Can flourescent lights Burn?

nfimb

If a flourescent light gets too close, Is it possible for it to burn the plant.

Cause i think Me not paying attention. Didnt adjust the height of the lamp and the New growt got too close and burned it.

I moved the light obviously, it did burn the new growth and part of the stem a little underneath. umm... the new growth was only half grown and pretty much stopped and hasnt changed for a week, Sooo i think that kinda died. But hopefully it will be ok.


Any questions/ comments?

I will put up pictures of the burn up, soon as i find my camera... I dont know where it went.


~Rob

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jjeter

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Jeff

Student of Bonsai

ckesselring

Rob, methinks you have answered your own question, although I sense that you are trying to confirm your suspicion that the lights caused the damage.

The answer is probably so. While fluorescent lights are much more efficient than incandescent, and therefore emit less of their energy as heat, they still give off some heat proportional to the energy they use. So a lower wattage bulb will generate less heat, and a higher wattage one more. jjeter's bulbs apparently do not get warm enough to have much effect. I have had high output CFLs burn new shoots that touched them in a matter of minutes.

Another way that they can burn is just with sheer intensity, similar to the way the sun scorches leaves outdoors. I have one ficus under my 6-bulb T5 fixture that gets scorch every once in a while in the top of the canopy. There, at only a few inches away, the light is much more intense than lower down where the other plants are.

I would say that in general you don't want your plants touching the bulbs, or getting too close to them. Fluorescent allows you to position lights much closer to your plants, but still not too close.

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Christian Kesselring
Salt Lake City, UT - Zone 7a
Member, Bonsai Society of Utah

bisjoe

If they are normal 4' bulbs you can buy plastic tubes to go around them, meant to catch the glass if the bulb breaks. Those would also reduce heat output, though I have never found them to get that hot.

eeiko321

apparently flurecent bulbs are cooler than normal filament bulbs, they produce less radiation and heat.

so i dont think it makes much of a difference if u had a fluro light there or not.

Remi

i have a 4 foot, 4 tube flourescent panel that I used for years on other plants and i now use it for my indoor bonsai. I've had plants right up against the lights and in my experience they dont produce enough heat to damage them. the main source of heat you would have to worry about is the ballasts. I know there are two small ones (just smaller then your fist probably) inside a four bulb panel. there usually installed down the center or to one side of the fixture.