I did some hunting but couldn't find any answers. Anyone have experience initiating flowering under less watts then increasing the light amount when buds become established? eg. start flowering 3 plants under 1 1000w, when budding starts move them under 3 1000w for the remaining period.

One question: WHY ?

Heat reduction,energy costs, efficiency...

I guess the question boils down to, does the plant utilize the full amount of light during early flower as much as it does in the last half?

Actually soulmachine, by decreasing your light energy during the most important stage of life for a cannabis plant, you are inadvertently slowing your plants down. This brings us back to growing 101. "Limiting Factors". By reducing or eliminating ANY factor which otherwise leads to optimum growth, you are literally shooting yourself in the foot! Our main goal as growers is to meet all requirements our plants have so they can focus on growth and reproduction. The ONLY times you should be reducing or eliminating anything in your grow is when it is proving to be detrimental. Why take away their most important source of life? Where's the logic in that?
If you're really that concerned about saving energy, reduce the total size of your grow and/or the wattage of your lights. If you can really dial in your setup to be as efficient as possible, you can produce more for less energy! With three 1000 watt lights, you could produce up to 4.5 Lbs give or take a few ounces. Focus on making your grow more efficient and you won't need to cut back on lights, you could just run less wattage that produces the same amount.

Peace, E1

The 3 plants was just an example for the sake of the question, and the efficiency i mentioned was in regards to the post asking why.

I'm curious if the plants in early stage of flower actually utilizes all lumens like they would in late flower.
in early stage you're triggering the hormones to start the budding, the plants are smaller and less bushy. So light penetration wouldn't be as much of an issue yet.
going on the fact the plants are well vegged before the switch.
in SOG it would make sense to throw everything you've got at them to get a decent sized plant before the flowers develop.

I was thinking in terms of anything else living, the bigger it gets the more you feed it.Try to feed a kid 10 big macs to speed up his growth, you'll end up with 8.5 big macs and a stuffed kid.

More of a question of, am i wasting big macs?

what i'm doing is vegging 6 plants for 2 months with LSTing,moving them under 3k. Half way through flower,moving them under 6k. then moving another 6 back under the 3k,and so on...

curious to see how it affects the overall yield.

Short answer, yes.
I'll try to keep this as short as possible. WHAT we are trying to do in a grow room is to mimic the natural conditions in nature. Granted we cannot mimic every single aspect, but we can get close. Nature does not dial down the intensity during flowering, it's consistent throughout the season with the exception of overcast days. I guess if you wanted to run T5HO for the early morning hours and late evening, you could mimic nature a little better AND save some KWH energy. I don't worry about it myself, everything is dialed in my setup. I'm trying to push the engines of growth for the absolute highest degree of growth and yield. If that's not your goal then I say go ahead. You came looking for some answers... I can't dictate how you will receive or reject those answers. All I can do is provide the truth.

Peace, E1

Reject answers? Naw, it's all about the learning and developing skill for me.I can understand the benefits of max lumens, was just curious if someone had experimented with the idea i mentioned and had logs or whatnot to share. But certainly willing to hear opinions regardless.

soul, I experimented with this years ago. I even had my lights rotate from east to west to imitate the sun. I went with 1/2 power for the first two hours then increased to 75% for the next two hours and then 100% until the last to hours at 75%. They started on the east side of the plants and ended the day on the west.
What were the results. Basically the same as normal 100% lighting, just more complicated. These days I don't bother with all that, I leave my veg on 24/7 and run the flower room at 100% all the time.
Why? Because I found this actually works best for me. Not because it is most efficient.
so what's the conclusion. playing with the lighting like I did years ago was a waste of time.

huh....interesting. and yeah,that does sound complicated.
I'm just enjoying gettin all nerdy about the green,but i'm sure i'll fall into my own rhythm when i figure out what works best for me.

If the plant isn't useing the lighting provided its useless. Now if you 3 plants are the size of Christmas trees id put 3 per 1000watt. Id pull a fucking yield outs this world. 3 part g h;grotek monster bloom and b bcuzz bloom stimulator. It would be over with.