Author Topic: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?  (Read 4564 times)

sildanani

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Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« on: January 15, 2018, 02:20:37 AM »
Hey all, its winter here in Ohio, and I would like to invest in some grow lights that will work well for tropical fruit plants. (Probably LED but open to other sufficient sources.) A lot of searches pertaining to grow lights speak of being effective for growing marijuana. But I know tropicals may have lights that they are better suited for.

I'd like some economical options if possible. I'd even be fine with going a bit bootleg, re-purposing other types of lights. Since they are just for winter. It doesn't need to be the best of the best. Just something to help them out on cloudy days.

I've been searching on Amazon a lot. Has anyone bought lights from Amazon that they would recommend?

Any other northern growers have some supplemental lighting setup example images?

Thanks in advance!
Anisha

KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2018, 05:57:57 AM »
Ah, a post up my alley  :)

You need to decide how much of the sun you want to reproduce.  A typical rainforest location may experience ~5,5 kWh/m²/day of sunlight or more.  Call it 6 kWh after accounting for what doesn't strike leaves.  That's what you want to strike leaves with your supplemental lighting to match the sun. Modern LEDs may be around ~45% efficient (note: ignore lumens, they're not relevant to the equation) give or take depending on the quality. So that's 13,3kWh/m². Some percent of the light won't strike leaves - maybe 50%, it depends on how efficient you are at capturing stray light and directing it back in.  So that's 26,7kWh/m²/day.  LEDs are more optimized (frequency-wise) toward photosynthesis than the sun is (there's a lot of the sun's energy that plants can't capture, and some frequencies are more photosynthetically efficient than others), so you get a boost there.  Sellers will push notions that it's 2x, 3x, 4x, even 5x more efficient, but I'd recommend a figure like 40%.  So that's 19kWh/m2/day.   If your lights are on 24/7 (the cheapest way to do it.. most plants are fine with that from an energy perspective, although it can prevent flowering in some), then that's ~800W of lights (real watts, not "LED watts" - many sellers claim their lights  are twice as powerful as they actually are) per square meter.  If your power is $0,13/kWh, then your power bill will be $75 per month per square meter.  So you can see how expensive it is to try to fully reproduce the sun!  Even reproducing a natural "dim" season - for example, Brasilia drops to around 3,5kWh/day for part of the year - isn't that much easier!  What you're realistically going to be reproducing is "part shade" - hopefully rather than full shade!

Decide what percentage of the sun's energy you want to reproduce (or more accurately, can afford to reproduce) and use that as your starting point.  Note that the real cost is not in the fixtures themselves, it's in the power.  Better quality fixtures give better efficiencies and longer lifespans.  Of course, how much is too much?  A person who used to frequent this forum (but who I haven't seen in a long time - CoPlantNut) is involved in Black Dog LED, for example, which makes superb quality fixtures.  But while there always was a price difference between their prices and cheap Chinese fixtures, it's now grown to nearly an order of magnitude difference as the Chinese prices have fallen but theirs haven't.

How to evaluate fixture quality?  Well, obviously, reviews for one, with a heavy preference toward people who've written their reviews long after purchase (in case fans or rows of LEDs die).  But there are other ways too.  You want fixtures that seem unusually large and heavy relative to their power consumption. This may seem counterintuitive, but it's important. The lower power you drive individual LEDs at, the more efficient they get. And the more you cool them (larger heat sinks, more/more powerful fans), the longer their lifespans. So a good fixture will generally be larger and heavier than a poorer one, relative to its power output.  Cheapo manufacturers obviously want to cut their heat sink/cooling costs and package in as small of a form factor as possible.

All of this said... any LED fixture that's not total junk will easily save you money over fluorescent or HID.  And LED fixtures these days provide a spectrum nicely balanced between maximizing photosynthetic efficiency and maintaining plant hormonal triggers.  Don't bootleg or repurpose other types of lights - it'll waste you far more on your power bill than it saves you.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 10:20:31 AM by KarenRei »
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greenman62

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2018, 08:00:36 AM »
heres a great link that explains the different colors
and how they effect growth.

Light Spectrum and Plant Growth
https://californialightworks.com/light-spectrum-and-plant-growth/

To me, when i looked into it
i wanted something just to keep plants semi happy for a few weeks at a time over winter
maybe taking them out on sunny days.

so, i wanted something very efficient, and fairly cheap
this focuses on 3 (main) wavelengths for photosynthesis...

just an example...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FRLSAI0/ref=asc_df_B01FRLSAI05336778/


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XCBNFN4


- there are two types of chlorophyll in plants - chlorophyll A and chlorophyll B. Chlorophyll A absorption peaks are at 430 nm and 662 nm wavelengths and 453 nm and 642 nm for chlorophyll B. Chlorophyll B in plants helps in increasing the light absorption range and is not as abundant as chlorophyll A.

