Supplemental Light - Plant Lights for Indoor Growing

new4me

Hi all , Just wondering if a regular agro- bulb (75 watt) would be sufficient to aid in lighting a few trees I have indoors by the window. It is only temporary until I have my indoor area finished. They are growing fine and are healthy I just want to give them some extra light. Trees are fuikien Tea , Texas ebony, aralia, Privet,and a nashia forest. Thanks for any opinions.

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TreeBay

The problem with incandescent lamps is their relatively low efficiency. You get somewhere around 17 lumens/watt, so a 100 watt incandescent bulb might give only 170 lumens. Light intensity falls off as the square of the distance, so if you are at ten inches and move back just 4 inches to 14 inches, you just have half the light intensity hitting the target.

The recommendation for gardens is something like 1000-3000 lumens per square foot! That's for high intensity plants, probably like peppers and pines, so with your choices you'd be on the low end of that scale.

The combination of these three factors would force you to put the bulb so close to the plant to be any benefit that it's likely to give you problems with heat.

So you might look into cooler light sources, that you can place closer - compact flourescents might be 30 to 60 lumens/watt, standard flourescents are even more efficient. I don't know if you can find a plant light in a compact flourescent package, but that might be convenient.

There are also high intensity (Metal halide lights) that are very bright, but they can be expensive, noisy and hot, too. You might need a fan if you get into that.

Regards,

Matt

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new4me

Thank you for the reply. I went to the phillips website and looked up the bulbs and they were 700 lums a peace. not enough, so I went and bought 48inch strip 2bulb one warm and one cool placed all the above trees below it and every thing is growing and actually looks better. Thanks again

steez

Its a little pricey but I use these in my basement greenhouse.
Keeps Olives, Ficus' and other trops thru the winter.
http://homeharvest.com/teklighthigh...luorescents.htm

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Steve

TreeBay

Those bulbs look a very good choice, but your plants can't tell if you have the $150 Hitek fixture or the $13 home depot shoplight

http://www.homedepot.com/cmc_upload...us/162476_3.jpg

Regards,

Matt

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acousticco

I have a very similar set up that I have been using for just under two years (one winter), and have had no problems so far. I ran them 10 hours a day last winter and am going to try 12 hours a day this year and see what happens. I'd recommend a simple timer so you don't accidentally miss a day, and also be sure to turn your plants every so often to give them even coverage.

Good Luck,

Cody

steez

Ah yes but......the high dollar ones put out alot more light.

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Steve

steez

However......I do have 6 of those Home D fixtures. They are much more affordable than T5s. Just watch your humidity levels with one of those Radio Shack digital hygrometers (I think about 12 bucks) and keep the air circulated. Have fun

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Steve

thejimmyrigger

I just fried my t12 system (no loss anyways), so I'm in the market too. Don't those t5's burn brighter and longer than a t8? I think I may buy some of those big t5's (can't find em elsewhere) and make an overdriven system for them my self.
jim

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Jimmyrigging is much like jerryrigging, just go a bit lighter on the duct tape and wire coat hangers, and hit said broken item more. Remember: if it isn't broke don't kick it.