Basement Grow Questions

Am an experienced outdoor grower expanding into basement growing. Got a few questions today…

My basement stays around 67 degrees year round. Have AC/Heat with air handler intake right near where I’m putting my tent. Have a single register/vent in duct work on ceiling that stays closed. I know nothing of the RH in the area I’ll be growing.

I’m getting a 4’ x 4’ x 80" grown tent with a 6" 390 CFM fan and filter. My plans are to do 3 autos Nov - Jan; start 2 photos and various flowers and tomatoes for outdoor transplant in mid-Feb through April. What am I going to need as far as light? I’d like to use LEDs. Am I thinking or attempting too much in the Feb-Apr time period?

I want to try my hand on starting early with these 2 photos and shoot for some 9’ plus bushes! In Alaska with the 24 hour light we regularly got up to 10 - 12’ in veg before we had to darken them for flowering. Never used an indoor setup but this is my plan. Anyone else doing this?

I have 2 stashes of photo seeds from way back when that I want to try to grow again. One is a sativa hybrid I grew and pollinated in 1975 or 76. The other is Columbian Gold bag seeds from around 85.

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Would love to have kept seeds from that era.
The gold seeds especially.

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I second using LED’s but caution you to avoid any offered on places like Amazon or Alibaba. With few exceptions these lights are junk.

HLG (Horticulture Lighting Group) probably makes the best line of lights for the consumer today: top bin diodes from Samsung that blow everything away (except sunlight).

Two HLG 280 R-Spec or one 550: the advantage to running two lights is during veg likely only need one, thus saving some money on electricity.

This is very hard to do indoors as artificial light behaves differently from sunlight. Tall plants indoors generally suffer from inadequate light below the canopy. Better to look at short, squatty plants that yield well. (Training techniques like SCROG are worth trying for example)

I stretch mine taller indoors. But I use under lighting for weeks 2-4 of flower. That stem like 9".

As far as the question tho.




Cannot beat that deal. Still available. TRC for driver. I had it within a week, including holiday shut down. If it wasnt for the 4th I’d have had it in 4 days.

Less than $300. Two of them would be more than enough for a 4x4 in flower. I use one in a 3x3.

I want to start them indoors and then switch them outdoors after frost date. I’d love to have them at 36 - 48 inches by Mother’s Day indoors and then outdoors until mid-October harvest. Love to get the 9 - 12 foot height!

You will want a decent light for veg. To get good node spacing. The build I linked literally cannot be beat when it comes to photosynthetic protons/$. I’d put a grand on that.

Timing is everything. The more time you can veg the plant inside, the more growing it will do when you place them outside. Last year one of my clones topped 12". She spent her first two months in a tent, went outside late June and was harvested early Oct.

I only did outside grows until last year. I got a tent so I could get an early start on my plants. I popped a couple of White Widow seeds last Sept and grew plants all through our winter. I’ve taken dozens of clones from one plant and all my current WW are from that plant. I put plants out in March that I harvested in May. I also plan on some plants going out in Sept to see if I can get a harvest Nov. or early Dec.

Of course being in Texas, I have a longer growing period than you. I have faith that you will find that sweet spot and you’ll get your monsters.

Yeah, but leaves do not absorb light from the undersides. Angling in to get better light in canopy, sure but pointing up likely won’t help.

I know much of the community believes this. But from personal testing and hellraisers journals and his testing. It definitely keeps us both doing it. Wasn’t my original idea, got it from hellraiser. It definitely causes a positive reaction regardless of whether they are absorbing through the bottom. He may have stopped doing it. But in his soil grows he did. I havent read much of his coco. Wanting to try out coco purely from what I already know. Two blue dream broke coco this morning.

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Exactly where did you order these from? Thanks!

The ones I use for under lighting where in an auction lot. They are just ready to go strips that have power beyond, plugs on each end. Where with a bunch of retrofit kits and other led lights. Single ends and stuff, easy sellers. Side business stuff. Hyperikon products run pricey. I think they cost me $3 ea tho. Lol.