- chlorophyll is not the only chemical compound in plants that actually absorb light. LED grow lights often use several LED colors covering these peaks. In fact, many LED grow lights use colored LEDs, white LEDs and infrared LEDs in order to cover needed wavelength - for example, some LED grow lights can cover 9 to 11, or even more, different bands: 430-440nm, 450-460nm, 470nm, 610-615nm, 620-630nm, 650-660nm, white, IR, UV etc. Strictly speaking 'white' is not a narrow band (wavelength), but requires different LEDs. Note: operating IR (infrared) and UV (ultraviolet) LEDs look as if they are NOT working, but they simply emit light in IR/UV bands that can't been seen by human eyes.

http://www.madaboutberries.com/articles/full-spectrum-led-grow-lights.html

KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2018, 11:10:01 AM »
It's not that simple. It's not even just about giving plants energy (although that's the main goal).

The key points to make are:

A) Photosynthesis isn't the only way plants use light
B) Plants can actually use the supposed "unabsorbed" wavelengths for photosynthesis quite well.

The figure to look up isn't chlorophyll absorption spectra, but photosynthetically active radiation (PAR):



So it becomes clear immediately why red dominates grow lights: it's very efficient, from a photon energy perspective, to drive photosynthesis with red photons.  There are a couple problems with driving it with pure red light, however.  One, in pure red, auxin synthesis goes crazy.  Good for when a plant is ready to flower, but otherwise it causes excessive elongation and leaves your plant unhealthy. Two, red LEDs aren't nearly as efficient as blue LEDs.  While the higher energy efficiency of driving photosynthesis with red wins out in that regard, the need for auxin inhibition means that you need significant blue in a fixture.

As you can see from PAR, colors between red and blue are not actually bad for driving photosynthesis. In fact, if you add some green to intense red-blue light, the green drives photosynthesis *better* than the red and blue per unit energy***:

https://watermark.silverchair.com/pcp034.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAaAwggGcBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggGNMIIBiQIBADCCAYIGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMfFDsYGfmSAqMhXtAAgEQgIIBU4Exn7hx-gf2Acvp3bVw5i_UETVBu6u-5fkYoruDvNUeGUJtWhiIXJoMEFbEGmFXE2ZBEkqF-TVIngrEXZ3QsOpiZVx9VZ5cK0sk6xCN4Xgrf7PLAQ6tpnnsQv06k7jN5bhDo4l1UemnlaL1UhEePB1y6rorCV-VOP2uHfzgmATtGxdSt_qjjgskldaQmvBll5pI-8Z1FWGWwNFMVSvmUAz9YIQOcT9YSXopZ8NOe7lT5xhNscyKceJBlSDyF5DJ_0T8m_h4SeAQ9v0yzfN310a90fODB-y7nAFw9gqZ59eC5-6Q0wKqW0PCvIq8-68DOA8BN58JQ2sJZhTF-Er8Z3bfpIJa6zvksvujocceWhd99WveOiFKmO2K7AcThBePueRB8xF466QPRsoWVvUdFNouEr_kEFte4tFw11CdONoWbh0LIKfZJ6y9rn04tiVJ9OrsKA

In red-blue growth, the blue photons penetrate well (but are inefficient), while the red photons are efficient (but penetrate poorly). Photosynthesis rates on the surface become saturated. When green is added, it is more efficient than the blue, while it penetrates to a deeper depth (less saturated) than the red - to a depth where photosynthesis isn't saturated. Green's weakness of being highly reflected by plant leaves is reduced in nature by the interreflection between leaves when you plot it out on a whole sky-sphere perspective.  People have for ages been growing plants under HID light, which is rich in green, yellow and amber photons. It demonstrably works - and this accounting for the fact that the means of generating photons with HID isn't nearly as efficient as the means in LEDs.

Green, yellow and amber all additionally have hormonal influences.  For example, one of the reasons that you don't grow plants under LPS (only HPS) is that the narrowband yellow light overtriggers a response of storing starch in leaves rather than having it transport down to the roots.  There are a number of spectral responses developed by plants for various reasons (the most important, however, being the red/blue auxin response, which is to respond to changing seasons - there's more blue light in the summer, more red in the fall).

