Hi, Alex,

Nice to hear from you again. Congrats on the new light set-up.

I remember one person raving about LEDs, but they didn't actually say they were using them. The archives have some threads. One's listed below.

Hope it's helpful.

Whitecat8

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread about LEDs

Thanks

You should visit http://www.growled.se/store
They have the most affordable led grow lights on the web, cost me 400 bucks to replace all my old lights (400w) with 100 watt of LEDs, so now I'm saving loads in electricity bills and the plants love it too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growled

I wouldn't mind switching to LEDs if you can grow with white lights but my grow area is in the main living area of my house so the red/blue would look too strange there. does anybody know about using the white LEDs

How are fc's meaured with these lights?

Clara

I've been using an "Alert LE3015 30 LED task light" above my Sarracenia purpurea. The white LEDs used in the device are a bit high in blue, but the color distribution is just fine for a wall display in my main room. Presently the plant is throwing out new pitchers at a good pace and they are maturing normally. No etiolation or discoloration is apparent.

The device is going for 15$-25$ at hardware stores, but would only be sufficient for one small plant. They do make larger versions and there are plenty of people selling white LED flood lamps which might be used to good effect.

My experience with the white LEDs and my Sarracenia has led me to consider constructing a bank of white LEDs to maintain my cactus collection through the winter here in MN.

Xenobleps,

Hello from another Z4 MN. There are 4-5 of us from the Twin Cities here. Just checked out your page. Are you growing any orchids as companions to your Sarracenia? LOL Contemplating any?

Regardless, it's good to hear from another "local."

Whitecat8

I've got one orchid presently, a hybrid seedling from a local orchid show/sale a few years back. Paphiopedilum annamense 'Golden Brown' x sanderianum 'Deep Pockets'. It has been slowly increasing in size, but I expect it has a few more years before it flowers.

Good winter light probably won't hurt this one as previous years it has only had windowsill light to keep it going.

I just sprung for four LED's and plan to use them as a test to see how identical plants (24 seedlings and two 5-year old Blc George King 'Serendipity') do compared to a control set of the same plants using High Pressure Sodium. The units I bought were expensive ($300 to cover a recommended 32 sq ft), with each having 225 red and blue LED;s set in a 1 sqft enclosure, but if effective should pay for themselves in a season or two.

While I was researching I read papers that claimed similar results for HPS and LED in some university research papers, but they used this on soft-leaved species, which I dont grow. Wish I had saved the URLs for these, but did not. Interested folks can Google these.

I will report on results in the spring.

Paul

Sometime after my last (Nov 9) post I ordered and constructed a 14watt LED kit from http://www.homegrownlights.com/. My Paph. sanderianum x annamense seedling was placed about 14 inches below the light and exposed to varying "day lengths" from 12 to 72 hours. In that time it has put on 1.5 inches of new growth, to a total leaf length of about 20 inches.

Given how slow growing sanderianum hybrids tend to be and how vague my care of it has been, this is quite dramatic.