Will 150w HPS outperform 372w of T5HO?

[Chromophore]

yeah giggle I'm in my first flowering and I let things go a bit too long before putting them in 12/12. I now have plants with 6' tops. Oops.

[giggletwig]

Yeah, me too, Chromophore! My Tangerine Dream is over 6 ft. She's currently doing the limbo, got her tied over even with the others. It's a real jungle in my grow room right now! Pretty fuzzy buds poppin' all over... Sometimes I just sit with them and admire.

[tlranger]

Sometimes I just sit with them and admire.

Probably a really good thing, your in an oxygen rich environment(euphoric), and your giving back to them(co2).
Which by the law of - give and you shall receive - may add up to some goood stuff!

[Chromophore]

I will confide that the last few nights I have gotten up out of bed at 2 or 3 am and wandered down to the basement to my grow rooms, and just stood in the flowering room for 10 minutes or so, taking it in. Then I was able to go back to bed and sleep.I'm betting OMB is doing this as well.

[OMB]

I will confide that the last few nights I have gotten up out of bed at 2 or 3 am and wandered down to the basement to my grow rooms, and just stood in the flowering room for 10 minutes or so, taking it in. Then I was able to go back to bed and sleep.I'm betting OMB is doing this as well.

Guilty! Hahaha....Last few nights I have practically been rolling in there. Those HPS girls are making serious run now, and the T5 girls are looking pretty dramatic.
I will take a couple more pics later tonight when I'm "Rolling" in it.

[OMB]

Here's a couple pics. The power of the T5's is evident. The HPS is making a run, but I think this race is already over.....and I win! Think I'm at 5 weeks in today, those T5 girls are looking pretty shoddy with all those yellow leaves...but the bud's are getting huge.
I am really digging my "pocket" plants, those midget's are the cat's meow.
I should have shutoff the side light when I took pics....oops. Can't really see how heavy those branches are getting.

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[Chromophore]

Interesting. My HPS flowers are nearly identical in development to yours, and are the same age. The T5s are clearly further along. Can you get a feel for the density of the buds? Does either group seem more "airy" than the other?

[OMB]

Hey chromophore, The T5 buds are dense . They were pretty dense the first go, but these are even more solid. I haven't really put the "squeeze" on the HPS one's yet, so not sure about them. Hard to keep my grubby little hands off those T5 girls, the smell is heavenly.
The arms of those little stubbies are look like they are going to be solid buds to the branch bends....very cool.
I'm not sure why people end up with "airy" buds under T5's...maybe they aren't using enough Watts or total Lumen? It occurred to me that the 6 bulb 4 foot fixture I'm using is a
"narrow" beam. Supposedly directs most of the light down instead of a 270 degree arc.
Beats me, but it's working pretty well right now.
I'm working up to a run using a direct watt comparison, or at least being much closer in total watts. Which brings me to this question....
If I add another 150 watt HPS, I'm still just hitting them with 150 watts of light intensity with better penetration?....or now I have 300 watts with better penetration?
...and would I be better served swapping the 150 HPS for 400 watt HPS instead of adding another 150? Really, I don't care about using the HPS....I'm a T5 guy, I just used the HPS cause I had it laying around.
I will have to think about it....Frankly, I don't want to invest anymore money in the whole thing. It's just a small grow for personal Meds so I should really just concentrate on using and perfecting under the T5's.

[Chromophore]

The problem with trying to gauge how wattage affects growth is that it's simply a measure of the bulb's energy consumption. Technically it says nothing about the type or intensity of light output. We go around and around on this issue in our research greenhouses. The real issue is lumens (or better yet PAR), wavelengths, penetration and efficiency. Some of that is obviously connected to bulb/ballast type and wattage. But many many other variables can influence all of those qualities. I like the HPS in the sense that it produces lots of red light (I use a 600 watt Ushio Opti-Red bulb and a light spreader) as red wavelengths are useful for flowering. I think in general the more light intensity you can provide, the better, as long as it's not burning the plants or over-heating things. And OMB you may find this interesting: in playing with the PAR meter in the greenhouse, I find that light intensity drops off in a non-linear way with distance from the source. In other words, PAR at 10 feet from the bulb is far less than half the value at 5 feet. So, optimal distance from the light source may be a more important factor than many people realize.

[OMB]

Good stuff chromophore, very useful info. PAR's are a little out of my league at this point. Lol....I do keep the T5's within 6"s of the plant tops, and I think another big factor is the LST I do when they are only about a week into flower. It works with my stumpy strain, but I suspect I would not be so lucky with a "leggier" strain.
Talk about luck...bringing those seeds back from Maui...Germinating them 2 years later....having the lone survivor of the original 8 seedlings be 5 feet tall, and then having all clones be short and stumpy.
Damn....even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then! Thank goodness plants are resilient, even I can't seem to screw 'em up too bad.