Good light source?

[Yorkshire Kris]

Is this a good light to use indoors during the winter months to keep colocasias etc healthy?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Androv-Watt-Bay ... roduct_top

[Yorkshire Kris]

This is an amazon review for similar product. I have used one of these in the bedroom and the light is amazing! So bright and clear. Hopefully useful for plants as they are cheaper than tubes etc.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bright and uplifting, 1 Dec 2010
By J. Laban-mitchell "Cosmic Starchild" (Luton, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: Androv 23 Watt Bayonet Full Spectrum Bulb
Very good for having on for a few hours a day, it did uplift the mood and the ionizer cleared the air. I found it combatted eye strain and headaches around computers/TV and good for reading with. Supposed to be good for house plants, making them grow. Can't use it all the time though as it's very bright and the bulb is massive so sticks out of lampshade. Would recomend. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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[Yorkshire Kris]

Or this one?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Watt-1200mm-Flu ... dpp_ttl_in

[sanatic1234]

can't you just buy a grow light and fix it into your light fixing, surely that would be the beter option? no? I can't really go for any of them kris what you showed as mine are all screw in fixngs and not pin fixings.

[Yorkshire Kris]

can't you just buy a grow light and fix it into your light fixing, surely that would be the beter option? no? I can't really go for any of them kris what you showed as mine are all screw in fixngs and not pin fixings.

They do screw and bayonet fixings. They are so bright and have full spectrum light so thought that they would be ideal. At £8-£10 a pop not too expensive. Wondered if anyone knew if there wasn't a reason not to?

[MikeC]

I've had good success using 30W (150W equivalent) 6400K daylight spectrum low energy bulbs. These are the ones that appear ultra white.

E.g.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/GreenLamp-equiv ... B004J4GMD2

[Yorkshire Kris]

I've had good success using 30W (150W equivalent) 6400K daylight spectrum low energy bulbs. These are the ones that appear ultra white.

E.g.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/GreenLamp-equiv ... B004J4GMD2

Cheers! I may well try these!

[Dave Brown]

I used these Ebay Item: 270822704996

[Kristen]

Do you think they would be worthwhile in the conservatory to lengthen the day somewhat? or only for "full-darkness" storage?

[Dave Brown]

Do you think they would be worthwhile in the conservatory to lengthen the day somewhat? or only for "full-darkness" storage?

Mine is coming on from midnight to 8am slightly longer than the cheap rate electricity (less than half high rate) so supplements natural daylight, if you can call it daylight.

The lighting level required depends on the temperature. If the temps are high enough for things to grow then a high level of light is required, but if cool enough for them to just tick over then a lower. maintenance level is good enough.

It also depends on the plant. Shade loving plants will be easier to accommodate than sun loving ones. A full grow light is 250w daylight, or red or blue light. 30w as in my pic has boosted Colocasia over the last week and Mojito definately has a smile on it's face since being a couple of feet below the light. Also I put my Begonia 'Connie Boswell' and 'Little Brother Montgomery' under an 11w daylight desk lamp and they have perked up no end over the last 10 days, and have started to produce nice healthy squat new growth. Natrural Daylight on a window sill indoors was producing leggy growth. Begonia 'Luxurians' grew very well under the same 11w daylight lamp indoors last winter, transfomring it from a sicky 15cm compost material plant, to a nice healthy strapping 60cm plant by late Feb.

I might get a couple of higher wattage bulbs for early spring. I have seen 45w, 85w, and 105w advertised.

[Vagetarian]

Maybe try a small one of these if you want something a little more powerful

http://www.greenshorticulture.co.uk/cat ... CFL-Lamps/

[Yorkshire Kris]

I used these Ebay Item: 270822704996

These look good value for money and equivalent to 100w bulbs. Any idea what the lumen's rating is? No expert but think the higher the lumen's the better the light for plants?

[Vagetarian]

No expert but think the higher the lumen's the better the light for plants?

Generally speaking yes.

The proper answer however is "no", lumens are a measure of the amount of light within the spectrum visible to the human eye. The higher the lumens the brighter the light you see.

Plants do not react to the same light spectrum as the human eye. In fact they get different spectrums from the sun at different times of year, hence the red and blue coloured lights. For a proper measure of how good a light is for your plants you need to look at the colour spectrum coupled with the PAR rating (photosynthetically active radiation). This tells you how much light is actually available to the plants and at which colours.

Green light for example is reflected off the leaves so that we can 'see' them so they clearly don't respond to that. This is why you'd never want to use a halogen as I believe they give out masses of useless green spectrum light.

[Yorkshire Kris]

No expert but think the higher the lumen's the better the light for plants?

Generally speaking yes.

The proper answer however is "no", lumens are a measure of the amount of light within the spectrum visible to the human eye. The higher the lumens the brighter the light you see.

Plants do not react to the same light spectrum as the human eye. In fact they get different spectrums from the sun at different times of year, hence the red and blue coloured lights. For a proper measure of how good a light is for your plants you need to look at the colour spectrum coupled with the PAR rating (photosynthetically active radiation). This tells you how much light is actually available to the plants and at which colours.

Green light for example is reflected off the leaves so that we can 'see' them so they clearly don't respond to that. This is why you'd never want to use a halogen as I believe they give out masses of useless green spectrum light.

So comparing different daylight bulbs which have the full spectrum of light; the one with the higher lumens level is better?

[Vagetarian]

So comparing different daylight bulbs which have the full spectrum of light; the one with the higher lumens level is better?

Generally speaking it is safe to assume so and you'd be very unlikely to get the PAR ratings for anything that's not horticultural anyway.

By the way, 6400K emulates summer time sun light, is that really what you want at this time of year? I'm not sure. 2700K would be much closer to the actual sunlight that plants receive right now.