How many lumens does the plant need?

I currently have 5 plants just sprouting up.. around how many lumens do you think i need..i think i'm running at about 10,000 lumens with cfls..what do you guys think?

take your square footage and multiply it by 3000 that would be the amount of lumens u need for ur gro spot. I.E if you have a 3ft x 2ft room that is 6 square ft x 3000 = 18,000 lumens.

herballuvmonkey said:

take your square footage and multiply it by 3000 that would be the amount of lumens u need for ur gro spot. I.E if you have a 3ft x 2ft room that is 6 square ft x 3000 = 18,000 lumens.

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I disagree herball, I am using a 3ftx3ft grow room for 1 plant, that would be 9 square feet, 9x3000 = 27'000 lumens, and there is no way I need 27'000 lumens for one plant...

your plant doesnt cover an area of 9 feet does it?

i believe you need around 7500 lumens per square foot

hmm.....I think I may have mis-interpreted what herball was saying or he may have wrote it wrong....

I cannot quite understand how he has put this....

Meethrip said:

hmm.....I think I may have mis-interpreted what herball was saying or he may have wrote it wrong....

I cannot quite understand how he has put this....

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Yeah I took it like you did at first but now I get it. I shouldn't try to do math when

hahahahahahahaha

dont be fooled by the lumens from a cfl. cfls might have the lumens but not the intensity required to penatrate your canopy, i used 18 of the 23 watt cfls each at 1600 lumens. 460 actual watts and the plants were very slow growing, i switched to hps 150 watt and now my plants shoot out of their pots.

figtree said:

dont be fooled by the lumens from a cfl. cfls might have the lumens but not the intensity required to penatrate your canopy, i used 18 of the 23 watt cfls each at 1600 lumens. 460 actual watts and the plants were very slow growing, i switched to hps 150 watt and now my plants shoot out of their pots.

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Probably because of wrong spectrum.

CFL can bud weed and grow it at a good pace just fine. IF you have the right spectrum.
Dont try buddin in blue (6500k)
wont happen.

fml456 said:

I currently have 5 plants just sprouting up.. around how many lumens do you think i need..i think i'm running at about 10,000 lumens with cfls..what do you guys think?

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I have a space about 1 food deep by 2feet wide.

I have 3 bulbs in there CFL
2700+1700+1700 lumens = 6100 lumen

And people tend to say 2500+ per foot to veg and 3000 to bud *(3500 for denser) is fine.

and you know what, it is.
eventually im going to get 3 bulbs all going at 2700, but they last 10000 hours ;P
and ive done 3 plants at a time with no issues.
So ill give you the advice ive been given by experianced CFL growers and not guys who use HID and say CFL wont bud.

CFL will bud your weed fine at 3000 lumers per each food squared of area.
During budding keep them 3" near plant tops and they will penetrate fine.

now before all you HID junkies come at me,

Remember, it's not a contest: We all love the same plant, and there's hundreds of ways to grow her right. Arrogant growers love to put down other people's nugs and argue for days about why nobody can produce better pot than they can. These types actually end up infusing some of that negative and competitive energy into their plants. - Unknown Author (High times)

@samljer..thanks a lot fot the informative post..m planning a 10square feet cabinet..i only have 1 metal halide thats 250W so i am planning to supplement my plants with T5 tubes...the info u posted will be very helpful for me n m sure with other growers

Is 24 hour light in veg beter for six week or 18 hour a day ???

Infomad said:

Is 24 hour light in veg beter for six week or 18 hour a day ???

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veg phase: 12 hours on 5.5 off, 1 on 5.5 off (that's 24 hours). this cycle will not harm your plants and will perform better and reduce about 40% of your energy consumption and you will not have the issues that 24/24 gives you.

flower phase: when you switch to flower go 11 hours and then every two weeks reduce the light by 30mins and when you get to about 9.5 hours just let the kids finish up that way. (this mimics nature and performs better). if your plants won't finish budding....whatever cycle your using, drop the hours and the plant will do better and finish up.

plants do not perform better under 24 hours of light. let them rest, there are things going on in the dark that are necessary.

and use...induction or led or plasma in combo with uvb bulb. plasma doesn't cut it without help, wihich is why you should use induction / efdl lighting.

samljer said:

I have a space about 1 food deep by 2feet wide.

I have 3 bulbs in there CFL
2700+1700+1700 lumens = 6100 lumen

And people tend to say 2500+ per foot to veg and 3000 to bud *(3500 for denser) is fine.

and you know what, it is.
eventually im going to get 3 bulbs all going at 2700, but they last 10000 hours ;P
and ive done 3 plants at a time with no issues.
So ill give you the advice ive been given by experianced CFL growers and not guys who use HID and say CFL wont bud.

CFL will bud your weed fine at 3000 lumers per each food squared of area.
During budding keep them 3" near plant tops and they will penetrate fine.

now before all you HID junkies come at me,

Remember, it's not a contest: We all love the same plant, and there's hundreds of ways to grow her right. Arrogant growers love to put down other people's nugs and argue for days about why nobody can produce better pot than they can. These types actually end up infusing some of that negative and competitive energy into their plants. - Unknown Author (High times)

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This might be incorrect

samljer said:

I have a space about 1 food deep by 2feet wide.

I have 3 bulbs in there CFL
2700+1700+1700 lumens = 6100 lumen

And people tend to say 2500+ per foot to veg and 3000 to bud *(3500 for denser) is fine.

and you know what, it is.
eventually im going to get 3 bulbs all going at 2700, but they last 10000 hours ;P
and ive done 3 plants at a time with no issues.
So ill give you the advice ive been given by experianced CFL growers and not guys who use HID and say CFL wont bud.

CFL will bud your weed fine at 3000 lumers per each food squared of area.
During budding keep them 3" near plant tops and they will penetrate fine.

now before all you HID junkies come at me,

Remember, it's not a contest: We all love the same plant, and there's hundreds of ways to grow her right. Arrogant growers love to put down other people's nugs and argue for days about why nobody can produce better pot than they can. These types actually end up infusing some of that negative and competitive energy into their plants. - Unknown Author (High times)

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Just wanna say running 3 light 2700 lumen total on a ruderalis sativa cross breed look this is after i accidently nute burned it to and it recovered hoping it flowers soon getti g close cuz my dicks getting hard hollywood

okay for those who didn't understand what I meant...the sun puts out 10,000 lumens per square foot pretty much everywhere in North America. That being said you need 3000 lumens per sq foot as a minimum for your plants to thrive. Will they grow at less than 3000 per square foot? Yes, but they will stretch and be spindly and when you flower you will not get much. Now for some 1 or 2 ozs on a single tree is fine. I get a minimum of 8 to 10. Yes on one plant. I use a 600 in a 3x3 tent and I do a lot of lst and scrog but I also have been doing this for many a year. I started out two decades ago growing under CFLs. I used 10-42 watt 5500K for veg and then switched over to 7-3500k 42 watters for flower with the 3 other 5500k left in there for a mixed spectrum. Never got more than 3 to 4 zips with CFLs. They do not penetrate the canopy so it is better to lollipop and scrog so you are only working with the tops. I right now run 2 600 watt digital ballasts and 2 supplemental LEDs in a 3 x 9 room when in flower 2 600 watters put out 180000 lumens and hps has a great PAR spectrum for the plants so in essence im giving them 6600 lumens per sq foot and you can definitely see the difference. Tyrone, I would up the light total with at least one more CFL. You won't regret it. Ruderalis will flower regardless but without a good source of light, you may only get an oz.