The reason you don't see much green, yellow and amber in grow lights is because LEDs in these ranges are horribly inefficient.   To the point that some white LEDs (aka, blues with a glowing phosphor coating) produce more green photons per watt than green LEDs do!  Hopefully this will change at somepoint.

When it comes to red, while deep red (~660nm) would be more efficient at photosynthesis, the shorter wavelengths are more efficient at creating photons, so they generally dominate.

Some people will argue that NIR and UV are worthless - UV because it has to get way downconverted for photosynthesis, and NIR because it can't be used at all.  I do not find this to be supported by the evidence - but it depends on the plant species.  A fun experiment (which I've done) is to buy seeds of a colorful lettuce variety, grow some completely without UV, and the others with significant UV. The ones with UV will be brightly coloured.  The others will be green.  The colourful pigments in lettuce are basically sunscreen, produced in response to UV exposure. Plants have a number of such "sunscreen" compounds, and don't produce them when not exposed to UV (which is one of the reasons why you have to slowly "harden" plants to sunlight after growing them inside).  Now, one could argue that such compounds have no utility indoors, but in addition to being visually appealing and promising in terms of health benefits, it doesn't take much energy to create them. All UV combined in sunlight is only 10% of the energy.  Adding a couple percent of your energy as UVA seems worth the cost to me; UV LEDs are pretty efficient.  As for NIR, some studies have indicated various plant hormonal responses to it of significance.  It's probably not worth the energy cost, mind you, but it's not "worthless".

In summary - your best results are with:
 * Lots of red for efficient photosynthesis driving
 * A good bit of blue to prevent excessive elongation
 * Some whites or amber-to-green LEDs to broaden the spectrum for hormonal reasons
 * A couple percent UV LEDs to trigger the plants' "sunscreen" response.



*** Caveat to the green study: if you're undersaturating your plants (not giving nearly as much light as the sun), red will probably continue to be more photon-energy efficient than green (ignoring the efficiency of LEDs used to make the light). Likewise, if you gave an intense amount of green, you would saturate photosynthesis in the middle layers. Caveat emptor  :)  But it's a moot point because you can't buy efficient green LEDs.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 06:13:49 PM by KarenRei »
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spaugh

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2018, 12:01:23 PM »
If you want the very best grow lights you need COB leds.  They are the closest thing to real sunlight.  They arent cheap but they are super efficient and make white light that plants need to grow.  Each COB has many small LEDs on it tuned to different wavelengths so you get a perfectly tuned spectrum.
 3500K rating will be like pure sunlight. 

This place sells them.  www.timbergrowlights.com

If you want the next best thing that is a bit cheaper but less efficient try searching for ceramic metal halide lamps. They have them on amazon.

The purple china LEDs on amazon will work but the purple light is terrible to be around.  And it may draw unwanted attention from neighbors if thats an issue.  Trust me on this, get a light that makes white sun like color.  Its so much more pleasant to be around.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 12:11:08 PM by spaugh »
Brad Spaugh

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2018, 01:37:04 PM »
These lights work out well for supplemental lighting.  https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B015YX8ZF4/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1516040550&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=white+grow+light&dpPl=1&dpID=51IzFoPOqYL&ref=plSrch

Otherwise I would look into cob led grow lights, I can vouch for roleadro ones.
Grow mainly fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2018, 09:57:43 PM »
A local nursery is happy with many dozens of "daylight" LED's from Home Depot, now in almost all of that nursery's greenhouses.
Har

KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2018, 05:45:49 AM »
You "can" use pretty much anything for light, it's a question of efficiency***.  "White" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a phosphor in front of them (all LED light is emitted monochromatic).  So you have less red (efficient photosynthesis), and you're wasting significant energy in the phosphor. 

*** Well, you can use anything "to an extent".  If you try growing with incandescents, you'll quickly approach the point where you're putting out too much heat for your plants, without giving them as much light as you'd want.  ;)  And the LPS spectrum is really bad for plants

How much do you want your power bill to be?  And how much do you want the photosynthesis rates in your plants to compare to that of the sun?  That's what you have to think of.  Blue LEDs give the most photon energy out vs. the amount of energy in (Wall-Plug Efficiency(WPE)) - usually 50-65%.  Red is next (usually 40-50%).  Everything else in the visual spectrum (including LEDs packaged as COB) gives you little photon energy per unit energy in (usually under 30-35%).  A phosphor on a blue LED (aka, a "white" LED) will down convert blue light toward other frequencies at a loss - a loss greater than would occur if you just let the downconversion happen in the plants (white LEDs are usually in the ballpark of 30% WPE).  The only reason for colours other than red and blue is hormonal - and really, that should be "the only reason for colours other than red", as the difference in LED efficiency between blue and red doesn't overcome the difference in photosynthetic efficiency - but you don't want to grow plants without blue light unless you want to make them spindly.

