Quote Originally Posted by headshake
you shouldn't so much worrry how tall you can get your plant because CFLs have terrible penetration.
That assumes that the lights are all together at top. That's something that my system of lighting allows me to easily overcome. I can string them up and down the plant, to allow the light to have some 3" from the bottom leaf, and also have lights within 3" of the top of the plant even if the plant is 3ft tall.

Right now I have 4890 lumens/ft^2, I think. A little low, but I read I need more than 3000, and 5000 is optimum.