Sunlight VS CFLs - What is it gonna be ?

alwinjames13 said:

24/7 light for vegging?? does that work against the nature of the plant without having any light/dark cycle at all?

I'm pretty new, 1st crop flowering now on outdoor grow. Do you feel you get much larger plants?? Enough to outweigh electricity costs?

Click to expand...

I don't know I never gave 24/7 light to a plant and I dont plan on doing it because of electricity costs.
But from what I've read here, YES, it works. Although running the lights 24/7 in the vegetative stage could be of little use compared to 20/4 or 18/6.
Plus, it puts your equipment under unnecessary stress and runs up your electric bill. $$$$

tkjoe said:

believe me i understnad small spaces did you check my grow andsee what i started with? i ende dup building something that looks like a cabinet though

im really looking forward to your next grow though man! STOKED!

Click to expand...

Yeah man I checked your grow 2 days ago, I wanted to grow mine in a home-built case too but I was too lazy to do it.
You did good with the LST, and she is very bushy unlike mine.
You're doing good !

ya i just hope she comes out of this droopy leaf crap right away. stresses me out when shes unhappy like this. which is funny cause if my GF is unhappy, i dont let it bug me, but this is my baby! haha it was so easy to build that box! i hope everything works out on this grow for you! how small is your space?

tkjoe said:

ya i just hope she comes out of this droopy leaf crap right away. stresses me out when shes unhappy like this. which is funny cause if my GF is unhappy, i dont let it bug me, but this is my baby! haha it was so easy to build that box! i hope everything works out on this grow for you! how small is your space?

Click to expand...

My space is 1ft x 1.5ft x 1.5ft, it was just made as an experimental grow but I will never do this again lol.

BlackBuddha said:

My space is 1ft x 1.5ft x 1.5ft, it was just made as an experimental grow but I will never do this again lol.

Click to expand...

do you not like small grows?...and shes lookin great she'll pack on some buds in a lil no worries

no kidding that is definately to small. thats like an under the bed grow. i honesly thing you plant will outgrow that space or have a very hard time, because you are so limited to pot size and growth room

TheLastJuror said:

do you not like small grows?...and shes lookin great she'll pack on some buds in a lil no worries

Click to expand...

It's not that I don't like small grows, I was just remembering myself how hard it was to keep it small. I mean it would have been way easier if I had bigger space.
But I'm also lazy (and impatient when it comes to weed lol), if the plant grow some good and large buds for its size I will definitely change my mind though...

tkjoe said:

no kidding that is definately to small. thats like an under the bed grow. i honesly thing you plant will outgrow that space or have a very hard time, because you are so limited to pot size and growth room

Click to expand...

The pot size is alright considering the potential of this strain.
I thought that her growth would be affected at first but in fact I'll be able to finish her in that space, she stopped growing when I cut the air circulation during its light time.

High Everybody,

Day 40 from seed :

Everything is going well, the smell is getting stronger everyday, more and more trichs everyday and the girl is still living on pure water and Organic Bloom.

I had to cut some large leaves that got slightly burnt by the CFL, I just did it to make sure she doesn't spend too much energy healing them.

I'm still pissed about not having a major top cola, I hope most of the top will get bigger because as I told yall before, my bigger buds are all the ones under the top.

looking pretty good, a few cfl's and you got a grow going
don't snip partly burned leaves, i burned a few my self but they will keep adding to the plant's health unless they're really burnt

I noticed that the top "mini-buds" (as I decided to call them) are very smelly and growing in size.
They wont be the bigger ones of the grow but could give me rewarding results at the end of the grow (they will dry quicker and it is still weed lol).

So thank Goddess Mary-Jane I didnt cut the upper side of the plant as I planned.

HOWEVER, I gotta change my set-up because the "mini-buds" are too close to the CFL, since they are small for the moment some of them dry out rapidly (I swear I thought about smoking them but there weren't enough).

So here is the scheme that I plan on doing at the end of the plant's light-time (check the attaced pic).
I think it will benefit the top buds for their development but also the ones in the middle and the bottom.

- What do you think ?
- How come I got more than 1000 views on this thread but not many followers here ?

