has anyone grown w/ only CFL's

[weedracer119]

i would like to know if anyone has or if it's possible to grow with strictly CFL's. If so, how many and what wattage.

weedracer119 Reviewed by weedracer119 on 07-30-2005. has anyone grown w/ only CFL's i would like to know if anyone has or if it's possible to grow with strictly CFL's. If so, how many and what wattage. Rating: 5

[Nochowderforyou]

Yup, I sure have man. I used nothing but CFL's when I first started grosing. I did..2 grows if my memory serves me right.

First grow I did, was an Afghan x Jack Herer, I grew it with CFL's, only 65W! Ha ha! Man, that's funny...anyways, I vegged and flowered under it, it took about 90-100days from seed to harvest, and I got only about 6grams of low quality herb. I overfed, a common mistake for newbies So that cut my yeild big time, and potency, taste.

Second grow I did, I used 85W of CFL's, I grew White Widow, it took about 80days from seed to harvest, and I got about 14g's from that grow. Mainly because they were very high quality seeds, I shouldn't have used them dammit!

Yes, it is very possible to grow with nothing but CFL's, with even greater success. If you want to do this, I suggest doubling the wattage used in vegging for flowering. If you don't, the buds will be light, wispy, and not of great quality. So if you used 100W for vegging, use around 200W for flowering.

[weedracer119]

alright. that helps a lot. thanks man.

[skunk456]

hey man im on my first grow and this is what i haff in like 5 weeks of flowering with 3 150 watts and 2 100watts

[skunk456]

shit here there are

[BobBong]

you can do it .. and it can be done quite well too. I'm using the 150watt bulbs ... 6 of them = 900watts... some of the bulbs are a little older than others.. so i'm sure it's probably closer to 850watts now. with 3 100 w incandescents in there for some additional red spectrum light.

http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=17014

is the link to my grow board.. if you want to see some good CFL results and setups

[weedracer119]

thats sweet skunk. i like how it's lookin

[Marc Benson]

I'm thinking about some R&D with cfl's. Massive quantities with reflectors. For 2 -3 plants and basically build a canopy of light over and around them. Here's a drawing I threw together. Pretty much covers them with light. If you used 40 watt cfl's (daylight bulbs which are more in the blue spectrum at 6400K) which put out 2600 lumens each and generate about 150 watts of light each with 7 lights you'd have 18,200 lumens and the equivelent of 1050 watts of light and only drawing 280 watts. Reflectors would concentrate the light down towards where it needs to be.

I understand that best case you use mh's and hps's with 140,000,000,000 lumens, but for the small timer just looking for an efficient means this looks like it will work and not generate the heat the mh's and hps's will plus bathe the girls in lots of good light. Been proven that you can grow well in florescents. Maybe not the massive yields but for a lot of people just fine.

Of course reflectivity of the surrounding walls and everything would be key also. For flowering you throw in some Warm White bulbs and go to town.

What ya think?

[HARDDON]

If your CFL's are properly placed and you=r grow area is desinged right, you dont need the side lights during veg.

It is easy to manage to tops of the plants with CFL using a fan.

But with side lighting, remember the lights do get hot enuff to burn plants. And with fans blowing stems and leaves around....it can create more burn problems that wipe out any benefits.

Besides, side lights just arent needed with proper CFL's and reflective properties. Not during veg.

[Marc Benson]

HD, If you're referring to the drawing I did there really aren't side lights per se but just a 'dome' over the top of the plants. Just to get into some extra nooks and crannies of the top canopy.

But since refectivity has come up, really, if we think that the light from cfl's is pretty much junk after a few inches, then the light that is reflecting off any reflective surface, really isn't doing anything as it pertains to increasing the rate of growth. I'm sure someone here can figure out what the power of the light waves are after they go say 1 foot to the mylar wall and then bounce back to the plant I'd like to have the time to do a test with black walls to see if there was any more/less growth vs. say mylar. Might just be hype like a 3.0 GHz processor being so much better than a 2.7 GHz. Basically the same. Now if we're talking mega watt/mega lumen mh's or hps's then I can see where a reflective surface may help generate sufficient lumens back to the plant after it's long journey.

Fun to talk of such things. It's the way new ideas and techniques are developed.