How much wattage for 10 plants?

I plan on buying the 400 watt HPS/MH hyrbid grow light system from HTG. Is that going to be enough for 10 indica plants? Or will I need 600W? The problem is they don't make a 600W hybrid system. I plan on using MH light during vegetating, and then switing to HPS during the flowering, and the single system from HTG is very attractive solution, yeah?

Thanks very much.

hmm im useing a 400 hps/mh and i can fit about 4 to 6 plants under it but its mostly cuase the reflector then agin with 10 plants ur gonna have to rasie the light high enough to reach all 10 and by doing that u lose penetration.

there are many factors to consider when determining what wattage is right for your grow.

such as: the square footage of the grow area, the strain of plant you are growing, the yield you were hoping to achieve, and the ability to cool your lights.

your yield is largely determined by the amount of wattage you use.

a 400w light will work fine for a 3x3 ft grow space, any bigger than that and the light would not spread enough resulting in loose buds

if i were looking to use a 400w light i would build a 3x3 ft room and i would grow 9 plants sog method and i would only veg them to 10inches then i would flower. this would ensure that they would not get too tall and the light would still properly penetrate.

Only 10 inches high? I thought they grow a few feet. And SOG means soil, as opposed to hydroponics?

Thanks for your quick reply - much appreciated.

SoG = sea of green means alot of short plants about the same height and less bush

if u search SoG here on RiU im sure u'll get to see some pictures

im a total newbi but i think SoG is the way u wanna go if u want to do 10 plants under 1 400 watter
i started 10 bag seeds under my 400 watter no problem till after veggie a month mines were bushy could only flower 5 at a time i use a 4x4x6 tent and after a week in flowering they double is width&height

The wealth of info and expertise from this site, is amazing. I have 8 seedlings in soil now, can I still convert to SOG? I live in a small house with an attic/loft which is where I plan to set aside my ~ 3x3 growing area. Thanks again.

DaBull said:

I plan on buying the 400 watt HPS/MH hyrbid grow light system from HTG. Is that going to be enough for 10 indica plants? Or will I need 600W? The problem is they don't make a 600W hybrid system. I plan on using MH light during vegetating, and then switing to HPS during the flowering, and the single system from HTG is very attractive solution, yeah?

Thanks very much.

Click to expand...

i have a 600 watt and can get conversion bulb.... 100% indica plants are very small usually... well in height i mean.... so most likely depending on the strain you can fit 10 under a 400 watt... you just wont have as much yield

it's really your preference, but a 600 or 1000 will get you a good yield.

DaBull said:

Only 10 inches high? I thought they grow a few feet. And SOG means soil, as opposed to hydroponics?

Thanks for your quick reply - much appreciated.

Click to expand...

sog means sea of green. it's a method in which it's better to grow many small plants as opposed to fewer larger plants. it can be done in soil or hydro. with the sog method, the quality of bud is much better. the light reaches all the tops of the plants and penetrates the canopy. with larger plants the light doesn't penetrate to the lower branches resulting in loose "popcorn buds."

plants will easily double or triple in size during the flowering cycle.

as i said before your yield is largely determined by the wattage you use during flowering. most growers estimate their harvest in grams per watt. assuming you do a good job and have decent genetics you can expect to get at least 0.5 grams per watt. (400w light = 200g harvest). however experienced growers can achieve 1 gram per watt. but if your a newbie think the lower end of the spectrum and work your way up from there.

if i were starting a new grow i would first calculate the amount of space available , and then i would get as many watts in there as i could.

You can go over this limit but most people recommend a 100 watts per plant. That would mean a 1000 watt light. However you could always do a lot of little plants or a sea of green method.

It sounds like this grow will be from seed. Very difficult to do a sog from seed because seed plants will not only be more inconsistent in stature than clones but invariably they will also be much taller. Sog requires flowering as soon as your cuttings root so the plants stay short. With seeds you want to veg to at least nine or ten nodes before flowering. And to be completely accurate you need a whole lot more than 10 plants for true sog. But will we really even have 10 plants the whole way through here? You haven't mentioned whether these are fem seeds or not. If you have regular seeds and can count on 50% being taken out as males then sure a 400 watt will be great. 10 females will be a bit many considering what I said before about seed plants being so tall. And as someone mentioned we really need to know the dimensions of your growspace.

And finally and most importantly, my first ever ballast was the exact kit you are talking about from HTG. It is crap unfortunately. The ballast did not even last a month. It is a magnetic ballast which is old technology. It hums loudly and gets very hot. A digital ballast is much quieter, cooler, and the light is more even with less flickering. And you would think that being able to switch out the bulb would be great but if you are really going to continue growing past the first grow then you will end up setting up a separate veg area probably with CFLs to save yourself loads of time. So the moral of the story is that your light is your bread and butter in the cultivating hobby so you should really go for the best quality you can.

I started with 10 non-feminized indica seeds, Northern Lights to be exact. I already accidentally uprooted one seedling, and one seed fail to germinate. So I'm already down to 8. I'm more concerned with quality, and since this is my very first growing (of anything) ever, I'm eager to get that first one completed quickly.

Thanks for everyone's input - there's a lot to learn.

Cheers!