Re: First Time Indoor Grow Closet - CFL - Herbies Lemon Kush Feminized Aiming For Org
plants look ok my friend,
how many cfls are you running in the room and what watts are they, you see how your plants are tall with fairly big node spacing, well this is a problem with cfls, if you dont have lots of cfls you end up with plants that stretch to find the brighter light, outdoors if a plant or stem is in the shade then it stretches to get back into the sunlight, indoors plants do the same but as we are giving them the light they dont actually find the sun so we have to add more lights,
the problem with big node spacing is that the buds wont meet up and form a huge bud at the end of each branch and stem, so when i used cfls i found to get the best out of the lights you need them side on to the plants, the ends of the bulbs give off very little light, so i used pipe cleaners and wrapped one end around the end of the bulb then i pulled the bulb upwards until it held the bulb side on to the plants, this will easily double the amount of light on the plants per bulb,
so cfls give off a lot more light from the sides of the bulbs, the other issue is this, hold your hand against the bulb then slowly lower it away, you will notice that after just 2 inches the light drasticallly drops off, so you need the bulbs within 2 to 4 inches of the plants, this is ok with short plants or a scrog but when the plant get tall the lower branches are getting very little light, so the only other option is to add plenty of side lighting and hang it down the sides of the plants, if the bulbs are just above the plants then the plants will keep stretching until they are getting plenty of light, i swapped to hps as i was using around 400 watts in cfls, i had 10 bulbs above the plants all side on and built reflectors out of foil trays to get everything reflected to the plants, then i had lights hanging down the sides of the plants,
with cfls the best option to grow is a scrog or use some lst to train the plants to keep them low and bushy, cfls work and work well, i still use cfls to start all my plants under as node spacing is very tight if you keep the bulbs close to the plant, so i found using lst to keep the plants bush and topping really paid off, that meant i didnt need lots of side mighting as i never let the plants grow above a certaint height,
so this time round you will have a good idea of how the plants grow and what they need, but if your going to stick with cfls then thats totally ok and they do work and you can get good yields with cfls, my first grow was with cfls and it did me very well, i ended up growing to many plants and using to many watts so changed to hps as i got 60,000 lumins from the hps and less than 1000 per cfl, so it made sense for me to switch, but if i was growing just a couple of plants which i do from time to time then i use the cfls, at the minute im flowering 2 plants off under cfls, a big kc45 auto and a jack flash, so cfls work and i still use them when i need to,
but if i was going to grow with just cfls then id either go with a scrog so the canope is even across the whole grow, id top the plants once then when the next 2 shoots grow and a new node on each id top them again giving my 4 shoot coming from the plant, then id have this in the middle of the scrog and grow each stem out to each corner and let the scrog fill up, keeping the canopy even really pays off with cfls, you can then use a lot less cfls as you dont need side lighting and anything below the scrog can be removed.
the other option i mentioned above is low stress training, again this is similar to a scrog but you just dont use a screen, you just tie the side branches down to make them grow outwards instead of up then pull the main stem over or top it and grow it outwards instead of letting it grow upwards,
so cfls can and will work well if you get the set up right, for some reason cfls keep the node spacing very tight, my node spacing on my seedings is so tight its hard to seperate the branches as their all sitting on top of each other then when i move the plants to hps they then start to stretch and fill out, but if i was growing 1 or 2 plants then id happily go back to use the cfls and id do a 2 plant scrog in my 3ft by 3ft room and easily pull off 4oz plus per plant, a scrog or lst is the best option for cfls unless you have lots and lots of side lighting, if the plant is not getting enough light then you end up with much taller plants and very little side branching, another issue that causes lanky plants is if the temps are to high, if you thought the plants are getting to tall to quick then all i do is top them and upwards growth slows and they bush out more, then top again if you want a bigger bush.
