Grow lights

[Blairs]

I have a few plants that I would like to tick over using grow lights. Is anyone using growlights? If so can you recommend a make please?

I have a frost free garage and an electricity supply. My bay window is full up of Musa, Strelizia, Brugs etc and my wife's support is getting low and I want to start Canna and the like soonish. My greenhouse is frost free but until March really gets little direct sun and it is full of other plants and I have limited space alas. It is also cheaper to light than to heat.

[bordersboy]

Ive had my eye on some led ones on ebay. But having read a few growers websites i think i will leave it as they appear to be a waste and conventional lighting takes too much electricity to be worthwhile unless your growing some of Amsterdams best dope

[Kristen]

I think Dave uses some CFL's, dotted about, in his Winter Plant Store IIRC his opinion was they provided enough light for tickover, with plants in minimum survivable temperatures. (i.e. more light would be required if maintaining higher temperatures).

I have Fluorescent Tube lighting rig (tubes 3" apart, 48W per sq.ft) which I only used for seedlings. The lights need to be no more than 2" away from the plants, so not good for "canopy penetration" if growing-on taller plants. I think LED is in the same bracket (but I like the fact that LEDs produce narrow bandwidth light, and using that for plants means giving them 100% of what they want and not wasting energy producing light in other parts of the spectrum, so more cost effective running costs).

I also have a Metal Halide HID growing lamp. That is 600W and gives out lots of heat. Its about 75W per sq.ft. of growing space and needs to be about 2' away from plants otherwise it burns them! That will definitely make plants grow - I have grown Cannas from seed to flowering, in mid Winter, in 8 weeks ... I can well imagine it does an excellent job on High Value Crops too

[Blairs]

Thanks guys.

That has made think of trying full spectrum CFLs with a reflector made out of tin foil type material to reflect the light around. It is just Cannas and the like that I will try it out with. I was also looking at HID grow lights but 600w is on the high side (we tend to use 7-9 kWh per day) but if needs must.

[fern Rob]

LED systems are great, and i think they may be the future of crop production

[daz h]

Thanks guys.

That has made think of trying full spectrum CFLs with a reflector made out of tin foil type material to reflect the light around. It is just Cannas and the like that I will try it out with. I was also looking at HID grow lights but 600w is on the high side (we tend to use 7-9 kWh per day) but if needs must.

dont use tin foil to make a reflector , the wrinkles create hot spots of light that can burn plants . use mylar or buy a proper reflector . when using cfls you need to make the most of the available light so it is definately worth investing in a proper reflector. and if you can, paint the area around your plants matt white (not gloss) which is also very good at reflecting light

[sanatic1234]

I use these ones i have 3 of them now but will get one more, more light the better i say One bulb though is Extremely bright! not expensive on the electric either and have kept a lot of plants nice and green and looking very happy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004 ... em_1p_0_ti