Please Help! Lumens per plant or per square foot

i have been reading up on it and i am planning to start an inside grow but i am confused on the lumens needed. Do i need a certain amount per square foot or how much would i need per plant i am only planning on growing one or two plants at a time. Really confused because i thought it was all to do with watts but now i hear it is lumens. Please help and also is it the same for vegging and flowering or should i have more or less lights for flowering?

Anybody please i really want to start an inside grow but i need to know about the lumens needed

7shane6 said:

Anybody please i really want to start an inside grow but i need to know about the lumens needed

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watsup bro, im new too.. u can never have too much light so going bigger rather than smaller is the way to go IMO. i think the ideal lighting is at least 2,000 lumens per square foot. im sure almost everyone on here will tell u to go bigger! (i am too). if u dont wanna invest alot CFL's r prob ur best bet. i have a 250 watt hps for a small grow (3 plants). i believe this light puts out 50,000 lumens or sumthin crazy but even a 150 watt hps would be more sufficent than cfl's in terms of lumens.. hope that helps a lil good luck

YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH LIGHT but not with cfl's if you don't want to believe that google light bleaching

you want a MINIMUM of 3000 lumens per sq ft and/or a MINIMUM of 50 (actual) watts per sq ft

yeah, 50 watts per square foot minimum I heard

here's the deal on light. people use watts as a short cut for the amount of light - but by doing so you are using a rough estimate because each light has a different lumen/watt ratio. so 250 watts of cfl is a lot less light than 250 watts of hps, for example. lumens isn't exactly equal to amount of light but it's the closest thing we have to use. flowering guidelines for weed start at 3,000 lumens per square foot with a recommended range of 7,000 to 10,000 lumens per square foot (noon day sun at the equator).

here's the specifics for lights:
cfl 13 actual watts/60 equivalent: 850 lumens
cfl 26 actual watts/100 equivalent: 1,750 lumens
cfl 42 actual watts/150 equivalent: 2,750 lumens
cfl 68 actual watts/250 equivalent: 4,200 lumens
hps 150 watts: 16,000 lumens
hps 250 watts: 28,000 lumens
hps 400 watts: 55,000 lumens
hps 600 watts: 95,000 lumens
hps 1000 watts: 145,000 lumens