Supplemental winter lights

Steve Marak via pbs pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
Thu, 24 Feb 2022 21:29:04 PST
I agree with Leo - light for plants is an area - along with nutrition 
and to some extent water quality - that can be about as complex as you 
care to make it. As a geek, I enjoy diving into that stuff, but I think 
there is a point of diminishing returns for most growers and that cheap 
efficient LEDs with higher color temperatures have moved that point much 
closer. I used to have an hour-long presentation on artificial lighting 
for orchid people covering a lot of technical material. Now it would be 
one slide that said "buy cheap LED fixtures of at least 5000 K color 
temperature, up to 6300 K, start at a conservative distance and 
day-length to avoid scorch, see how your plants respond and adjust 
accordingly". Far from the complete story, but enough for a lot of 
people who don't care about the tech-talk.

I've bought some fairly expensive LED fixtures with diodes in a 
carefully selected range of colors to provide the "perfect" spectrum for 
plants, and I bought expensive PAR meters to check them. They were 
well-designed and built fixtures and the plants grew well. But I can't 
say they grew any better than they do under $30 4-foot LED shop lights 
with a 5000 K color temperature from Sam's.

Steve

On 2/24/2022 6:46 PM, oooOIOooo via pbs wrote:
> There are many factors used to describe agricultural lighting. Technology changes rapidly. Any Wiki page on lighting would be outdated in months.
>
> ...
>
> It gets very complicated, which is why I suggest getting a recommendation from somebody who knows about these lights. I don't grow under lights so I'm not that person. But I recognize a lot of the issues.
>
> Leo Martin
> Phoenix Arizona USA
> Zone 9?

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