No, I didn't really expect the CFL to equal or outperform my HID light but I had heard so many people say how when they went with 6500K CFLs their plants vegged better, faster, had tighter nodal spacing etc. If I ever said HID was the way to go they would say something like, you never tried CFLs, have you? I told them I had never tried them so then people would say I don't know how good they are because I never tried them ... so I figured I would give them a try to see what they were like and so then people would stop saying I had never tried them so I didn't know what what I said about HID vs. CFL lighting for veg was not valid.
I made sure I used more CFLs that most people say they use, and as high or higher wattage ones than many of them say they use and while it was only an old batwing reflector with the sides extended down until they almost touched the pots, when as low as it could go, I at least had half decent to decent close in reflectivity and pretty good number of pictures I have seen of CFL growers they do not use any sort of reflective devices or hoods and only have bare bulbs hanging. I did that so no one could say I did not use enough CFLs or they were to low of wattage or not the right spectrum range or that I should have had some sort of reflective hood or material. I made sure to use them with a strain that I also grew with my 400-watt HID so it would be a better comparison, rather than like how we see one person say how they did so much better than someone else using HID lighting so CFLs are better, but it wasn't really a valid comparison since it was almost certainly two different strains being compared. And also it was in two different locations which would mean differing growing conditions/environment and being two different growers in two different locations in two different growing conditions/environment they were likely also of different levels of skill and experience, so added together, that sort of comparison would not be nearly as valid of one as what I did.
I shared my single experience comparing CFLs and 400-watts of HID since a less than valid comparison had previously been given that allegedly showed CFLs to be superior. I felt that both sides of a single coin, the same coin, needed to be shown and compared and what the results were and how that was a more valid comparison than the comparison given that showed the different sides of two different coins being compared and what the results allegedly were since what I did was far more of an apples to apples comparison example.
