right after flip? Like what week? Around this time or would you wait until week 4? Should I raise lights? I'm at 14 in. Away from top of plants.

Ayokiwi717 said:

What do you mean right after flip? Like what week? Around this time or would you wait until week 4? Should I raise lights? I'm at 14 in. Away from top of plants.

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The day I flip my lights to 12/12. You are running regular photoperiod plants and not autoflowers right?

Edit: Also how are you testing your PPFD? Light distance shouldn't make a difference as long as your PPFD is right or within the range you're looking for..

pegboy said:

The day I flip my lights to 12/12. You are running regular photoperiod plants and not autoflowers right?

Edit: Also how are you testing your PPFD? Light distance shouldn't make a difference as long as your PPFD is right or within the range you're looking for..

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No I have autoflowers. So I'm running 18/6. I'm using an app on phone to measure ppfd

Ayokiwi717 said:

No I have autoflowers. So I'm running 18/6. I'm using an app on phone to measure ppfd

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so that would equate to when your plant starts to preflower round about, raise intensity little by little and see how the plant likes it, especially with an auto

pegboy said:

The day I flip my lights to 12/12. You are running regular photoperiod plants and not autoflowers right?

Edit: Also how are you testing your PPFD? Light distance shouldn't make a difference as long as your PPFD is right or within the range you're looking for..

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ALPHA.GanjaGuy said:

so that would equate to when your plant starts to preflower round about, raise intensity little by little and see how the plant likes it, especially with an auto

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By the day? Or wait a couple days per increase?

Meaning don't go 50% to 100%, maybe raise it 10-20% and give the plants a day or two to see how they react and to acclimate.

remember increasing your light percentage will change more than how bright the light is for your plants.

Your environment for them will dictate what level will be optimal - many times it will be without full power.

The plant will show you what’s comfortable for it.
Leaves will stay lateral or have slight “ pray “ .

Forget hard numbers. You can balance light height at canopy to dimmer power setting to find the right one for your setup. Take the photone app with a grain of salt - make sure you are using a diffuser when taking a reading.

This chart will give you a rough idea. I personally run at 900ish max but that also depends on strains being grown.

Also, remember that the plants total photosynthesis depends on the total amount of light: if youre at 500ppfd for 18 hours instead of 12 the total light would equivalent(ish) to 750 for 12 hours.
As stated above, dont go simply by numbers, you need to read the plant: too much light tends to give a bad plant stance early in the day, droopy leaves, and new growth is notably lighter shade of green, looking a bit bleached.

Rocket Soul said:

Also, remember that the plants total photosynthesis depends on the total amount of light: if youre at 500ppfd for 18 hours instead of 12 the total light would equivalent(ish) to 750 for 12 hours.
As stated above, dont go simply by numbers, you need to read the plant: too much light tends to give a bad plant stance early in the day, droopy leaves, and new growth is notably lighter shade of green, looking a bit bleached.

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Too late to edit: when you raise light intensity its also good to look at environment: with more light photosynthesis runs harder which means you may have to raise temps a little but i cant say how this would affect an auto grow as light intensity is generally a bit lower than a 12/12 flower. But in general, you wont have to use 900ppfd.