"Vegetables" covers a lot of ground, some of which aren't even technically vegetables if you're looking for flowers and fruit :)

Some of them just grow and you harvest them, like lettuces and radishes, very easy under lights. Others have complex seasonal lifecycles, like sprouts or onions, probably difficult under lights although I haven't tried them. Others are flowering and fruiting plants like peppers and tomatoes, definitely possible under lights but not always easy.

You can certainly go from seed to harvest under fluorescents, they give out light which is not fundamentally different from any other light sources. You do need to appreciate what fluorescents are good at and what they are not good at. One thing you will always struggle to achieve with straight fluorescent tubes is extremely high light intensity, certainly the 32W T8s (almost certainly running at 28W on a 0.88 ballast) will be barely adequate for high light plants. Fluorescents are ideal for short plants because they can be used very close to the top of the plant to achieve maximum light intensity without expensive reflectors. Conversely, most people don't use them on tall plants because you can't then place them close to the top of the plant and you do need a good quality reflector system. You also will need more lights for tall plants simply because the light will inevitably spread over a wider area. With the 32W T8s and a tall high light plant like a tomato you would need to get creative and arrange the tubes more "around" the plants than simply "above" them, but it sounds like that might not be what you are growing on your shelf system.

Detailed discussion of light colours will depend on what you are growing. Some other things you might not have considered are fans. Large arrays of lights close to plants can overheat them and moving air is always going to be useful. Also consider how you might cool the whole room, imagine running a 1kw heater for several hours a day because that is effectively what you will be doing. For your convenience you will probably want timers to switch the lights on and off.

Personally, it seems like a huge effort when you have so much natural light available even in winter. Is there not some way to grow stuff under shade cloth or indoors near a window?

I do have a greenhouse setup, which I am going to take advantage of through the winter and spring. I was looking for a viable solution for year round growing though, since where I live the temperatures can reach 118 degrees F, virtually zero humidity and precipitation. It's dry and hot and all my efforts in the past have failed.

I should also note I have MH and HPS ballasts/bulb/relefectors, but they are 1000w'ers. It would be overkill to my electric in the summer combining the draw with the heat created in an already hard to cool home.

Hence the flouros seemed idea. I have also ordered up lots of red and some blue high flux leds and will build a sizeable array. I've seem start to finish under pure LED with encouraging results. I am hoping that, coupled with vertical flouros may be able to give me a solution for very round vegetables without the electric/heat problems associated with HID lights.

I guess I won't know until I try. =)

There will be no significant difference to your A/C load from using fluorescents or HID lighting. The heat production for a given power of these lights is exactly the same, just distributed in different ways. For example, 512W of fluorescents will produce more heat than 400W of metal halide, it will distributed over a very large warm area instead of a very small hot area, but your A/C will still take the hit.

Henry Kuska talks about that in another thread, where they discuss whether 24/0 is better than 18/6 The bottom line is
that the plants grow more with more light, but THEY NEED to have temperature fluctuation, that is a COOLING DOWN period for optimal growth. That is why most people go with18/6 or something, because the garden cools off at night. Very few people I know will use an air conditioner to cool the garden
for 6 hours, but this will totally maximize growth, at the expense of you electricity bill. Only you can know whether you have an efficient way of doing this. Henry Kuska grows all of his roses at 24/0 seven days a week, because roses are non-photoperiodic. You could try searching Henry Kuska's posts to find the thread. Paul Mozarowski.

Shrubs......I see you recommending fluorescents to people, but they are the worst lights around for growing plants. They don't produce the electron volts per photon that plants have evolved with from natural sunlight. They heat up and glow. Does the Sun heat up and glow? No, its plasma based, high frequency, full spectrum light. LED's heat up and glow as well, they're a diode!! They also cannot produce the energy required for plant growth. LED's are also another petroleum based industry we don't need to support. When you can light a stadium with an LED fixture, we'll have something to talk about for plant growth. Until then, theres nothing to discuss about them in a garden forum.

