How little? Like the one on Waterworld?

I've got a five foot tomato plant grown with a 13w twist bulb in a desk lamp that's shaped like a cone.

hey, that's fabulous about your tomato. my tree is a one year old about 2 feet high. very young. i'm using a 20 watt CFL and a 40 watt halogen now but it's just not cutting it. lost all its' leaves already.

I've used outdoor metal halide or high-pressure sodium floodlights as plant lights, and they do fine. They have the added advantage that they can be used outdoors, to supplement natural light.

However, for indoor-only growing, I'd probably pay the extra bucks for a grow light. The reason is that the reflectors are better (so more light reaches the plant), and you can get bulbs designed for the light spectrum that plants like (so more of the light is helping the plant grow). They also come with a remote ballast (separate transformer-like box), so the part you mount from the ceiling is a lot lighter, and often a 5-year guarantee. Over time, the electricity will wind up costing more than the light, so getting one that's specialized and efficient might be worth it.

ya, thanks nygardener. i am leaning towards getting the damn grow lite despite all the money! thank you so much for your input. btw, did you add a cord and plug to your floodlight? that's what i was thinking of doing, so i can just plug it into a wall outlet. but i was worried cause the suppliers kept saying it was designed to be wired to an electrical box (j box, i think they said).

hey,
i just checked out your pics NYgardener....is that stuff yours? really nice! great outdoor set-up. looks like you are into photography as well (so am i). nice pics. thanks.

(Lermer) Usually, 175watt MH is about the same price as 250w or 400w MH. I'm not sure what you mean by "floodlight" but I think you mean quartz halogen. This is about the same efficiency per watt for plant growth as incandescents, which is about the worst possible light to use for this purpose because of the excessive infra-red.

You didn't say how big your lemon tree is. If significantly more than 2', I would either use an HPS overhead (becaue yellow-orange penetrates better than full spectrum) or preferably use three lights: one on either side and one from overhead. The cheapest would be to use 3 of the 70watt HPS security lights from Home Depot.

If you have the money, get Ceramic Metal Halide, which is full-spectrum.

hi lermer,
my tree is a very young tree and only about 2 feet tall. by floodlight, i meant a MH floodlight not halogen. i've seen new ones on ebay go for $50, shipping included. and some sellers were willing to attach a plug for a nominal fee.

Since you said you were cash strapped, you might try looking on www.StealItBack.com. It's where some of the different drug agencies or police departments list all sorts of stuff confiscated during drug raids. You can find very good deals on ballasts for MH and HPS lights there. I wouldn't buy the reflectors or the bulbs: the reflectors are fully assembled and the shipping companies charge top dollar to ship as oversize or 2x oversize; and you don't want the lamps as you don't know how old they are (the spectrum changes as the lamps age.)

Just be aware that shipping costs can be kind of high, depending on where you live and what you are buying.

I bought two 1000W ballasts for $10 each, but shipping was $25 each.

Good luck!

--->Rob

Here is a link that might be useful: Steal It Back .com

hi, yes i know about stealitback. so do many growers i think. :) got that tip from more than a few people. my only concern is that they don't test anything. and it's sold as is. and i never saw anything less than $40 bucks (without shipping). you made out great!

Thanks, yes, they were fun to build and fun to shoot. I did have to hire an electrician to connect the floodlights to a cord and add a plug. It was easy (for him) and relatively inexpensive. I used fairly heavy-gauge, outdoor wire so that I could make them long enough to reach an indoor outlet. This also makes it easy to plug them into a timer. If you own your house you could probably have them wired in permanently with a greenhouse timer on the circuit.

Here is where I bought the outdoor lights. Mine were 400W Floodzillas.

Shygirl said: "my tree is a very young tree and only about 2 feet tall. by floodlight, i meant a MH floodlight not halogen. i've seen new ones on ebay go for $50, shipping included. and some sellers were willing to attach a plug for a nominal fee."

(K) Be careful when buying super-cheap stuff on e-bay. Typically the super-cheap ballasts are made in China with aluminum wire windings. This will cause much higher temperatures, because of the higher resistance. This makes the ballast less reliable, will likely burn out quicker and be louder. Also the super-cheap ballasts typically have a steel enclosure, which does not dissipate heat as well as aluminum housing (and steel has eddy-current losses). So, go with copper windings and aluminum enclosures.

It's usually better to order from a bricks-and-mortar store because a lot of the e-bay outfits are just guys operating out of their basement, with no warranties and often shoddy or used equipment.

What's way better than a standard metal halide, is a full-spectrum ceramic metal halide. These CMH bulbs are powered by an HPS magnetic ballast, or a Life Light digital ballast.