Snow Crash
Well-Known Member
This is a common misperception. The peak wavelength for photosynthesis is a very narrow window pretty far into the red spectrum. The spectrum that corresponds to the 2700K color temperature actually peaks a little too close to orange, and a vast majority of the energy you are providing is not especially photosynthetically active. 2100K to 2300K is much more ideal when it comes to providing an efficient direction of PAR right in the spectrum the chlorophyll will benefit from the most. For this reason I suggest higher wattage 2700K Soft white bulbs to maximize the amount of energy you will get directly to the upper (heaviest flowering) part of the plant.
The Day Light spectrum, 5000K to 7000K bulbs, are much more efficient when it comes to giving your plant energy it can then directly translate into growth. The blue side of the light spectrum is a much larger window for maximum absorption so you will get a lot of energy to the plant with the day light bulbs. The higher color bulbs, 6500K and up, will actually carry very low levels of UV-A and UV-B (so put your stunner shades on inside the grow room dude!) and this radiation will assist trichome development later into flowering with a persistent bombardment of low level radiation. Trichomes are actually a reaction of the plant to coat the seed casings in a compound that acts like a natural sunscreen.
The idea here is to use enough red light to encourage the production of much needed flowering hormones, but not to dedicate so much of the total energy there that the plant fails to reach its full growth potential. The imbalance of the day light bulbs to soft white bulbs will allow your plants to fill out much better and produce perhaps 10% more trichomes than if running on only soft white light.
Here's a picture of a grow I did that is very similiar to what you are describing. There is a 46w soft white, and everything else is a 27w 5700K and 7000K daylight cfls.
These clones are from a Kandy Kush x Skunk #1 mother plant. They were placed directly into 12/12 lighting in a very ghetto cab I constructed. There's maybe 200w or so of total lighting, 5 plants. This picture is just before harvesting at about 65 days from cloning. I waited until they tipped over under their own weight.
Of all the plants I've grown and smoked this was some of the best. From this cheap ghetto ass cab I made bud that tasted and smelled like sour skittles and cotton candy had an illegitimate love child named Kandy, who ironically gave you the best lap dance you've ever had.
Trust me on this one, when it comes to CFL, you definitely want to have a dominant daylight spectrum, but that isn't to say you ignore soft white altogether.
What happened on the bottom leaves tho? Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out I appreciate it very much! I've been writing down everything I learn here on the forums and this post is definitely one for the books. Again thank you can't wait to start growin 
