How much light do i need to give in order to sustain a bonsai mums life?

[Mr Bubbles]

Hello ya’all!!

I’m about done planning my 70w HPS PC grow case. I have my 26” (H) server tower for my flowering case which will go 12/12 from seed the first run and 12/12 from clone the second run and thereafter, hopefully with using the clones it will give me a smaller plant. N-E-Ways, Now i’m designing my veg case which is a lot smaller than the flowering case. The measurements of the veg case are 16.5” (L) x 16.25” (H) x 7.5” (W). My Questions are; if the medicine I need to use is an ounce and a half to two zips every 3 months and I plan on doing 3 or 4 harvests a year, how much light would I need to give my bonsai mums (dr. budgreen style in party cups) to sustain life and diss out (give out) say 6-8 cuttings every year? I want to use CFLs if possible cuz dats the most reasonable thing to use in my lil case. Also, ima hydro kinda guy and have no clue about soil. Anyone have any links of ‘how to keep a bonsai mum alive’ in soil =[. Do I just use regular soil mix w/ no fertz. And just feed water?

 

[hoosierdaddy]

There is a bonsai mum thread that will answer these questions.
Basically, you can keep a mum alive nicely in a small pot. I use 1.5qt size.
A single 26watt CFL is plenty of light to keep her happy, and tight. I like the 6500k range.
About twice a year you want to butcher the root ball up and replant.
When I take mine out of the round pot, I will cut about 2" off the bottom, and then square the sides up, and repot with fresh FFOF (or any reputable soil/soiless mix)
Don't be afraid to cut the heck out of the mum rootball. It stops her for a few, but she will love it once acclimated.
Sounds like you will trim more off than you will use.

 

[ScrubNinja]

I vegged a mum for a while under one 11w daylight bulb. It did what I wanted quite satisfactorily and I got more cuts off it than you need. I even dropped it down to 8w daylight just to see what happened and it still grew enough to give decent cuts. I should point out though that it got a small amount of light shining up at it from a vent to another veg chamber. So that light was hitting the underside of the leaves on one side.

I'm not saying you'd get best results that way either - I agree with Hoosier, can't go wrong with a 26w (or thereabouts) daylight. 23w is the common wattage here and thats fine too.

Edit: found a pic, thats it on top

 

[Mr Bubbles]

I vegged a mum for a while under one 11w daylight bulb. It did what I wanted quite satisfactorily and I got more cuts off it than you need. I even dropped it down to 8w daylight just to see what happened and it still grew enough to give decent cuts. I should point out though that it got a small amount of light shining up at it from a vent to another veg chamber. So that light was hitting the underside of the leaves on one side.

I'm not saying you'd get best results that way either - I agree with Hoosier, can't go wrong with a 26w (or thereabouts) daylight. 23w is the common wattage here and thats fine too.

Edit: found a pic, thats it on top

scrubninja...im looking at your link in your signature and for the light trap u used shadecloth, if you dont mind could you take a picture with the lights on in the dark. Im looking for alternatives besides darkroom louvers. Also, how tall is that case you have in that pix? And also if you dont mind me asking, how many cuttings do you take from your mums (im assuming is on the bottom)

i got dat other bonsai mums thread bookmarked. However, i got a few new questions:

1) How far does the light need to be from the tops of my bonsai mums?
2) How far does the light need to be from the tops of my clones?

im guessin two 23 w cfls would do good for 3 mums n a lil square bubbler for clones

 

[ScrubNinja]

Hi Mr B. My fault, the link in my sig is the crummy first case I built, it's far from light proof really. The shadecloth just dims it down a bit. I would definitely look at other ways. If I was doing that same case again I'd just give it a carbon scrubber and that would block all of the light (at the back where it's a problem) or I'd use small plumbimg pipes an inch or two round with some elbows.

I never really posted much about the case in the pic. It has a scrubber and is 99% light proof. I'll try to take pics of both cases in the dark except it's the afternoon right now.

In this case I used some kind of aquarium foam product. It's basically very open foam to filter the air or water for fish? and it had carbon-blah-blah written all over it. I could only find white stuff so, I know this is going to sound dumb but it worked, I verrry lightly misted the foam with matt black spray paint, and I doubled it up a few times and taped it over the intakes front and rear. Zero light. Similar principle to when you need to block light with paint - best to give a layer of black, then white, then black, etc, than to give it the same number of coats of just black.

I have no particular methods as I'm just a n00b myself so maybe my use of moms varies to most. I vegged indoors and flowered outdoors. I just had a spare cutting left over so I called that mum. grew it in that tiny space you see and got 6 cuttings off it, then vegged it not long at all really, couple of weeks or so? Seems like so long ago. Then it obviously grew back pretty bushy after that and a friend raped it for about 16 cuts. and then I got another 8 or 10 at some stage after that. Then I vegged it as any other plant in a larger tent thing and put it outside. Man was it bushy!!!! But I had all the usual dramas involved in growing so it wasn't the best yeild but still half a P, no complaints.

Oh and the total height of that case in the pic is 62cm or just over 2ft. Hope that wasn't too rambly an answer for ya, haha.

Answer to 1 and 2: As close as you can get it that temps allow. The lower the wattage bulb and the cooler your cab, the closer you can get without burning the leaves. I saw a grow on here in like a huge tanning bed with long fluoro tubes and the plants were just growing intertwined thru the fluoros. If you don't have a thermometer, just hold the back of your hand at plant canopy height and judge with common sense.

And about the last question, yeah that would work just fine mate. Anytime I work with CFLs I just think "as many as temps will allow" in general. (except for the 8w thing, heh)

Edit: too stoned for pics sorry, it's pointless anyway since the shadecloth is not ideal at all for what you want. I can tell you though that absolutely no light gets through the aquarium foam. Oh yeah I also put some louvre things on over the foam. You can sort of make them out on the lower level of the PC on the left and right.

Heres some pics I had of the tiny mum on the top level of the PC though, thats a 35litre growbag its in (roughly 9 gallons - coco)

 

[Mr Bubbles]

scrubninja,

Thanks so much for your reply. Your posting was very imformative and i think im ready and stepped in the right direction. Good shit on ur setup and keep it green.