There's a reason that LED grow lights - whether purchased by amateurs, major commercial growers, research organizations (including e.g. NASA), etc - don't use white LEDs to grow plants. Not that it doesn't work - it most certainly does. But it's not as power efficient. And growing plants indoors is a massive, expensive power hog.

It is, however, certainly true that the pink light from a LED grow room isn't natural to our eyes.  You look at a grow light for a second and the whole world changes color  ;)   You'll also find that it makes photos on digital cameras look weird, and you'll have trouble recognizing signs of diseases or pests, for example. There are glasses you can buy to filter out the LED light, or you can just shut them off when doing inspections. I often do inspections with a flashlight to have bright white at close range.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2018, 06:12:26 AM by KarenRei »
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coyote

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2018, 09:54:40 AM »
I'm sure its not the most efficient or the latest in light spectrum tec, but I just use a combo of full spectrum compact florescents and full spectrum LEDs (eight bulbs in total) in shop light fixtures. I have them on for 12 hours a day.  This is in addition to the light they're getting from the window.  They seem pretty happy and it has only raised my electric bill  $10 per month.

KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2018, 10:02:37 AM »
As for COB efficiency, let's skip past the hype. Browse COBs here:

https://www.digikey.sg/products/en/optoelectronics/led-lighting-cobs-engines-modules/111?FV=fff40008%2Cfff80354%2C2dc1dab%2Cffe0006f%2C940003&mnonly=0&ColumnSort=-1344&page=1&stock=0&pbfree=0&rohs=0&cad=0&datasheet=0&nstock=0&photo=0&nonrohs=0&newproducts=0&quantity=&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25

I've already selected blue.  Now non-COB LEDs here:

https://www.digikey.sg/products/en/optoelectronics/led-lighting-color/125?FV=940003%2Cffe0007d%2C1500000a%2C15000066%2C1500000e%2C1500002d%2C1500002f%2C15000006%2C15000049%2C1500005a&mnonly=0&ColumnSort=-1344&page=1&stock=0&pbfree=0&rohs=0&cad=0&datasheet=0&nstock=0&photo=0&nonrohs=0&newproducts=0&quantity=&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25

Now, we don't have wall plug efficiency, but we have lumens per watt, and for many entries, frequency as well.  So let's take the top lumens per watt in each case where we have a specific frequency listed:

COB: 19lm/W @ 455nm
non-COB: 47lm/W @ 476nm

Now we need to convert to WPE.  For that we need photopic conversion factors.  Here's a table:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/efficacy.html#c1

So, with a simple linear interpolation (I'm lazy  ;)  ) for 455nm it's 33,47lm/radiant-W and for 476nm it's 81,83lm/radiant-W.  So to get radiant watts over input watts (wall plug efficiency) we do:

COB: 19 / 33,47 = 56,8%
non-COB: 47 / 81,83 = 57,4%

Basically the same efficiency.

Don't get me wrong, I do like COBs. But they're not the be-all end-all of LEDs.  And for any LED, performance depends greatly on how you use it. The harder you drive an LED - COB or not - the lower its efficiency.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 10:04:15 AM by KarenRei »
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KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2018, 10:13:21 AM »
I'm sure its not the most efficient or the latest in light spectrum tec, but I just use a combo of full spectrum compact florescents and full spectrum LEDs (eight bulbs in total) in shop light fixtures. I have them on for 12 hours a day.  This is in addition to the light they're getting from the window.  They seem pretty happy and it has only raised my electric bill  $10 per month.

From your numbers, and with assumptions about your electricity rate, then you have in the ballpark of ~400W for half a day, no?  And inefficient because of your choice of lighting  I hope that's a very small area you're lighting, or the energy output from those lights are pretty insignificant  ;)  But, at least you have a window, hopefully south facing. Heck, I fruit coffee every year with a north-facing window (although through the summer here, the sun rises and sets in the north  ;)  ) and only a tiny bit of "get me through the winter" lighting to try to reduce wintertime leaf drop.  Not a lot of yield, but yeah, hooray for windows  ;)

It's always tempting to try to save on capital costs, but when it comes to lighting... don't.  Investment in proper lighting pays for itself many over.

