Bud development with cfl

I have a few questions, I'm using 5 26 wat red spec for flower at the moment. I'm at day 33 of this bagseed plants life, day 5 of flower and it just started showing little girl hairs today.

First question is, what do you think the growth rate of the buds will be under these lights from your experience?

Second question is, from it being day 33 and all how long do you think it will take to flower this gal? My guess is around a month until it's looking ready.

Thanks in advance, and + rep will be given to good thought out answers.

Listening and learning

honestly man, as a cfl grower myself i can say that your buds just wont look like what an hps puts out, but they'll still be awsome. can we get some pics>? cant tell how long you got unless we can see

Mr.Organic said:

honestly man, as a cfl grower myself i can say that your buds just wont look like what an hps puts out, but they'll still be awsome. can we get some pics>? cant tell how long you got unless we can see

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Yeah this is at day 31. Even if it was light in my room right now my cam isn't good enough quality to take a picture of the first hairs because they are so tiny at the moment.

id give it like 2 months at least

Think so? Why do you think two months?

for fun stick with cfls if you lookin for weight grab an HID light for sure. u can get em in 250w for small size ops

FarmerNinja said:

for fun stick with cfls if you lookin for weight grab an HID light for sure. u can get em in 250w for small size ops

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Yeah i am just worried about my bill every month though.

20-30 more dollers a month for an hps is well worth the superior weight of bud it would produce.
you dont wanna waste 3 months to get a quater that ull smoke in two days do you?

i dont see any bud on that plant if thats the one thats flowering. id add some more lights now.

my first grow was an ak47 in soil that i used 2 cfls and after a full 11 week flowering i got barley a quater of fluffy bud no density at all.

its definatly fun to grow pot and its a cheap way but i guarantee that you will get tired of your results and upgrade.
keep it how it is for this grow and see. give it untill the pistills are an orange brown or get a magnifiyng lense and go by the tricomes.
flowering by a set number of weeks is never a good idea they will be ready when they are ready

cyber is right you can grow as much in one cycle with an HID than in 2 cycles of cfls. and your bill wont be very much higher. its less than running a desktop computer all the time

FarmerNinja said:

cyber is right you can grow as much in one cycle with an HID than in 2 cycles of cfls. and your bill wont be very much higher. its less than running a desktop computer all the time

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Thanks guys your making me consider doing it haha + rep for both of ya

you seem to be on about the same track as SeeMoreBuds' journal in "how to grow 8 oz. of bud for less than $100". theirs popped pistils at day 31, 14 days after they were put into flowering.
their harvest is 1 mango plant and 2 blue dots. 3 oz. off the mango and 5 off the blue dots.
i had a couple plants under 6 23w. cfl's and they had nice buds forming on them but my mom killed them before i got my card lol. came home from work and they were gone ='(

but you will get better penetration with the 45w cfl's that put out 150w. equivalent. that's what these guys used and as you can see in the pictures, they are using 6, maybe 7 of them? they're about $10 a piece but worth it. also, homemade light fixture system that makes it easy to bend and adjust lights.

oh and i'm sure you already know to keep those things close as hell. 1 inch from the tops is preferred if possible.

so hopefully that can give you some comparison. lemme know if you want screenshots of the later stages to compare, or more info on the layout of the light fixture system.

and i dunno where the file link came from lol. weird.

Yeah i have read this book and its a good one for sure. Also i have 3 42 wat red spectrum cfl i just need to work out a heat issue before i use them.

im not a phycic but let me tell u whats gonna happen if u dont take there advice, your gonna flower way longer with those CLFs, then your gonna get shitty buds and be dissapionted and at the end realisin how much time u wasted over the last few months then on your second grow you will get a HID for sure. or u can get one now and have alot better quailty bud and more to smoke, worse case u can use the CLFs as side lighting your girls will love that. good luck

yeah i agree with everyone lol cfls suck.. but arent bad for starting clones... just succesfully cloned from a plant 4 and a half weeks into flower, quite proud of myself. haha but cant afford a hps, so im stuck with putting them outside during the day... (yes i stay up till day light) lol but all in all not bad size. i reccomend a 600w, with ozone on the inlet, regualuar fert, and a cooltube, witha digital ballast, just calluculate the cost of a kw perhour and times that by how many hours the light is on, and how many weeks/months its guna be on. for example, 12 x 0.16 cents per KW, $1.92 70 days times $1.92 equals 134.4. with approx 7oz per week in a perfect world. its costy to start off, but who'd complain with $1200 worth of bud every harvest? teheheheh.

Just gotta love cfl haters LOL you can grow seriously dank buds with cfl's if you grow em right and understand how to dial everything in properly

the main reason folks love hps so much is lights are often not used properly and are very misunderstood

riddleme said:

Just gotta love cfl haters LOL you can grow seriously dank buds with cfl's if you grow em right and understand how to dial everything in properly

the main reason folks love hps so much is lights are often not used properly and are very misunderstood

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Nah, I don't agree with that. Up until today I had 385 watts of CFL lights. Made up of quite a few bulbs, not just one. Yes, in terms of heat ect it was good but if you take that 385 watts of CFL and the new 400 Watt HPS I now have. The HPS is far better and is consuming only an extra 15 Watts. So, in short, I made the mistake of trying to do everything on the cheap with CFL lights ect, in the end I spent more money than needed when I could have got a 400 Watt HPS/MH( probably even a 600 watt) setup for the same price if not less than I spent buy all the CFLs and had better results.

I won't dispute that you can grow nice buds with a CFL setup, but never as dense and lovely as you can with an HPS setup.

joshrose54 said:

Nah, I don't agree with that. Up until today I had 385 watts of CFL lights. Made up of quite a few bulbs, not just one. Yes, in terms of heat ect it was good but if you take that 385 watts of CFL and the new 400 Watt HPS I now have. The HPS is far better and is consuming only an extra 15 Watts. So, in short, I made the mistake of trying to do everything on the cheap with CFL lights ect, in the end I spent more money than needed when I could have got a 400 Watt HPS/MH( probably even a 600 watt) setup for the same price if not less than I spent buy all the CFLs and had better results.

I won't dispute that you can grow nice buds with a CFL setup, but never as dense and lovely as you can with an HPS setup.

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Grown with only 97 watts of light 1 65 watt cfl with an added 32 watt T9 (see avatar)

it's all about knowing how everything works together

ive never grown with CLFs before but i guess u can put them closer to the plant and if u get 200watts worth of CLFs u can spread them around the plant unlike a HID which is directed in 1 spot, so im sure if u got your shit together u could do well from CLFs.

What store carries these high watt lights? I went to home depot last night and they didn have anything over 100 watts of either HPS or MH.