Peace !

more reflector is an excellent idea, you're effectively adding light(wasted light) without adding any additional heat
i took a plant to maturity using only 78w of cfl, but really loaded up on reflector

High Everyone,

Well i changed my lighting setup and it works better, every part of the plant is receiving light and the buds grew up along the stem.
A few more days and I won't be able to see it anymore.

The temp did not change but I think that there is too much humidity in the grow space.
The thing is ... I don't want to spend more money on the plant so I made a humidity absorber myself.

All you need is :
- An empty plastic bottle
- Some cotton
- A rubberband
- Big salt (not the regular one, it wont last long)
- Some gauze bandage (check the internet if you dont know what i'm talking about).

1- Cut the bottle in half.
2- Attach some gauze on the top of the bottle with a simple rubberband.
3- Turn it upside down and put the big salt in it.
4- Put some cotton inside the other half of the bottle.
5- Put the inverted top inside the bottom of the bottle.
6- Done, if it doesn't get together well you can put some duct tape around it as I did.

The salt will attract the humidity into the room, therefore some water will be dripping at the bottom.
Once the cotton is completely wet change it for another dry one.

This trick will allow the plant to release more resin for the buds so they will not dry out. And more resin is what we want (STICKY ICKY)!
AND It's way cheaper than buying a dehumidifier !

I hope that it will help some of you.
Peace !

ganjaluvr said:

ehhh come on man... lol.

Everyone knows.. you just can't beat sunlight.

I mean.. I guess any thing is possible... I mean someone
could come along and try and beat the sun with artificial lighting.

Click to expand...

Man I guess you didn't read any of the posts out here...

The title of the thread is not literally "Is the sun better than CFLs?" I mean what kind of question would that be ?
I did grow my plant in plain sunlight for 20 days THEN the only available lighting that I could give her was the CFL since the summer time was pretty much over.
Which is why the original question of the thread was : "Should I expect a slower growth from these CFLs ?" since there is a great difference between the two I didnt know what to expect.

Of course somebody could try to beat the sun with artificial lighting ... but that doesn't interest me lol.

One

High yall,

Need help ! The plant is 48 days from seed, she is still doing fine under its 85W CFL. The buds are growing slowly (not big since I only feed her with water and organic bloom).

But most of the pistils are losing their white color, I think they are going lightly brown and I have NO IDEA when the buds will be ready for harvest.

- Does it mean that my Purple Widow is on its way to finish the last process ?
- Or should I just ignore this detail ?

I know that the potency and time to harvest should be determined by the color of the trichomes but I only have a loupe lol.

it's probaly ony been budding for 30 days at the most, and the earlyest i EVER cut one of my plants down was at week 8 of budding-60 days, most of the pisrils if not all of them will turn red

it's part of the maturation process, but like the previous poster said, you should have a ways to go
all strains have their wrinkles in how they mature

High RIU Community !

DAY 50 from seed :

Actually you are right bike, the pistils are going for the orange color.
Thanks for the info one !

Here are the pictures of the Purple Widow after 50 days frome seed. The buds got larger since the last pic and the top is getting full of "Mini-Buds" too (Thank goddess Mary-Jane I didnt cut it earlier)!

She lost some of her very-green color, which is a good sign that says "I am focusing on the buds homie, forget them leaves!".
You can also see that the pistils are not all white anymore (as I stated before).

So everything is good, the new installation works really well, all the buds receive a good amount of light and she won't get taller.

Don't hesitate to leave some comments !

Yo RIU Community !

Day 57 from seed :

The buds have swollen since the last check, more trichs appeared but you can't really see them on the pics (the flash from the camera make the buds glow like diamonds lol) and the smell is getting stronger everyday.

Nearly 70% of the hairs turned orange/red, I think that she is almost done so I'll give her only water, orange juice and apple juice from now on until I consider her DONE !

I accidently touched one of the lower buds when I moved her today and about an hour later I noticed the smell of weed on one of my fingers. Crazy !

New info: I added 2 newborn AK48 seedlings today (the 3rd one hasn't popped out of soil yet).
The situation hasn't changed for the new ones, i'll still use the same soil (dirt/coco), tap water and superthrive until they mature and the same 85W CFL light.
I might start a new thread about them later on.

Peace !