Plant Lights

robingfx

Hello Everybody,

Can anyone tell me a little about Plant Lights? I have two bonsai trees in a corner of my house and I thought they could get some extra light artificially. I replaced one of the bulbs in the table lamp next to the trees with a 50W Plant Light.

1. Does Plant Lights radiate UV? Or are they just made to display green plants better?
2. Is there an optimal distance from tree to bulb? I have mine fairly close.
3. Does a tree(/plant) need to “sleep” or can I turn on and off the light whenever I want? I don’t want to stress the trees by screwing up their internal clocks.

Thank you,
Robin

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Bart Thomas(deceased)

Robin.

Pending a response from those with more expertise, I offer these thoughts.

A 50 watt plant light is near useless. (It has to do with "lumens", the measure of brightness. Next time you are in a store which sells 48" flourescents, look at the label on the box of the "noonday sun" models and compare this to the label for your plant light.)

With a plant light of any kind, the closer the better is the rule, as long as it does not get the leaves too hot.

Most folks using lights for tropical trees indoors settle on about 16-18 hours a day.

Some species can do well with a lot less light.

What species is your tree?

robingfx

Thanks Bart! I appreciate your help.

I have one Ficus and an unknown conifer. I got the ficus back in August and it has thrived in the semi-dark corner,...but that was in the summer. Now, in the winter, it gets even less sun, so that's why I decided to replace one of the bulbs in the lamp next to it.

They had two kinds of Plan Lights in the store (and some enormous ones). They had 50W, which I got, and they had a 90W. The 90W had some lumen number on it (900 I think), but the 50W didn’t have any lumen number at all.

I’ll try to find out on their website what this bulb is all about.

Thanks again Bart,
Robin