"LED's are also another petroleum based industry we don't need to support. When you can light a stadium with an LED fixture, we'll have something to talk about for plant growth. Until then, theres nothing to discuss about them in a garden forum."
Interesting view!
BTW, the computer you are using and the keyboard you are typing on are all petroleum based.

dcarch

Exactly dcharch,,,do we need to support one more industry that is? Haven't we taken on enough? Did you know that there are trace amounts of gold, platinum and silver in LED's? Will we empty the gold from Ft. Knox to light the world with LED's? 100 years from now they'll be mining them for their precious metals. Just one LED manuf. can produce over 1billion LED's in 1 month. Imagine......

My point is why are you using your computer, keyboard, and other electronic stuff?

dcarch

Fluorescents heat up and glow? Don't make me laugh. There are two major sources of light which "heat up and glow", in other words emit a continuous blackbody spectrum dependant only on their high temperature. They are incandescent light bulbs, including halogens, and the sun. HID, including metal halide, LPS, and HPS, fluorescent, and LEDs all emit light in emission lines at specific wavelengths, usually several different emission lines and sometimes Doppler broadened.

Electron volts per photon? Go read a book please, you are embarrassing yourself. The energy of a photon depends only on the wavelength of the photon and not how it was produced. There is absolutely no difference between the electron volts of a photon produced by a fluorescent light and a metal halide light, in fact no way at all of telling what light source produced a particular photon.

As for all this wittering about the petroleum industry, do you think metal halide lamps and ballast grow on trees?

I have always had great success with Fluorescent grow lights. Before I purchased a rather large setup last yr, spring 2007, my seedlings only got southern exposure during the daytime.
Once I setup the growlight system, my tomato plants, and catnip plants doubled in size than without.
I purchased my setup, it is a 4 ft system very cheaply online. But I don't remember the company I bought it from.
Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening for fun

The energy of a photon has a wavelength and it also has an amplitude. If you plug your light into the wall, it produces light at 60HZ. The gasses in the lamp are driven to the frequency of the ballast. The Sun hits the Earth at a frequency that is inverse to the nanometers in KHZ. The visible spectrum shines at 800 to 400 KHZ, approx. How does your 60 HZ fluorescent tube or any low frequency light make light that behaves like Sunlight, which is what all living things want.

I think youre forgetting that this forum is about growing plants. Are you a photobiologist?

Everyone wants to run to LED's because its easy. All the BS claims these companies make that they help grow plants is nonsense. Anyone who still thinks a lumen makes any difference to a plant is truly lost in their knowledge of lighting. Lumens are a measurement for the human eye and have nothing to do with plants at all.

My metal halide tree and bulb bush grow well. Thanks.

Did you know if you break a CFL in your home, it qualifies as a toxic spill? 3 to 5 Mg of mercury in every lamp, and 99%of all homes will never recycle them. Theres mercury for your landfills and our environment. Will people destroy the planet tomorrow to save a little energy today?

I really do not want to get into this too much, because it's not on topic. So this is the last time I will respond to this:
1. A photon has no wavelength and has no amplitude. A light wave has photons and amplitude.
2. If you plug your light into the wall, almost no light will produce any Hz, unless it is solid state (LED on an unfiltered D/c power source) otherwise it will be 120 HZ, not 60 Hz.
3. Sun light is flat in amplitude, no HZ. What planet/solar system are you from?

People who use science wrong are the ones who distroy the environment. We all know what your are trying to sell here. Too obvious. Not working.

dcarch

dcarch

Go read Photobiology by Hall and Rao, 7th edition. Then, if you remember what you read, you'll shut your piehole. Your knowledge is antiquated and obsolete. You may know typewriters inside out, but you know nothing of the computer age, quantum physics and photobiology. Quit pretending to be an authority when your just blowing smoke. I won't even dignify the ignorance of your questions with a response you quack.

dantjed,

Thank you for your kind suggestions, and the festive technical buffoonery entertainment you provided so far.

We need you here. There are not too many people like you here in the forum any more, as they all have been banned.

