Which cfl for autoflowering

Should I double the lighting? Sorry to pile all these questions on you , I have had cancer for 8 yrs but just now got the opportunity to grow my own meds. Thank you very much for your time and help. Your a true master gardner! I was curious about the time frame because in the advertisement for the complete pkg from ILGM it says from seed to harvest in weeks and you get all the chemicals and 20 white widow af seeds for I live in a small town in Oklahoma ,we just got it legalized and until we get some plants producing the supply is very limited which makes the price go up considerably.

I used fox farm happy frog soil from start to finish with the fox farm nutrients as well. I would say as a general rule of thumb weeks but every strain is going to be different. Lookin good… Never mind… I just re read your post…. Now ,lol , your spirals in the hood what are they?

Or 23 watt ? I want to make it the best for the plants that I can. You can use blankets, tents, panda covers, aluminum foil, canvas, white paint or Mylar. Mylar comes in thin sheets and may easily tear but with good tape fasteners, you can easily place this on the walls of your grow room. Watch out for plant stretching. A sign that your plants are not getting enough light is when you see signs of stretching. You will find plants eagerly reaching out to your light source just to get more light.

If you notice this is happening then you might need to add more light or increase the wattage of your bulb. Watch out for plant burn. Plant burn is when plants get too close to the light source and burn because of extreme heat. Even if CFLs need to be close to plants you still need to watch out for plant burn which is usually seen in the plants closest to the bulb. If this happens, gently remove the burned leaf or stem and then place the plant back in its previous place.

Monitor all your plants closest to the light source. Share this. Share on facebook Facebook. Share on twitter Twitter. Share on pinterest Pinterest.

Share on email Email. Related Posts. Using a Trellis for Cannabis Plants If you are growing marijuana plants for whatever reason, whether you do it for personal or commercial purposes, the same. Organic Nutrients vs. Artificial For Cannabis Cultivation Having your cannabis plants properly fed is one of the most crucial aspects of growing weed. Subscribe To Get Coupon and Deals. Subscribe Now. Another bonus for using these CLF lights bulbs while growing autos is that they will last five times longer than the incandescent bulbs and at those bulb lifespans you will probably see many harvests before the bulb brakes.

Some people may confuse the wattage that is shown on the CFL bulb and think that the incandescent equivalent wattage is the real number to look at but you should really be looking at the actual compact fluorescent lamp wattage.

The actual wattage that the CFL uses is the thing that you need to check and that is the real amount of watts that the bulb will use while producing light. The incandescent equivalent of the CFL is almost 5 times higher and that means if you buy a 20 Watt CFL with 80 Watt incandescent equivalent then the actual number of Watts that your bulb will use is And that means more money to by some more autoflowering seeds or additional bulbs!

Those 80 watts is only a number that shows what wattage incandescent bulb you can replace with your CFL and get the same amount of light and lumens.

You can grow autoflwoers with all of those bulbs and if you choose the low wattage bulbs you will need many bulbs scattered around the plants but if you choose the W then that one bulb could be enough!

Basically the lower wattage bulbs 13W to 25W have too low light output and they are not as efficient as for example the 40W or 45W bulbs. From the other hand the bigger Wattage bulbs are too expensive and also have lower lumen output per watt efficiency so the most efficient bulbs are in the mid range from 30W to 50W and with these you will get the biggest bang for your buck!

The lumen count is the amount of light that the bulb can emit and more is obviously better. Usually CFL light bulbs have a lumen to watt ratio of somewhere between 50 and 80 and that is a good number compared to the incandescent bulb lumen to watt ratio of And you need around to lumens per square foot of growing autoflowering plants. The lumens that are emitted by a CFL light diminishes very quickly exponentially and you need to get the bulb as close to the auto plant as possible.

If your cannabis plant is very close 1 to 4 inches to the bulb then it will receive the stated lumen ratio that is mentioned on the packaging, but if you move is 2 times farther it will receive 4 times less lumens the start lumen count divided by 2 squared.

This means that you need to have multiple CFL bulbs around your autoflowering plants at a very close proximity to maximize the growth and yield. This can be partially fixed with coating all your grow room walls with reflective materials like Mylar that will reflect all the light back to the pants but that light will be less intense!

The best action to take is to introduce a Light reflector that will reflect most of the light from the tree unused sides of the bulb to the one side where the plants are growing. Regular cannabis plant would start to flowering but autoflowering cannabis plants can grow and grow until they are trigger to start flowering automatically.

The best way to grow with CFL bulbs is to supply equal amount of K and K to K lights and maybe even some bulbs that have K equivalent light because then your plants will get all color spectrum lights and will be able to produce more buds!

CFL bulbs are perfect for autoflowering cannabis growers who have a heat problem because they emit very little heat and you can even touch the bulb with your hands and not get burned.

Your cannabis plant leafs can be very close to the CFL bulb and not get any heat burns and receive the maximum lumens without any losses. Basically the closer the light is to the plant the better — the best distance between the autoflowering cannabis plant and the CFL bulb is around 1 to 4 inches 2.