Four Plant Perpetual LED Question

Hey Everyone,

I think I know what I want but I am open to suggestions otherwise. I am about to start a 4 plant perpetual cycle where I can never have more than 2 in flower or 2 in veg. So what I am thinking of doing is as follows:

-Only plant 1 seed let veg for 1 month
-Plant second seed 1 month into firsts veg
-Flip first plant at week 5-6
-Plant 3rd seed
-Move second over 5-6 weeks into its veg
-Repeat

That leads me to needing / wanting 2 maybe even 3 tents. One for veg, one flower, and one for drying

For the veg tent I am thinking a pendant COB LED in particular the OPTIC 1 Veg COB LEG 54w or an equivalent maybe with a dimmer at 4,000K or 5,000K

This should be sufficient to veg two plants but focusing mainly on one at at a time (slow down second ones veg)

Then for flowering I think I want some quantum boards or light strips, or COBs honestly open to whatever will fit my needs the best. I will be flowering in a 4 x 2 with one plant starting 4-5 weeks before the second. For this reason I ideally would like to have 2 separate lights both at 3,000K. I can turn one one for when I only have 1 plant and then the second when needed.

I would like to have a total wattage between the two lights to be around 300+ watts.

What are your recommendations for the two flower lights?

Thank you in advance

What kind of space are we talking for the flower tent? My (photo)girls fill up a 32"x32 footprint, one at a time. I have another tent for autos and vegging.
Your schedule sounds ok but leaves no room for long flowering strains, stress slow downs, or for the occasional operator error.
On the flowering lights, I use ~200w for flowering, and some scream it not enough. You be the judge, harvested her on the 4th. I use 2 Mars Hydro ts-600s

Johiem said:

What kind of space are we talking for the flower tent? My (photo)girls fill up a 32"x32 footprint, one at a time. I have another tent for autos and vegging.
Your schedule sounds ok but leaves no room for long flowering strains, stress slow downs, or for the occasional operator error.
On the flowering lights, I use ~200w for flowering, and some scream it not enough. You be the judge, harvested her on the 4th. I use 2 Mars Hydro ts-600s

Click to expand...

I am thinking of a 4x2 in flower. I understand there is plenty of room for error and that is ok. I do not require a big supply for my personal needs. I am rather focused on growing different strains until I find the one I like the best. So if I have to veg or flower one longer than I will adjust.

I want to focus on rock hard density on the colas I do harvest. I am ok with 20-30% of my larf or lower nugs to be used for pressing.

I have grown before with 2 cheapo burple china lights. I am ready for a more serious set up.

From what I am reading 30-50 watts per sqft in flower is more than enough. That is a range of min of 240 so I understand some of your girls crave more than 200. I would ideally like to be around 350-400 but I also am keeping costs into consideration. So my main question is finding to separate 150-200 watt LEDs that are each dimmable. I think this will give me the most flexibility for my scenario.

Hey!
It sounds like you have a good understanding of what you need and how it should all work together. I'd like to present another way of estimating your light needs, other than the watt/sq ft principle (i.e. 30-50 watt/sq ft). A more accurate way of both comparing different lamps and also understanding how well a particular lamp fits your grow space is to look at lamps' light footprints, i.e. how light is distributed from the lamps and over a certain area.

If you're haven't heard the term "PPFD" before, it's essentially another word for light intensity (photon density). PPFD can be measured in numbers. Mature cannabis plants thrive around 1000 PPFD when all other grow conditions are met (nutrients, temperature, humidity, etc). As a reference, seedlings do well at around 200-300 PPFD, veg around 300-500, and flowering up to 1000 PPFD. Hard core growers will sometimes give even higher PPFD, especially when adding CO2, but you get the picture.
We've written an article on this topic here: https://www.ledtonic.com/blogs/guides/how-to-find-best-led-grow-light-for-cannabis

Once a grow light brand has measured how their lamp performs, they usually create a "PPFD map" or a "light footprint map". Same thing, different name.
A PPFD map is a 2D image showing a certain area, e.g. 2x4', with various PPFD values across said area. Here you'll see how the lamp actually performs; how evenly it distributes light and at what intensity (PPFD). The entire plant doesn't need to be covered with high PPFD to grow, but the closer you are to ideal PPFD, the higher photosynthetic reaction you'll see (a bit simplified).

Here's an example of a 2x4' PPFD map our dual panel LEDTonic Q7 grow light.



In addition to creating a highly uniform light footprint in a 2x4' space, the two panels of the Q7 can be independently adjusted (horizontally and vertically) from one another. They both connect to the same driver and same dimmer so both panels dim in equal relation to each other but if you want to give half of your rent a bit less light than the other half, you can either rise one panel further away from a plant or you can angle it away from the plant, lowering the light intensity (PPFD).

If your goals are to get a lamp at around 350W (the Q7 is 320W) and to have different light intensity in different parts of your tent then I think it's worth considering our lamp. If you have any further questions about your grow space or the Q7, I'm always happy to help by PM or email.