First posting. In March I discovered ILGM and ordered both fem and autoflower mixes. I need help deciding what to do about lights,
First a little background, I’ve been growing for at least ten years, keeping a strain growing for years by cloning since I didn’t know it would be so easy ordering seeds. I didn’t spend much time looking since it wasn’t legal in Michigan and I was a little paranoid ordering online.
My setup has been a veg room with 600w MH, and flowering room with 600w HPS. It has worked well, until now. Now I have 5 fem plants and 5 autoflowers that I started April 1 and need to integrate into my system.
The problem I’m having is the autoflowers have started flowering and I don’t have room in my flowering room because I’m five weeks in on a previous grow. So my options are to flower the autoflowers under MH to the fem plants benefit, or change the bulb to HPS to the benefit of autoflower harvest.
To complicate the situation more, I suspected I’d have a problem with timing and I ordered a LED light and tent, but the virus has slowed things down and they won’t arrive for another week. When they show up, would you move the autoflowers to the grow tent with LED light, or leave them where they are, and move the fems.
As if that wasn’t enough options, I could put up a greenhouse and put the autoflowers outside. Ten day weather forecast is highs in the 50’s, lows in the 30’s.
Thanks for your help, I’ve learned so much these last few weeks reading these posts. I know so little compared to you guys and hoping to learn so much more. Anxious to experiment with some of my fems after reading about screens and tying back the branches.
Welcome to ILGM forum. Hopefully the above quote is the main question that you are interested getting some thoughts on. I’m assuming you’ve not used LEDs to grow before. I think that to be able to give opinions, community would need to know what kind of LED light you ordered. The reason I ask is if you went with a cheaper led light from Amazon then you may want to use new led with autoflowers. The reason I say that, is if your current photo period fems are in 5th week of flower then a cheap led light from Amazon probably won’t be able to produce the dense nugs that the 600w HPS has been producing. If you ordered Led light from a company like Horticultural Lighting Group that is sufficient for the space you are going to use it in then I believe that you should configure lights in whatever manner is easiest for you. Hopefully this helps. Either way I would be interested in knowing what led light you ordered. Good luck with whatever you decide.
I was looking at light on Amazon. It’s not a 600w light it pulls 280 watts from the wall. Depending on your space you would probably be better off leaving old lights on the fems already in flower. I’m going to tag forums light guru. He would be much more qualified to look at the lights and be able to give you a better idea on what you should do. @dbrn32
What size tent did you get? Kind lights don’t really perform in line with their cost. You think you’re getting something decent for $, but they are using same stuff as cheaper blurples on Amazon just have a few fancy features.
I wouldn’t hesitate to swap bulbs and flower the autos out with hps. If you have other plants vegging in the space you will just see an increase in node spacing.
@MesialDrift
Welcome!
I’m no expert but everyone around here seems to like HLG, they seem to be the best bang for your buck. I currently use Optic products but have an HLG on the way.
Thanks so much @VTGROW ! I was considering a Bestva Samsung or a Viparspectra - mainly because of popularity and online reviews. I’d rather go with knowledge from experienced growers on forums such as these.