Warm convivial greetings while I try to replace the typewriter ribbon

dcarch

ttaz, it appears the people got off topic on your thread. I found one with some information on the lumens and kelvans questions you may want to consider.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lights/msg121557449921.html?9

Yea, I realize that. I wasn't concerned about the debate of HID vs Flouro (including CFL) vs LED. I have seen with my own eyes what can be grown under straight flouro, T8's... not even T5's. That is why I decided to use them. I tried to induce more viable information by wording my question about seed to harvest by phrasing it that way, hoping someone would give a honest assesment on yield under flouro.

Yep, I don't care about lumens per watt... as I do know it is irrelevant... CD for each NM in the source, that would be worth talking about. Same goes for if my analog is running at 60 vs the digital 20k. Sure... 1 watt is 1 watt, but there is no correlation between 1 watt of X produces the same amount of heat as 1 watt of Y. It all boils down to efficiency. I can make you a 2000w "light" has the faintest glow and great heat producer *oven, cough*, but not so good for plants.

It is no myth that LED does not work either, as my girlfriend uses them for her orchids in a room with no sunlight.

I just never grown vegetables, indoors, under lights... so that is where my question is going.

I guess I should have left it at... Assuming I'm using your favorite light source of choice and everyone else's sucks, is growing veggies under light a just "let it run it course" until it pops veggies?

All I wanted to know was about the photo period, if any, or if there was nute triggers, if any, and just some shooting the breeze about flouro experiences. I can already tell the people who bag flouro so hard have never tried it.

"Man... your setup sucks because you aren't using my setup!"

ttaz,

Here's my minimal experience with veggies under fluorescents. I had four T8 tubes in front of a bright but small west window that I used for seed starting. I usually started my seeds way too early, so the tomatoes had to hang out there until it got warm enough. I would get blooms maybe 8 to 12 weeks after sowing. I think I was using a 16 hour light period. I'm don't think I ever got any fruit to start, but I didn't try to pollinate the flowers.

However, the plants were tall and lanky and ugly. They really needed more light to be strong and probably to produce enough fruit.

I had the same experience starting ornamental peppers.

To get a decent harvest from tomatoes and peppers, then, I would hypothesize that you really need the lights surrounding the plants like shrubs explained, or use the HID's.

I've read that lettuce is easier to do under lights, but it doesn't like too much heat.

Good luck, and use whatever lights you want to! Over the last 3 decades, I've used Grolux, T12 cool fluorescents supplemented with incandescents, mix of cool and warm T8 fluoros, Wonderlights, CFL's, MH 400 watt, and T5's. They all work but different bulbs are preferable for different situations.

Plants are so tolerant of many lighting situations, I have said that the only thing I would object to is using wax candles to grow plants.

I just want to add one important consideration which a lot of people tend to forget:

Almost all lighting sources, MH, HPS, fluor, etc. loose their quality and quantity of light significantly as they age, do not wait until they are burnt out to replace them.

Have a few new bulbs around, at some point try replacing just one and see if you notice any difference, if so, replace all bulbs.

Happy growing.

dcarch

Almost all lighting sources, MH, HPS, fluor, etc. loose their quality and quantity of light significantly as they age

Choose a modern fluorescent tube (any T5 and selected T8s and T12s) on a high frequency electronic ballast and there is no need to replace the tube until it fails. It will lose less than 10% (typically 5%-8%) of its light even at 20,000 hours or more. Old technology fluorescents die quicker and lose a lot more light, get an electronic ballast and don't buy the very cheapest tubes unless you plan to replace them every 1,000 hours.

Compact fluorescents are worse, 40% light loss is possible (20% guaranteed) and lifetime is 5,000-15,000 hours depending on design and switching frequency.

The best metal halides, pulse start on electronic ballasts, now offer lumen maintenance near 90% over their lifetime, close to fluorescents and probably not worth replacing them until the end of their life (note that you should always replace metal halide bulbs after a set number of hours, don't run them to failure unless you like explosions and fires!). Older technology loses 20%-40%, which is why you throw them out after a couple of thousand hours. I would suggest throwing out the whole system if it is so bad and getting a new one :) HPS are comparable, the best are not as good as the best metal halides but the worst aren't as bad either.

Thanks, S&B, always learning something from you.

You are the brightest [pun intended :-) ]

dcarch