CFL under canopy

Four 23w CFL’s were added near the bottom-center of the plants (to diminish foliar-shading) adding 6400 lumens to lower branches. Also, added a T12 fluorescent light unit (two 23w bulbs) to help diminish shading in lower branches.
Does anybody know if there is a benefit/risk factor to this approach?

the more the better. i always use sidelighting and strongly suggest if at all possible other growers do as well. I cannot envision a situation where sidelighting would in itself be a negative as long as your temps are good and you dont let the plant get burned by the lights.

i would tie that plant so you can fit a few bulbs kind of inside it. that way all of the bulbs light output is absorbed. im assuming you still have some lights over the tops themselves, are you or are you asking about only using sidelighting w/o using any lights on top?

We have a 600w hps above, we are merely supplementing the HID with CFL's in order to eliminate shadows. We were simply wondering is it really beneficial to have lighting under the plants vs. above them?

I use it too. Can't have too many lumens, from what I have learned combined with my experience.

Sidelighting allows parts of the plants that wouldnt get alot of light that are deeper down on the plant to grow and help them really fill out nicely instead of getting some smaller colas/popcorn buds from under the canopy. even a 600w hps's light loses its penetrating power as it gets deeper into the plant. Even though leaves are alot less solid than they appear and only about 15% of the light that hits leaves actually hit the chloroplasts to perform photosythesis and the other 85% keeps going on so its only gonna be able to get to/penetrate about leaf 6 or 7.