A test... Flowering with CFLs

Fellow gardeners,

When an engineer smokes pot, several things happen. First, the conversations get really strange (not sure that is special to engineers). Second, something is going to be engineered. Finally, somebody is going to get naked (prob more info than you needed).

So, now I am growing and quite pleased with the results. I know just about everyone has said not to flower with CFLs. While, as bad as it sounds, it makes me have to figure out how to do it successfully. I will post the progress here for everyone who is interested to follow.

There may be a cheaper way. There may be a better way, but I am set on developing a way to flower with CFLs which will not only work, but will exceed my expectations and the opinions of the general growing community. With everyones help, I am confident of my success.

Any interest?

-ngtybear

How many plants are you gonna grow? Keep us posted.

I am actually sort of doing the same. I used 2 flood lights and 2 cfls for the bottom. Seems to do okay. Good Luck.

i've had more than excellent results with cfl's... but i had to have 5 per plant to get a good thing going. buds were light and airy, and the weight suffered, but it did work

kp

My experience with flouros for flowering have always been frustrating... you have to adjust the lights every day, and the product (as kindprincess points out) is not worth the labor...

I would only recommend using flouros in the veg/clone room and as side lighting in the grow room (under at least 400 hps or mh)...

Im all for experiments though... if you only want 1 plant, it might work.

plant grown and flowered under cfl will be small streched and yeild smaller less powerful buds. the real problem imo with cfl growing is it works but its like night and day. now a days i would flower 1 plant under 1k hps or 9. i learned the hard way buying 400 watters now i limit my flourcent lights to cloning only. mh for compact bushy plants then hps to stretch them for flowering.

plants cant develope root structure very well under cfl even with 5 lights. i think plants do best with one light source.

high output bulbs are a must, i replace my 1 k bulbs every 3 flowering cycles.
@150 k lumens they crank out the light after 6 months of 12 12 they lose alot but still consume the same. i first spent 2500 on my first grow over a grand on lights.

to sum this babbling up enegry in = output out. lumens drop off fast from cfl. so if you got say 2100 lumens. then @ 3 inches away you are getting 1500 max at 6 inches your getting 1100 or less. so doing the math if you use 5 cfls your using low watts and most of the plant is starving for light. @ 2 foot from 150000 lumens you lost over 30% at 3 foot somewhere around 75%

One last thought i have on cfls is they cause streching so if you blast the buds and your nodes are 6 inches apart is it really worth it. your large sun leaves process the food and light for the plant.

6 years ago i flowered a plant on blue and red 4' foot tube flourcents lights 16 bulbs @ 40 watts i veged for three months flowered for 2.5 months they only grew 4.5 feet tall my buds grew 1-3 inches of all three plants i yeilded less than 3 oz of bud. in the end the outdoor strain took forever to finish. now i go clone to finish in 9-11 weeks from cutting. these bulbs were te best i could buy. CFL is for low usage. you wouldnt put a lawn mower in your car. dont flower under those. dont veg under those if at all possible either. you save energy but take risk for low reward. and if you need fast finishing plants you need HID

abudsmoker said:

6 years ago i flowered a plant on blue and red 4' foot tube flourcents lights 16 bulbs @ 40 watts i veged for three months flowered for 2.5 months they only grew 4.5 feet tall my buds grew 1-3 inches of all three plants i yeilded less than 3 oz of bud.

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Wow! You vegged for 3 months?? Thats a long time.

i would have veg longer i just didnt know better i found out after 3 months from finally getting a book then i went to 12 12. we didnt have these message boards back then. hell i only fed them 2 times with miracle grow. over the years i got great genitics good light great enviroment. hid light have become cheaper and more advanced, i would say if you really want to grow dont grow bag seed. and definatly try to avoid making plants suffer with this light source (cfl's)

i agree with my experience on cfl's you really cant expect anything great. Good Luck though. Peace

weird that coz if you check out skunk.co.uk you will see hundreds of really succesful grows using 200w envirolites which are cfls ,cfl/flouros is all that growers had a few years ago ,if u use the correct amount of lumens at the correct distance from the plants you can get excellent results as they did in the 70s n 80s .yeah mh/hps are better but to say cfls opr flouros are crap is a joke ,its more of a case of people not using the correct lumens etc.

ThE sAtIvA hIgH said:

weird that coz if you check out skunk.co.uk you will see hundreds of really succesful grows using 200w envirolites which are cfls ,cfl/flouros is all that growers had a few years ago ,if u use the correct amount of lumens at the correct distance from the plants you can get excellent results as they did in the 70s n 80s .yeah mh/hps are better but to say cfls opr flouros are crap is a joke ,its more of a case of people not using the correct lumens etc.

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i like to here this sence i have been watching this theard also sence im planing on going this same route sence this will be my first grow,thats what i was planing is more its about the amount of lumens you use. i plan on having alot of cfl's for flowering. what is a good amount to be used for the flowering stage of 1 plant to say like 4.

