All indoor gardens that use artificial light should use a reflective film to increase growth.
     Your plants mature faster and it will make your plants bigger and stronger much quicker.

All indoor gardens that use artificial light should use a reflective film to increase growth.
     Your plants mature faster and it will make your plants bigger and stronger much quicker.

This is very easy to achieve by hanging sheets of reflective film around your garden. Make sure you keep them at least 6in away from your plants.

Hanging them to close will only block your lighting from reflecting light back and forth to each sheet around your garden.

You want the light to reflect around and around and around.
Even cover the floor and the ceiling to reflect your light up and down.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING
FOR GREENHOUSES AND GROW-ROOMS

LET’S GROW UNDER LIGHTS!

Artificial lighting for home hobbyist greenhouses or interior grow rooms has expanded in use in recent years as the price and quality of these systems has improved. Homeowners who have made a large investment in sunrooms, only to find their plants grow poorly all winter are turning to artificial lights to create a more lush space. In addition, many avid gardeners are finding that an indoor grow area lit by artificial lights can be cheaper to run than heating a greenhouse.

With few exceptions most plant require relatively high levels of light to exhibit healthy growth. This coupled with the fact that most artificial lights have lower intensity than full sun means that serious gardeners need to be looking for more light. Anyone who has started tomato plants in February under a couple of fluorescent grow lights can tell you that the plants grow spindly and look terrible by the time it is warm enough to plant them outdoors. At the same time gardeners who have invested in the proper lighting system can harvest tomatoes grown entirely under artificial lights in January! On the following pages you will find all the information you need to successfully choose and use artificial light to grow your plants year-round.

SOME SCIENTIFIC STUFF ABOUT LIGHT AND PLANT GROWTH!

I am sorry to have to say it, but you need to know some science to choose and use an artificial light system, otherwise you will be at the mercy of poor and/or misinformation which will cost you in the long run in either money or poor plant growth. Light, carbon dioxide, oxygen, water and mineral nutrients are required for plant growth. Light is the main source of energy for all plants and is involved in regulating many growth responses such as flowering. Three characteristics of light are critical to plant growth: the spectrum, intensity and duration. To understand how these properties of light affect plant growth we must understand the nature of light

THE SPECTRUM OR THE COLOR OF LIGHT

Visible light is the most familiar part of a much larger electromagnetic spectrum that includes all forms of radiation such as x-rays, microwaves, ultraviolet and infrared rays. All radiation is emitted on the form of waves and scientifically the electromagnetic spectrum is expressed as wavelength. White light such as sunlight is made up a range of wavelengths. What we see as blue light is composed of the shorter wavelengths while red light is composed of longer wavelengths. When combined in equal amounts they appear as white light.

The color of visible light emitted from an artificial light source is also expressed as the temperature in degrees Kelvin of the light source. The higher the Kelvin number the bluer the light so a light that is 5000 K. is blue while one 2000 K. is more yellow/red. In more general terms blue light is referred to as “cool” light while red light is referred to as “warm” light. Both the Kelvin temperature and the terms “cool” and “warm” do not refer to how much heat the light emits but the color of the light.

LIGHT INTENSITY

Light intensity is measured in two ways. The visible light intensity (how bright the light appears to your eyes) is expressed as foot-candles, lumens or Lux. For practical purposes 10 Lumens equals 10 foot-candles equals 1 Lux. Light meters are useful for measuring the intensity of light because they have a constant opening. Your eyes adjust to the amount of light available so they are poor indicators of the intensity of light. That is why the inside of a building may “look bright to your eyes but be virtually dark to a plant.

Plants do not “see” light the same way that we do. Plants are less concerned with how bright the light is and are more concerned with the energy of the light. The energy of light is measured as joules or watts per square area. The intensity of light is not the same as the amount of energy in the light because blue light has more energy than red light so that 2000 foot-candles of red light has less energy than the same 2000 foot-candles of blue light. This is one reason that grow light promoting lots of lumens may not be any better than lamps with lower lumens.

PLANT RESPONSE TO LIGHT

Plants use chlorophyll and other light gathering pigments to convert the energy in light to sugars and other compounds they use for growth. In addition plants have a light sensing apparatus, which regulates many plant processes including flowering. Because the light sensing apparatus reacts to even low levels of most artificial light we will focus on the use of light to produce energy

Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants. This pigment captures the energy in the light, converting it into bioactive compounds, which can then be used to make sugars and other building blocks of the plant. The part of the light spectrum that is absorbed by the chlorophyll is called the Photosynthetic Active Radiation or PAR. Pure chlorophyll absorbs light mostly in the blue and red areas of the spectrum and reflects green light, which is why plants are green.  Many grow lamps make a big deal about providing light that most closely resembles the PAR of plants, implying that this will give the fastest growth. The fact is that the PAR is determined from pure chlorophyll while in nature the chlorophyll in plants is complexed with other pigments most notably carotinoids which play a part in the absorption of light energy and which absorb light at wavelengths not represented by the PAR. In fact ecological studies have shown that in a forest the tops of the trees receive a balanced spectrum while the lower leaves receive a spectrum skewed toward the green and red. Yet both contribute energy to the plant. So the concept of a perfect spectrum for plants is not be fixed and is not perfectly represented by the PAR.

