Lights for a noobie

[xOTIx]

Hi, I live in Texas about 30minutes from Houston and i am going to buy 2 sallys.

1st) I wanna use flourescent garage/shop lights that are 40watts that are 2 four foot tubes-Lithonia Lighting,also i have a 15 watt- will this work?

and 2nd) If this is a bad idea should i just grow them on this window sill or outside?

Thanks, all info is greatly appreciated

[spindrifter]

In your climate, you could grow outdoors in containers for most of the year, and take them inside if cold weather approaches, but you must get them well established indoors first. They won't take Houston summer heat untill they have lots of roots and have adjusted to lower humidity. They won't take full sun. They prefer partial shade/shade. You have to consider pests, too, like snails, slugs, caterpillars and beetles. Also, a hailstorm could ruin all your efforts in a few minutes.

The fixtures you're talking about are o.k., but make sure you get tubes that say 'daylight' on the package. If you light only from the top, growth may be a bit leggy. You'll get bushier growth if you use compact fluorescents in aluminum brooder fixtures and light fom the sides as well. This pic is from Bayrat's growlog, and is ideal if you just have a couple of plants.



This is one super-bushy plant, to the point of being abnormal, but it sure looks happy!

Best of luck, and welcome to the forum!

[Arcygenical]

Your best bet is to get a cheap 5$ desk lamp, and a 48w CFL lightbulb (it should say 48w = 120w or something stupid on it) for about 10$ total.

If you have more than 1 plant, get a cheap 10$ double light bulb plugin fixture and load it with 2 48w bulbs.

If you have upwards of 5 plants, get one of those cheap triple bathroom lightbulb setups, wire it with an extension cord, and put in 3 48w lightbulbs. You'll be set .

Don't use tube lighting!

[xOTIx]

Thanks a lot for the information. I'm going out to get the lights today so ill be sure to use both pieces of advise.

I made my own humidity chamber today by putting a couple of sterilite clear storage buckets on top of each other i hope this works well.

and again thanks for the info.

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Arcy, why do you say not to use tube lighting?  Is it because the plants stretch upwards, or is tube lighting bad in general for Salvia? I am using "Natural Sunshine" bulbs in the fixtures. I just setup this nifty grow area in a spare room and then read your comment. Now I am confused... I have made this similar setup for lots of other plants and they do great. Why do you say to avoid tube lighting?

[Arcygenical]

Tube lighting just isn't really powerful enough IMO.

If you think about it, the highest wattage tubes are usually around 50w or so, and are 3-4 feet in length.

Divide that down, 50/ (3 * 12) = ~ 1.4 watts per inch... Then, about 30% of the energy is lost into the actual fixture (as the light is 360 degrees, some doesn't point at the plant, and reflectors are not really possible...

Now, take a 46w CFL bulb, with a spotlight size of roughly 8" when reflected... You can see just how concentrated the light will be with a CFL.

Flouro tubes will work fine, but get a single 46w cfl on each of your plant and their growth rate will be much, much, higher (IME)

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

I agree tube lighting gives off less light per square inch, but I am very curious as to how much different, and how much light is best for Salvia. I just did some searching on eBay and found some lux meters. I think I am going to buy one and compare the differences of different lighting setups. IMO it will be a much more accurate way to measure how much light the plant is receiving instead of using wattage since the amount of light you get from each watt of power can vary greatly between different bulbs/tubes.

Can Salvia take as much light as I can give her? Do you know of any studies showing the best amount of lux to give her?

I noticed with my plant in the window that when the sun came through and directly shined on the leaves she began to wilt. I assumed it was from too much light on the plant because they like the shade......but I just read in another post that it could be from overheating the leaves, and not the light 

JARG

[Bayrat]

Lux/lumens meters measure the amount of visible light to the human eye, which is a good starting point but not very accurate to the wavelengths that some plants need. 

Tube bulbs are fine for some things, in fact better sometimes.  They are great for starting small plants and seedlings as there is no chance of burn and they give off a wide even distribution of light over a big area.  Problem is they must be kept within 4" of the plant for good growth, meaning the lower leaves of a larger plant won't get much light.  This can be solved by adding more lights on the sides of the plant.  If you have 4 foot long bulbs and 4 plants under them 1 foot apart you are using all the energy of the bulbs and that is perfect, but if you have only 1 plant you are wasting a lot of light and you'd be better off with a more concentrated bulb like a cfl.

