How much wattage minimum?

Alright RIU i just came across two Sour D clones that i was not expecting to have. hey were taken from a 2 week flowering female and are fully rooted. They have been revegging for 5 days now and will give them another week before I actually consider them vegging.

I am an outdoors guy myself and have had a successful harvest already (18 ounces off two plants about 3 feet tall, 4 feet wide LST'd and a foot tall clone untouched). Im excited though because the clone i left untouched was a lot better to me then the LST'd females sherely because i got zero popcorn bud and it did not fall over under the weight of the buds.... basically the LST'd plants were too much maintenance for me. I want to grow these clones in the same fashion.

I want to get them to about 12"-18" tall and then flower em. Given the small size and non-LST, how much wattage should i have minimum to get a nice harvest?

This is all personal use and i am limited on funds. If i can get 4-5 ounces that will be perfect because i still have about 16 ounces left from my outdoor grow and will be starting another outdoor grow in the spring. I currently have two 23watt cfls at 6500K on an 18/6 cycle. The plants are only about 4" right now. I was thinking two more 23 watt cfls 6700K and maybe a 40+ watt 2700K bulb or even a full spectrum fluorescent T5 tube to mix the spectrum. That would be 5 bulbs total with about 130-140 actual cfl wattage. I would then of course buy 4 23watt 2700K cfls when i want to flower. sound good?

+rep for the help! Help me, im a new cfl grower! lol Pics will be uploaded in a bit.

Here are the pics, you can see the single blades forming as its trying to reveg

well trick with CLFs and Tube`s (I use T5HO for Veg) is to keep the plant small and bushy (like in most cases indoors)

but fluorescent light don't provide much penetrations, so bud sites have to be with in 2-6 inch`s in order to grow dense bund`s

my light meter only give a real good reading 2-4" away and after 12" I cant even get a reading ..

IMO fluorescent light is for Veg where the plant only need 1/3 of the light as in flowering and it is`small and easy to keep close to the light..

atleast if you want some decent smoke, specially as your used to outdoor plants, not wort the effort if you ask me to use so much time/money to grow 1-2 oz of fluffy bud`s..

I only seen a few useing a really good T5HO or high watt CLFs set up, in a SoG/Scrog, knowing what they did who grew something I would use my time on if I had a choise to grow outdoors, rest is for small times beginners who only need a few grams a week or for the fun of it ..

either get a HPS for the flowering part or keep em as mothers for the "clone army" you unleash outdoors at spring ..

Slipon said:

either get a HPS for the flowering part or keep em as mothers for the "clone army" you unleash outdoors at spring ..

Click to expand...

Lotta good points man, but you're in a CFL / floro subforum telling people not to use CFl/floros.

The trick to CFLS/ floros is to getting the right spectrum and the right light, quanitty and proxmitity, not wattage.

Floros aren't really fesaible for a gigantic grow op unless u'r doing scrogs, in which case something like the lid of a tanning bed could be used very productively.

Floros/Led are for people wanting small well controlled bud plants. HPS and MH are for growing monsters.


The high output floros (t5 and t8 HO are actually really good if you can get them arranged close to the canopy

To answer the OPS question most floro growers usually say expect 200-300 W of floro actual wattage (not incadencent equivalent). It's strongly suggested you do 400 W if you can't get the spectrums exactly right. But if you do the lights right 300 can get a pretty stacked bush.

I use a T5HO fixture with 6x6500K and 2x2700K 54Watt bulbs in it with a total of 432 Watt

and they do great, in Veg, wile the plant is small and I can keep most of it close to the light, as I said, according to my light meter they don't provide much light after 10" and only provide good light with in 2-6" just keep that in mind when flowering ..

I'd definitely go ahead and top those girls, then top again. 4 main colas flowered at 12-18" will probably give you a plant in the 30-40" range. Without topping, she can get beastly and harder to provide adequate lighting coverage with CFLs.