CFL placement; fan leaves or buds?

Hi,
Would you agree that if you are growing a foot tall plant with 5 cfl bulbs it is impossible to get the lights within 1" of the buds without leaving the fan leaveson the outside of the reflectors? In this case should you put the lights on the buds or the fan leaves? Putting the lights on the fan leaves will leave them about 4" away from the buds.
thanks
-John

yah if you are going to have 5 cfl's that close you will need a fan or 2 prolly

try to spread the light out as evenly as possible, while keeping the lights fairly close...i can assure you, you will NEVER get the lights exactly how you want them, and if you do, it will only last till tomorrow when u have to move them again lol
i am basically doing what you are describing right now, although mine is over a foot, but its definitely still on the short side, and it has 6 26w on it and is doing great! 4 on top and 2 on the sides

and like buckshot said, u need a fan...i have an oscillating fan running 24/7 in the closet, its enough to blow the hot air out, and keeps the leaves swaying gently

The plant is on a windowsill in an open room with a fan on it so ventilation is good. Right now i have a cola and 4 nodes with bud sites, so i have a 26 watter on each site. So one at the top and one bulb right on each budsite like an inch away. This leaves the fan leaves outside of the reflectors.

heres a picture i found online of a similar set up as mine. You can see fan leaves are outside of the light, while lights are placed right on each individual budsite

that sort of grow is wasting a lot of light by not having any box for reflection.

John400HPS said:

heres a picture i found online of a similar set up as mine. You can see fan leaves are outside of the light, while lights are placed right on each individual budsite

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hey i have one of those black clamp lamps... for rite now just let your plant fill out more, i like focus more lite on the buds so i cut some fan leaves. i dont know if u shuld do this, unless ur plant is a good size.

John400HPS said:

heres a picture i found online of a similar set up as mine. You can see fan leaves are outside of the light, while lights are placed right on each individual budsite

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That is one horrible looking plant. I know its not yours but damn

Well my plant is actualy 9 days into flower. Each budsite has pistils with small caylaxes waiting to swell However its not very bulky because it was started with 12/12 lighting and showed its first pistil after just 2 weeks! (2700k lighting the whole way, maybe that did it?) It is also a fast flowering strain which is suposed to finish in 6 weeks (passion 1)

lol why does that plant look horrible

John400HPS said:

lol why does that plant look horrible

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its a lil scrawny doesnt deserve to be hated on that hard though haha..

John400HPS said:

lol why does that plant look horrible

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It looks like early on it suffered from horrible stretching and looks like it only has 4 fan leaves.

Im still wondering, is it better to put the bulbs on the bud sites or the fan leaves??

John400HPS said:

Im still wondering, is it better to put the bulbs on the bud sites or the fan leaves??

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I've got my CFL's as close to the bud as possible. If you could build a small box or whatever....even put up white paper around the plant or sumthin...that can reflect the light you'll be good to go. Even though my CFL's are about an inch from my buds, the light relfects off of the white I got up and hits the fan leaves as well. Hope I made some sense, I'm enjoying some good smoke from my first plant!

Fallen Buckshot said:

yah if you are going to have 5 cfl's that close you will need a fan or 2 prolly

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roflmao!!! to funny man.... I can see where your coming from (stoneyville) and im headed there myself right quick....lol....

Just spread the cfl,s out and get some more reflective m,aterial man....

thanks DR.RR i think thats what im going to do. Ill also consider building a box or moving it to the closet which has white walls. So long as the temps are good

This is a subject of much debate, I've found. Some people swear having the light directly on their buds increases the size of those buds. Others have told me that it's the fan leaves that collect the light to make the buds grow. Chlorophyll (the chemical that converts light to energy) is what makes plants green; in theory the leaves have more of it than the buds, since the buds are usually lighter green with less surface area in direct light.

Personally, I really don't know which is better, I've always wanted to do a side by side comparison with identical clones. But with growing other plants, would you expect the leaves or the flower(bud) itself to absorb the light? Like with a rose or sunflower or something. Or expecting the orange to absorb the light on an orange tree? The pot bud is for seed production, like an orange or sunflower. Just something to think about.

Lol at "scronny plant" comment how long has it been under veg? (old thread wow).

lol u dont put more light on a red apple for a tree to produce c02 so it can produce apples and if the was the case what spectrum of light would benefit a red apple, green and yellow? which they say r useless . so i would say put it on the fan leaves which give the plant exactly what it needs