Tube bulbs are not all the same.  Normal house fixtures are T12, T10 and T8.  The lower the number the thinner the bulb and more power it puts out.  A 48" T12 puts out about 32w, T10 ~36w, and T8 ~40w.  These all fit standard home fixtures.  T5's and T5 HO are thinner yet and put out more power in a smaller area and are great for growing most plants.  Then you have power compact (PC) lights that are even thinner and more powerful.  They are different in that they have one tube that is bent back to itself and only has power to one side, with a remote ballast.  My 96w PC's are only 36" long.  CFL's are basically PC's that are twisted in a spiral or zig-zag shape with built in ballast making them able to be screwed into a light socket.  A PC is the most efficient as long as all the light can be used, if not then a CFL can be used to concentrate the light in a smaller area.  No matter what you use good reflectors can increase the lumens hitting the plant by over 50%.

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

I found a really good article explaining what wavelengths humans see vs what wavelengths plants use. It seems one of the ways to measure how much light your plants get is by using the PAR watts method. The article explains that a 100 watt incandescent bulb is only 6% efficient and therefore only produces 6 watts of usable light, or 6 watts of PAR. And a 400 watt metal halide lamp provides about 140 watts of PAR. It also explains that the same 400 watt bulb in HPS has more lumens (light seen by the eye) but less watts of PAR (light seen by plants) with only 120 watts of PAR.

So it seems first I need to find out how efficient my bulbs are, then calculate the area being lit, and that will tell me how many watts of PAR per sq meter I have. And that seems to be a very accurate way of measuring how much usable light my plants will be receiving.

Now I just need to setup an experiment with Salvia and watts of PAR. I would be very curious to see what is the minimum level needed for Salvia to grow, what is too much, and what is the curve between the two.

http://www.sunmastergrowlamps.com/SunmLightandPlants.html

JARG

[Arcygenical]

The efficiency of a fluorescent lightbulb is approximately 12%-15% depending on make and the quality of the inverter...

I know for a fact, when I stepped up to 3 46w CFL bulbs from 3 45w 4' Flourescent tubes, my plants grew almost twice as fast.

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Well that settles it then, I am going to go buy some brooders and "daylight" CFL's. I'll have to come up with some creative way to mount the brooders over and around my 5 plants. I have some mylar for reflection left from another project and I might just turn my spare closet into a happy Salvia room. I want to get these babies growing so I can see if they start to look like individual strains or if I got ripped off and got all the same strain...

JARG

[Bayrat]

Well that settles it then, I am going to go buy some brooders and "daylight" CFL's. I'll have to come up with some creative way to mount the brooders over and around my 5 plants. I have some mylar for reflection left from another project and I might just turn my spare closet into a happy Salvia room. I want to get these babies growing so I can see if they start to look like individual strains or if I got ripped off and got all the same strain...

JARG

Your setup looks fine as it is for the size of your plants, just lower the lights all the way and put mylar on the sides.  When they get bigger add cfls around the perimeter.  JMO

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Thanks Bayrat, I have lowered the lights down within 1/2" of the top of my bamboo stakes. It raised the temp up to 75 degrees at the plant level, and the humidity is staying around 85%. It's probably going to be a week or so before I get a new lighting setup. I'll post more pics and descriptions in my grow log.

JARG

[Arcygenical]

By the way, home depot sells 10$ 3 bulb bathroom fixture... Just wire it up to a POLARIZED extension cord (black wire in the fixture to the side of the cord with the SMALL (thinner) PRONG, white wire t the side of the cord with the WIDER PRONG) and hang it over your plants. That's what I did!

[Bayrat]

By the way, home depot sells 10$ 3 bulb bathroom fixture... Just wire it up to a POLARIZED extension cord (black wire in the fixture to the side of the cord with the SMALL (thinner) PRONG, white wire t the side of the cord with the WIDER PRONG) and hang it over your plants. That's what I did!

Thats what I did too, got 2 of the clearance ones for $6.  You can also use two way splitters on each socket if you need more light.  Also picked up those porcelain sockets you find in basements/closets  for $1.27 each and used them to wire up a nice reef tank light with the same type bulbs.