Thanks for the great advice

abudsmoker said:

plant grown and flowered under cfl will be small streched and yeild smaller less powerful buds. the real problem imo with cfl growing is it works but its like night and day. now a days i would flower 1 plant under 1k hps or 9. i learned the hard way buying 400 watters now i limit my flourcent lights to cloning only. mh for compact bushy plants then hps to stretch them for flowering.

plants cant develope root structure very well under cfl even with 5 lights. i think plants do best with one light source.

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What an absolute load of rubbish.

You're perfectly entitled to your opinion of course, but because you've had problems growing with cfls in the past, mainly because YOU don't understand plant light requirements is no reason to damn them as being unsuitable.

Plants can't develop good root structure under cfl's? Do you actually know what you're talking about? Root growth occurs during the dark period - not during the light period! Much of the root growth and root formation takes place in the vegetative growth stage when much lower light levels are required for growth and root growth slows down in the flowering phase when the higher light levels are required. Plants only need about 2,500 lumens at the plant tops for healthy and rapid vegetative growth - there's plenty of blue spectrum cfl's aorund that can supply that kind light output.

Everyone's experiences are important and we can all learn from them, but not when they're littered with innacuracies, misunderstanding and confusion like yours are.

abudsmoker said:

to sum this babbling up enegry in = output out. lumens drop off fast from cfl. so if you got say 2100 lumens. then @ 3 inches away you are getting 1500 max at 6 inches your getting 1100 or less. so doing the math if you use 5 cfls your using low watts and most of the plant is starving for light. @ 2 foot from 150000 lumens you lost over 30% at 3 foot somewhere around 75%

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Babbling is the right word. You know, if you don't know what you're talking about - sometimes it's best not to say anything at all?

Lets clear up some of this nonsense.

"lumens drop off fast from cfls".

Wrong. Lumens dimish to the square of the distance from the source - this applies equally to cfls as it does to HPS as it does to MH as it does to any other light source.

"so if you got say 2100 lumens. then @ 3 inches away you are getting 1500 max at 6 inches your getting 1100 or less."

Wrong. Lumens are measured at 1 foot from the light source. 1 Lumen = the amount of light falling from 1 candle, 1 foot away on to 1 square foot of surface area. Light intensity = light output divided by distance squared. So if you're moving the source closer to the light than 1 foot distance you're INCREASING the amount of light the source gets, not decreasing it.

"so doing the math if you use 5 cfls your using low watts and most of the plant is starving for light."

I'm doing the math, and if you work it out correctly, using the correct formulas the plant isn't starving for light.

"@ 2 foot from 150000 lumens you lost over 30% at 3 foot somewhere around 75%"

Wrong. From 150000 lumens at 2 foot away you get 150,000/2x2= 37,500, that's a loss of a lot more than 30%. At 3 foot it would be 150,000/3x3=16,666, which is a loss of also a lot more than 75%.

babygro helped me w/ alot of great information Id listen to him/her!!!

well said babygrow ...some of these guys think indoor growing only started when hps systems were launched

Another big plus with CFLs that hasn't been mentioned yet is that you can keep your grow area cool without resorting to a Vortex. Muffin fans do the job great.

^^that's not entirely true. cfl's do produce heat, and several of them in a cab can cause excessive heat.

kp

I'm flowering with a 70 watt hps and 216 watts of cfl's and I've realized hid lights are not neccessary. Hid lights have more lumens per watt than cfl's but cfl's have more usable lumens since they can be put half an inch away from plants hope that makes sence.

kindprincess said:

^^that's not entirely true. cfl's do produce heat, and several of them in a cab can cause excessive heat.

kp

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That's true KP, they do give off a fair amount of heat.

The amount of heat given off by the CFLs is far less than with an MH/HPS lamp which can be a factor in deciding to use them. In addition to the cabinet temps, in order to keep your HID lights as close as your CFL usually requires use of a cool tube.

When I started this grow, a lot of people said you can not grow with CFLs (other than "seedlings." I sat down, did the math, and it did not add up. So, I built a system based on what I understood to be correct. Amazing, it growing pot, and not just some stretched out stems (IMHO).

I am very thankful to this forum. I have learned a lot here. Most of all, I have learned to be patient and listen to a lot of perspectives while doing my own research.

Now there are many saying I can not / should not flower with CFLs. Well, here is a chance for us all to find out. I'm listening. Tell me what you think I am doing wrong or how it can be improved. You can also welcome to tell me what you think I am doing right.

Thank you to several of you which have provided some great posts. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. I am adding white sides to cover the foil as has been suggested by babygro, and will not be "pruning" anything.

They will all be grown in the base of the bottom container. I have been told in other threads that each plant must be in it's own pot. The current grow is showing this not to be the case. They are doing very well with 12 plants in two containers. We will see how things go when I thin out the males and transfer them to their new home.

Enclosed is a photo of how they are doing right now. I will start a new thread shortly as a grow log. Please continue to provide your advice and comments.

I am about to make two changes to what you see here. I am going to add a few more lights to the sides right above the dirt to provide some light beneath the canopy. I am also going to switch out the 6500k CFL's for 2700k for flowering. I may use the 6500k for under the canopy.