Just my two cents  :)  (Okay, a couple dozen cents  ;) )
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 04:26:59 PM by KarenRei »
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Mark in Texas

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2018, 10:41:52 AM »
I've played with HPS and MH growing plants indoors and found that they really don't care as long as it's bright and you try to find that very important Light Saturation Point where more is less regarding photosynthesis, CO2 assimilation, etc.

Too much or maybe most of this lighting industry with all it's gimmics, hoods, emphasis on PAR and such is nothing more than a ploy to sell more lights and stuff to cannabis growers.  It's a racket.

Mark in Texas

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2018, 10:44:06 AM »
I have them on for 12 hours a day.  This is in addition to the light they're getting from the window.  They seem pretty happy and it has only raised my electric bill  $10 per month.

So they're supplemental to natural light?  Good call.  Many tropical fruits are photoperiod dependent driven by an accumulation or depletion of phytochrome.  Citrus is a perfect example.  It needs long days and warm temps to remain in a stage of active growth i.e. bark slip stage.

KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2018, 11:30:37 AM »
Too much or maybe most of this lighting industry with all it's gimmics, hoods, emphasis on PAR and such is nothing more than a ploy to sell more lights and stuff to cannabis growers.  It's a racket.

Agreed.  The spectrum you choose, the details of the lights, etc, does matter, but there's a huge amount of gimmickry and outright dishonesty in the industry, always trying to play up whatever the seller is selling.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 12:10:12 PM by KarenRei »
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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2018, 04:41:56 PM »
Yes they are supplemental for my northwest facing windows.  Not great but it's all i have...on the plus side they are very large windows.  Though nothing like the south facing windows where I use to live.  I had only one small light as a supplement at that time, but everything was very happy with that southern exposure.  The plants put on lots of dark green compact growth even in the winter.  Its tough to beat natural light if you can get it.

sildanani

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2018, 12:28:03 AM »
Thanks for the replies, resources, and recommendations everyone! I’ve been sifting through your suggestions the past couple of days. I’d already looked up some info prior to asking on the forum, but I just got a bit overwhelmed by so many product choices as well as the several factors that play into plant growth . I’m currently grouping plants by their age, cost, area occupied, and photoperiod requirements. I’m really just curious to how I’ll set them up. I definitely don’t want spend less on something inadequate only to pay more in the long run.

Lastly, what about for cacti; particularly dragon fruit? They just don’t grow much for me (at all) in the cooler months. I’d really like to sustain their growth over winter. But they are CAM plants, there they respire differently. Will they grow still as long as adequate lighting is present?
Anisha

KarenRei

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #16 on: January 18, 2018, 06:05:28 AM »
I run on 24/7 light and my CAM plants in general do poorer than my non-CAM plants.  I think you need a proper night cycle to get good growth out of CAM plants.  But that of course means more light during the day to make up for it.  Non-CAM plants seem to generally quite enjoy 24-7 light.  I may at some point switch to 18-6, depending on how the greenhouse project goes  ;)  Also, a few of my plants are short-day plants, so when they reach flowering size, if I want to get anything out of them I'll have to cut to even shorter day lengths, at least until flowering/fruiting is triggered.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2018, 06:15:10 AM by KarenRei »
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Mark in Texas

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #17 on: January 18, 2018, 08:52:29 AM »
I think a 18/6 or 20/4 on/off is the way to go. 

BTW, how are you going to heat?  Haven't followed your posts religiously so if you've addressed this I apologize.

sildanani

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Re: Supplemental Lighting Setup/Recommendations?
« Reply #18 on: January 18, 2018, 11:14:52 AM »
I run on 24/7 light and my CAM plants in general do poorer than my non-CAM plants.  I think you need a proper night cycle to get good growth out of CAM plants.  But that of course means more light during the day to make up for it.  Non-CAM plants seem to generally quite enjoy 24-7 light.  I may at some point switch to 18-6, depending on how the greenhouse project goes  ;)  Also, a few of my plants are short-day plants, so when they reach flowering size, if I want to get anything out of them I'll have to cut to even shorter day lengths, at least until flowering/fruiting is triggered.

It's interesting.. My pineapple will grow well as a CAM plant, but dragon fruit just doesn't budge. But I still need to try new lighting first to see how things change. :) Since all of this is backed so well ( and as long as I have the other essentials along with light), I should probably see results with the new lighting we'll just have to see!
So guess same lighting, different cycle? OR would cacti enjoy as different range?
Thanks again :D
Anisha