LIGHT AND INDOOR GARDENING-THE REAL WORLD

We don’t have to worry about the spectrum of light from the sun but growing in a greenhouse or sunny window in the northern latitudes in winter can be a challenge. The short days and lower light levels can really hurt most high light plants. My experience growing culinary herbs in a greenhouse in New York is that the short days hurts more than the lower light levels. I could tell by looking at my plants the day in February when the day length reached 11 hours. Of course when growing in a window, light intensity can also be an issue. There are a number of plants that grow well under low light conditions, African violets, chervil, lettuce, many orchids and foliage plants. However, even these plants just “hang on” all winter and would benefit from some additional light.

It is easy to set-up a greenhouse, sunroom or other space with a single high intensity ight to promote plant growth all winter. By choosing the right intensity light (see below) it is possible to grow any plant that can be grown outdoors. This even opens up the possibility of growing tropical fruit plants such as citrus in your house. For those that don’t have a greenhouse or who are tired of piling their plants in front of the windows all winter. It is possible to grow fruiting and flowering plants in a basement or other location that receives no outside light. It is only a matter of choosing the proper light.

CHOOSING A LIGHT, IT’S A LOT SIMPLER THAN YOU THINK.  

You really have only three choices when it comes to artificial lights appropriate for indoor growing, fluorescent lights, High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights and Metal Halide (MH) lights. (HPS and MH lights are sometimes referred to as high intensity discharge (HID) lights. These types of lights produce acceptable spectrums for plant growth and are also efficient in turning electricity into PAR light so they are cost effective compared to other light sources. Each of these lights has advantages and disadvantages. To decide which light is best for you it is important to understand how they work and their limitations.

FLUORESCENT LIGHTS

Most gardeners are familiar with and have used fluorescent lights for starting and growing plants with varied amount of success. Poor results obtained with fluorescent lights can be traced to two problems, not enough bulbs to cover the growing area and the bulbs not close enough to the plants. Our experience has shown that you can grow most plants using about 40 fixture watts per square foot.  With fluorescent bulbs you need a minimum of four 40 watt four foot long bulbs to cover a 1 by 4 foot area. However, because fluorescent bulbs tend to disperse light you are fooling yourself if you think your light is only covering the 1 by 4 foot area. In reality it is covering 11/2 to 2 by 4 feet so 6 to 8 bulbs are what is really required.

With all artificial lights the light intensity is greatest near the bulb and diminishes with the square of the distance as you move away. Thus, a light that gives 1000 lumens 1 foot away will give only 250 lumens at 2 ft. In addition, fluorescent lights give more diffuse light, like the light on a cloudy day. This scattered light looses its’ energy quickly, so to obtain good growth under fluorescent lights the plants must be within a few inches of the light. Because fluorescent lights need to be close to the plants their usefulness is limited to low profile plants such as lettuce or African violets and to seedlings. It is difficult, but not mpossible, to grow a high profile plant, like peppers, to fruiting under fluorescent lights.

HID (High Intensity Discharge) LIGHTS

As mentioned previously HID lights are available as either MH (metal halide) or HPS (high pressure sodium) lights. Both of these are acceptable for growing plants. The MH bulbs have a more blue spectrum that looks more like daylight while the HPS bulbs are more golden. They both are over 30% efficient at turning electricity into light. The price of MH fixtures are a little cheaper than the HPS fixtures but the bulbs do not last as long so the operating cost is about the same. 

HID lights produce an intense point source light that is not as diffuse as fluorescent bulbs and includes significant amounts of infrared radiation (heat). This means that HID bulbs are most effective when combined with a sophisticated reflector and are kept a minimum of 1 to 2 ft from the plants. In general HID lights are better for taller plants and plants requiring a higher light intensity.All HID lights require a transformer (ballast) to ignite the bulb and keep it lit. Some ballasts are built into the light fixtures while some are kept remote. Most Ballasts are designed to work using 120V with other voltages available. HID light systems are simple to use. I have one hung in my sunroom. I place the high light plants directly under the light and my lower light plants such as orchids farther away. There is no better morning in January than one spent with a paper and cup of coffee among my plants under the lights.

SIMPLE RULES FOR LIGHTING YOUR PLANTS

First, choose the right light. Second, have enough light. The most common mistake of most gardeners is to have too little light. A simple rule of thumb is you need 40 watts of fixture per square foot of growing area to grow most plants.

Third, keep the lights the right distance from the plants. Fluorescent lights need to be 1 to 4 inches from the plants. HID lights should be 1 to 3 ft. Finally change your bulbs on a regular basis. Fluorescent and HID bulbs will last 15,000 or more hours but they loose 25%to 35% of their intensity after 4000 to 6000 hours of use. Your eyes do not often ee this loss of light because they adjust, but your plants can feel it.

When choosing a light source the requirements of the plant you are growing is important. Most vegetables, herbs and flowering plants require high levels of light, while some tropical plants including orchids and African violets will thrive at lower light levels. Probably the biggest mistake made when purchasing a light is not getting enough light. It is always possible to reduce the level of light by moving the light farther away but i is not possible to add light by moving the lamp closer as you will lose coverage.

Gardening indoors year round can be fun and rewarding. One added benefit is that weeds are rarely a problem and insects are more easily controlled. With the right light you will be surprised at how effortlessly your plants grow.

A simple fact is: "The more the better!!

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