Cfl golden ratio

Hello all! I'm about to start my second indoor grow and I have a few questions. First, is there a certain ratio for the amount of wattage per square foot, per plant, or whatever else? I plan on having them be four feet when I put the 5 of them into budding FYI. If anyone has the ballpark estimate on how much light I'll need it would be greatly appreciated.

They say you want around 5000 lumens per sq ft of canopy. You are probably ok with anything 3000+ (23 watt bulbs put off ~1600 lumens)

I did 6 3' plants with 388w of CFL. It is all about placement though.



Remember that lumens only add when you have the sources close to each other. It is better to have your plants really close and multiply your lumens than spread them out over a larger area.

I would aim for shorter plants as you can disperse the light more effectively. I was yielding an oz per plant with this set-up and a 1.5 week veg.



That was a 2x3x4' area with 3x64w (3600 lumen each) and 8x23w (1600 lumen each) for a combined 23,600 lumens. Over a 3x2' canopy that would be 3.9k lumen/sq ft and is around 1k lumens/ft^3.

You grew 4 plants in a 2x3x4' area? 4 feet high, 3 wide and 2 deep? Just wondering because those are my exact dimensions. Do you have a grow journal for that space? Sorry to hi jack the thread.

Rasta Viking said:

You grew 4 plants in a 2x3x4' area? 4 feet high, 3 wide and 2 deep? Just wondering because those are my exact dimensions. Do you have a grow journal for that space? Sorry to hi jack the thread.

Click to expand...

Yes 4' high 3' wide 2' deep.

I grew 6+ plants at a time in that area. Link is here to entire grow journal: https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/165396-first-cfl-grow-help-appreciated.html

Thank you, what a great grow. What did the final yield turn out to be on those 6 plants?

Rasta Viking said:

Thank you, what a great grow. What did the final yield turn out to be on those 6 plants?

Click to expand...

I pulled 5.4oz in 2 months from seed off my first 6 and then it turned into a perpetual where I was pulling ~ an once every 1.5 weeks.

Damn you're quick to reply. Wow! That is a pretty nice sized yield. I wanted to PM you to ask a few more questions and so I don't clutter up this thread, but it says I don't have permission to?
an ounce every 1.5 weeks? Was that still using CFL's ? You just put clones straight into 12/12 for a week an a half? How many did you fit in there?

I was thinking about doing 2 bigger plants in that space, didn't realize all the options I had. Thanks again for the reply.

Feel free to spam up my thread here: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/407578-gastankers-1000-watt-x-ray.html

That was still using CFLs. I was trying to flower just 6 at a time but usually had 8 in there at various stages. I would usually have around 5 clones at a time vegging in a 1x1x2 space and a 2x2x2 space under a couple CFLs which allowed about a 1 week rooting and 2 week veg time before being put into flower.

Ok so I have six 42w Cfls and I'm thinking five or six 4 florets when all is said and done. Will this be enough?

6 42w bulbs is around 16k lumen. Throw a few smaller bulbs in later on and you should be well off for a small grow.

Sounds good man. Should I have 6 of each vegging and flowering bulbs?

I like to mix spectrum. I generally aim for a 3:1 ratio of 6500kelvin:2700kelvin for veg and a 1:3 ratio for flower. More light is better always regardless of spectrum so perhaps use all the 6500s for veg and a 2700 or two and then use ALL of the bulbs for flower even if you have equal amounts of each.