Lighting Question

Steve Marak via pbs pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:49:20 PST
Fred,

That's a topic that can be as complex as you want to make it (there's a 
lot of research, but also a lot of folklore, out there), and you can 
spend a lot of money on fixtures, but my opinion is that if you don't 
care about tweaking every little thing to the utmost, then you can 
simplify it down a lot and for a lot less money. I've grown and do grow 
under both artificial light and in a greenhouse, and replaced my last 
fluorescent fixture with an LED several years ago. Mostly carnivorous 
plants, orchids, and aroids, but there are some bulbs and other 
geophytes in there too.

If you want to go into the science and get recommendations for some 
reasonably priced full-spectrum fixtures designed for plants, I suggest 
looking at the articles and blog entries from Kelly McCracken of High 
Desert Orchids: https://highdesertorchids.com/blogs/…

I used to do a talk on this topic for orchid people, now I just point 
them to Kelly's stuff. She does a great job, covering aspects most 
people don't. Some are technical, but she's also good at presenting 
those in a clear way that doesn't require a technical background to 
understand.

For myself, I just buy cheap, linkable, 4-foot LED shop lights at Sam's 
Club for about $30, 5000 K color temp. Not perfect, and the serious 
light people will sneer at me, but they're cheap and convenient, and 
plants are amazingly good at capturing photons, even in the green 
spectrum where we tend to think they're inefficient. The only problem I 
had when I went from fluorescent to LED was I had to raise the lights 
several inches and/or reduce the time on a little. The LEDs were, from 
the plant's perspective, more intense. (Remember that lumens is a unit 
designed for how human eyes see light and doesn't reflect - no pun 
intended - how plants use light, and that light emitted from LEDs is 
probably in a different pattern than that from your fluorescents.) In 
some cases I have one LED shop light, with a reflector along the back, 
where I had previously had two fluorescent fixtures.

And finally, I would definitely and absolutely avoid the "purple" LED 
fixtures - those that are a mix of red and blue LEDs.

Steve


On 1/10/2023 12:27 PM, Fred Biasella via pbs wrote:
> Hello Folks,
>
> I'm sure there was a discussion about changing fluorescent lights over to LED lights a while back but I don't exactly remember (CRS ya know?). I was just online looking for replacements and got all twisted up with the spectrum, kelvins and intensity. Which spectrum do you all use so the plants grown indoors get the proper light spectrum/exposure and not cook them? I'm very fortunate in that my plants are growing in my closed in, heated, southern exposed porch but I think they would grow better with different lights. Any Help would be greatly appreciated :)
>
> Thanks,
> Fred
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