Lighting T5 penitration - how much or little are we talking about

[Heavily Medicated]

I've read several posts on AFN about T5 lighting not penetrating very far into the canopy. I just bought a t5 light and have it just a few inches above my scrog. With scrog, will these t5 penetrate far enough to give me good solid buds say 40 cm below the light.

 

[Darth Vapour]

Hi there heavily medicated, if you intend on scrogging with autos, your plant height from top of soil will most likely not reach 36“ if you keep on top of your training.

I have 2 indoor grows under my belt with T5's and I LSTd with decent success given those were my very first grows and they grew in 1 gallon pots. Keep them close to the light with decent airflow and you'll get great results if you show them some love.

What kind of light do you have? I started out with blue spectrum than slowly kept adding red bulbs up to 50/50 during flower.

 

[Heavily Medicated]

I bought an Apollo brand 6 24" bulbs. Each bulb is supposed to be about 2200 lumens. I am in the middle of budding right now running 4 bloom bulbs and 2 grow bulbs. Everything is looking great right now, i'm really pumped. Two creme caramels about a foot above the screen right now, unbelievable number of bud sites. About 4 or 5 weeks left and lookes like a record harvest looming. I was running CFLs previously, T5s blowing them out of the water.

 

[Celestial]

A big factor of how the buds develop on the lower branches is really up to the genetics. I'm using T5 and only a few of my strains produce good to decent lower nuggets. Once, you've worked with the strain. You should be able to determine if you need to lollipop or not. Scrog application should give you good quality lower nuggs though. Stripping the plant of fan leaves that are blocking lower sites can be helpful too.

 

[HD Grower]

Hey Celestial..You said about trimming..I told and read that trimming on auto's wasn't the best thing..It adds more stress and could lessen the harvest..would you explain a little more..?

Thanks

 

[oldster]

Hi HM, the reputation T5's have for less penetration is not really correct. The individual photons of light from a T5 have exactly the same energy as photons from any other light source. The issue is that light is emitted from a much larger area with florescent bulbs compared to CFLs or HIDs.

As long as you have enough T5 tubes to provide about 4000 lumens per square foot directly under them you will get just as good results with them as any other light providing the same lumens with the same spectrum