THE SUN VS 400w HPS for Flowering.

OK here we go. My place has 3 large windows, The sun rises in one end and sets in the other so FULL SUN all day . I have 6 plants. To save on hydro ive been using the natural SUN light for the vegg stage, for 12 hours then when the sun goes down I move them to a 400Watt HPS for the other 6. They Look great so far almost ready for Flowering 12/12

HERE"S the million dollar question.

Will I get a better yeild if I use the natural sun light to Flower for 12hrs and then put them in the dark. OR 12 hrs under the HPS.

ALL input and advice are welcome

awesome fucking question. i think this calls for an experiment

Anyone>>>>???????

That's a good question.
I would imagine the answer would be.......drumroll........the sun.
With the sun being "the mother of all lights" and having the same light spectrum of an HPS + having all the other spectrums, it'd have to be the sun???
Plus, lumen-wise, I believe the 400 HPS puts out 50,000 lumens whereas the sun puts out lumens "in the millions", hence winning the lumens battle.
Just an IMO,

Sounds like a plan : )

you might want to consider that also some days the sun wont be out alot
and the strain of the plants may also make a diffrence but id imagine only really if you plan to take them outside that is..
also u might find with the hps being so close and directed just @ your plant it may do better

i would just say do a few under the light and a few in the window and see what happens

a few people i know like to put there's outside for a bit of natural
anyway good luck and will be intresting to see the results !!

and ive even heard that if you bring an outdoor plant indoor's for its last few weeks it tightens the buds up a bit and gives it a bit more taste :
as there is less wind and rain to deal with maybe anoter experement that could be tried there especially handy if you live in a rainy climate and the weather goes bad for a few days

I thought about the days the sun wouldn't be out.
Just like humans getting a tan and/or sunburned on a cloudy day, I would imagine the same for plants.
Even if it's a cloudy day, it's still...... LIGHT.......outside and/or lumen.....ous?
It would be nice experiment and I would imagine it's been done on these boards. As an answer to the original "yield" question, I'd still bet on outdoors as I've read many times over on diff posts that the yield/quality are both much higher on outdoor grown?
Is there anyone who has done both? with the same strains? germed at the same time?
Just curious.

The sun may output millions of Lumens but the Lux received in the house would be more around 15,000 Lux which could be outdone by an HPS. Direct sunlight is rated between 30,000 Lux and 130,000 Lux depending on where one lives. I think you would get tighter node spacing using an HPS personally, but the sun has proven itself to be a fine producer so wouldn't hurt to go with it.

Thanks for the help. : )

Hey why not both ? That's what people do with green houses set the big light on a timer have it come on in the morning time. 7-7 or whatever.
Are you sure your neighbors are'nt seeing your plants play it safe yanno.

since you want to do 6 plants i agree with s. mills.. put 1 or 2 in the sun to flower and use the HPS on the other's this will answer your question, and will tell you which to use for your next grow (assuming you will grow again).

if you're using the sun, then they should veg in the sun as well. plants stretch accordingly to the light until they are comfortable.

im doing this experiment currently....

flowering under the sun and a 250 w hps with 100 w cfl's.....

they r 6 weeks into flower

400w for 6 plants, are you kidding me or trying to pull my legg? i'm in the process of getting 4-600w's!

On a hot summer day the sun produces 10000 lumens per square ft

Sir Master Ganji said:

400w for 6 plants, are you kidding me or trying to pull my legg? i'm in the process of getting 4-600w's!

Click to expand...

You can pull off 6 plants under a 400 watt, just not 6 BIG plants!

I have a couple of plants outdoors, 2 of which i am currently flowering by bringing indoors into a dark room every evening at 6pm and back out the next day at 6am. This is my first grow and one of my plants, looks fantastic and covered in flowers (there is somethign funky going on with the other).

There is another question that should be asked i think, light penetration. On my outdoor plants, i have flowers deep inside the of the plant, it is my understanding that these types of flowers would not get the needed light if they were under an HPS. I would suspect that the sun would do a much better job of penetrating the canopy, thus turning more nodes into flowers. Does this make any sense, or am i too much of a newbie to provide any insight?

Also i have noticed that on my plants in veg, the node are very close together. For me (unexperienced) is making it harder for me to take clones, but then again i have so many nodes that i was able to take about a dozen off of one plant by taking from inside of the canopy.

HGus said:

I have a couple of plants outdoors, 2 of which i am currently flowering by bringing indoors into a dark room every evening at 6pm and back out the next day at 6am. This is my first grow and one of my plants, looks fantastic and covered in flowers (there is somethign funky going on with the other).

There is another question that should be asked i think, light penetration. On my outdoor plants, i have flowers deep inside the of the plant, it is my understanding that these types of flowers would not get the needed light if they were under an HPS. I would suspect that the sun would do a much better job of penetrating the canopy, thus turning more nodes into flowers. Does this make any sense, or am i too much of a newbie to provide any insight?

Also i have noticed that on my plants in veg, the node are very close together. For me (unexperienced) is making it harder for me to take clones, but then again i have so many nodes that i was able to take about a dozen off of one plant by taking from inside of the canopy.

Click to expand...

Do you have pictures?

Plants flower better outdoors. The buds are a lot thicker, and yield is more. The sun penetrates the canopy better also because its moving, or rather we're moving, so it's not just a single static light source hanging directly above.

Saying that, flowering under a 1000w HPS gives you quite nice, tight buds as well. Tastier too. You can add floro's against the walls closer to the base of the plants if you worried about light penetration.

But you also gotta bear in mind your strain.

My opinion, if you got the luxury of choice, take the sun. It produces all the right spectrum's of light, gives you more......and it's free!

yeah direct sunlight will smoke a lamp in terms of light and spectrum any day, your routine of sun plus hps for veg is solid, use as much sun as you can for flower as the sun has no trouble getting to the bottom of the plant like a lamp does, like if a plant is sitting there in the sun the lumens are the same at the top as the bottom....that cant be said about artificial light

I am about to try flowering in sunshine, starting 9 days from now as per my plan. I'm worried because I heard it is critical, like the most important thing, to use an hps for best results in flowering.

I have a 1000W MH for night time now in veg, and I use outdoors on nice calm days or natural light in the greenhouse on rougher/colder days during the sunny hours.

The ballast is dual hps/mh, but I'm a little reluctant to go downtown to buy a 1000 HPS, as the guy at the electrical store said, "Yeah, that's what I sell to everyone for their grow ops", when I asked if he carried 1000W MH bulbs back 9 weeks ago... I told him I'm growing heirloom tomatoes. Bet he's heard that before.

Living in a small isolated town (2 + hour plane ride to a magor center), you don't have the comfort of anonymity!

Anybody have any further news on actual results from their experiments?

Thanks, I'm all ears.

(PS I just noticed my profile says 'Stranger' (!) Reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers!

Just to let you know, this is my first grow and my first post. Don't know why it says '2'.

I planted 5 Burning Bush seeds, and 5 Saphire Star. Here's the description from the seed bank of what I'm supposed to get:

"1.Burning Bush: NL x SuperSilver Haze x Blueberry
Sativa x Indica 6’ very exotic strain. visionary high. great flavour and yield. flowering time 63 d.

2. Saphire Star: Blue Hawain x God Bud. Sativa x Indica. 7’ soaring high. uplifting. Connoisseur strain, not cash crop. 56d

8 of the ten grew into plants, 3 were males, I have 5 plants nearing flowering, actually ready to flower but I'm vegging them a little more first.)