growrooms x 2 questions?

[Weedhound]

Baldy.....I use 8 x 4x 8. I grow hydro. I've been getting about 4-5 oz with 4-6 plants in the space. That's 4-5 oz per plant...not total. I use a 1kw light. Everyone can add the numbers up any way they want and hash over watts per...in my HUMBLE opinion you have enough light and that's not your problem. if you have enough air space per plant then check your soil space....how big are you pots? And if that isn't the problem I'd start looking at your nutes and ph etc....just as HTID said above.

I've crabbed out my piece so will now leave you guys to decide.....Good Luck

[psteve]

Not much light at the edges of a 10'x10' room with just one 1k light. I use a 1k light in a 4'x4' hydrohut, and that seems about right, maybe a tad overkill. That comes out to about 60-ish watts of light power per square foot, so just a little more than the optimal 50. I could cover more area, but I'd have to raise the light significantly to do it, which would increase the distance between the light and the plants. And light intensity doesn't diminish linearly with distance, it's much worse than that. Let's say you're generating X lumens/sqft at 1 foot distance. At 2 feet, it's half that. At 3 feet it's 1/4 of that, at 4 feet it's 1/8 of that, and at 5 feet (the center of a 10'x10' room to the edges) it's 1/16 of the light intensity that exists at 1 foot from the light.

The general rule of thumb is: 400 watt HPS light = 3'x3' square. 600 watt light = 4'x4' square, and 1k light = 5'x5' square. Thus, a 10'x10' room would, realistically, need four 1k lights, if you used the entire space for flowering, and wanted reasonable yield from all of the plants. If you don't care about yield, then sure, you could use one 23-watt CFL in a 50'x50' room. Just wouldn't get much from each plant.

This is pretty much right on. The 400=3x3 and 1k=5x5 room is pretty much the max that those lights can handle efficiently.

[Weedhound]

Look guys perhaps I'm not saying it correctly so let me put it differently. What I am getting from your answers to his thread is this: Without a bunch more light he cannot hope to get a better yield than one ounce per plant in a six by six space by simply using 1kw. Sorry, but I find that to be ridiculous. A good friend of mine grew in a closet larger than that with a 400w hps and yielded two ozs per plant on his first complete grow.

Baldy if you look through some of the grow logs you will find many many people here who easily yield more than an oz per plant without using three times the wattage, including me. I think you have enough light......it certainly would be plenty for me.

Peace.

[Markass]

I'm with weedhound on this....I used a 250 w/ cool tube with 3 ladies...they all gave me around 2 ounces each, 6 ounces total..something wasn't right if you had a 600 and 400 and only got 1 ounce per plant...

[psteve]

Look guys perhaps I'm not saying it correctly so let me put it differently. What I am getting from your answers to his thread is this: Without a bunch more light he cannot hope to get a better yield than one ounce per plant in a six by six space by simply using 1kw. Sorry, but I find that to be ridiculous. A good friend of mine grew in a closet larger than that with a 400w hps and yielded two ozs per plant on his first complete grow.

Baldy if you look through some of the grow logs you will find many many people here who easily yield more than an oz per plant without using three times the wattage, including me. I think you have enough light......it certainly would be plenty for me.

Peace.

The point isn't that he needs more light for his six plants, it's that he's wasting light buy using the whole room. He can get a better yield from his same six plants under his same 1000 Watts by reducing his room size.
And yes, he can probably also increase his yield by increasing his pot size to 5-7 gallon.

[Weedhound]

And I'm sorry Steve but I still disagree. I don't think he's wasting light at all. My understanding of the question was this....could he increase his yield using the specs he had (vs smaller space)? I say yes. And I still think you will find that there are plenty of others who "waste light" and still easily yield better than an oz per plant.

[baldyhippy]

Morning guys.

Looks like you chaps continued this discussion while I was tucked up in my bed...respect to you all for discussing in my absense,let me try and explain this morning without my stoner head on.

Ok so I tried 12 plants under a 600+400 in a room 6x6x7 and only managed roughly a oz per plant,Ive done some more research into (why) thats all I got and what I could have done better.....a big wrong on my part was yes I potted up along the way ending up with 6.5 ltr square pots to flower in,however instead of letting the rootball form properly I think I was premature in switching to 12/12...Flower was started as soon as i seen roots at the bottom and height wize they were around 18" so there i guess was my first mistake,a bigger rootball/mass would av given me bigger yield...yes? Yield is important to me,Im growing for 2 (the wife) and myself,im just looking on how to improve things with what ive got,I still class my self as a newbie to all aspects of growing.

Weedhound Fair play to you mate If your pulling 4-5oz dry from a single plant can you tell me if theses are rooted cuts and how long do you veg them before switching to flower? Ive tinkered with hydro myself on and off (nft 901) and my best after 19 days veg period was 3oz per plant (strain was mazar) So why change things I hear you saying.....well its only another experiement really to try and become self effcient pluss i like the fact that i can now move single plants about easier much better if im running into probs with mites ect: tbh i think if i let the roots fill their final pots properly and possibly use bigger pots and wait for it....the smaller room,surley i can double my last attempt at least...time will tell my friend,meentime thanks again folks,please keep your opinions coming.

Bh.

[psteve]

And I'm sorry Steve but I still disagree. I don't think he's wasting light at all. My understanding of the question was this....could he increase his yield using the specs he had (vs smaller space)? I say yes. And I still think you will find that there are plenty of others who "waste light" and still easily yield better than an oz per plant.

Yes. It is definitely possible to consistently grow more than an ounce per plant under less than ideal conditions.
I've seen patients with good luck pull more than an ounce from plants grown under CFL's in a corner of their living room.
But if you want to maximize your plants potential for density, potency and yield, >50W/sq.ft. is pretty much the accepted standard.
My advice is...
Pot size up, room size down.

[Weedhound]

Steve....I hear you and I think we are talking about different things here. I believe you are stating the maximum ideal conditions in which to grow correct? I have no doubt that you are right in what you say..... the absolute BEST conditions for lighting etc.

Perhaps I misunderstood the question....my understanding of it was that Baldy felt his only problem to a better yield was that he felt he did not have enough light. This is what I am disagreeing with. I think there are all sorts of things he could try that would improve the yield using the specs he had.

PS....my math DOES suck. :thumbsup:

[Weedhound]

bh, I grow from seed because I like variety myself. My veg (and germ) time is usually between 4-5 weeks....I do flower them at about 10-12 inches. Do you have any photos of your grow?