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sdraza115

Growing tomatoes indoor

On the advice from one of the members of this site i m using 3 led lights of 60 watts each. one is perhaps warm and two are cold lights but tomato plants are not growing well, seedling form, then they seem to grow slowly and ultimately plant stem breaks off just above the soil level and plant dies. What could be the reason? Some other plants are also not doing good. nite blooming jasmine had some leaves but now there is none. Gold euonymus leaves turned yellow. Rose has also lost all leaves. one other rose looks much better seen in the photo in which lights are also seen. thanks


be the reason? thanks for the help.

Comments (4)

  • 8 years ago

    There could be a lot of reasons, but lack of light seems likely to be at least part of the equation.


    You have three incredibly weak light sources at least a couple feet above a large area of plants that require high light (most of those are full sun plants). That may look bright to your eyes, but as far as usable light for plants goes, those poor things are growing right now in the equivalent of deep shade.


    A lack of light can by itself cause problems for plants (for plants light is food), but it can also make other problems more likely (pest and pathogen issues because the plant is weakened, too much water in the root zone due to lack of transpiration, etc.)


    I would suggest you increase the light, a LOT, to start. I can't advise at all about using LED light bulbs, but every one of those plants at this stage could use a 23 watt (100 watt equivalent) CFL (compact fluorescent lamp.. the spiral shaped bulbs) of its own. No more than 4 inches above the top of each plant. And that's probably a bare minimum.. more would be better.


    Trying to grow roses and tomatoes indoors is best done under high intensity discharge lighting (HID), horticultural LED lighting (way stronger than what you have), or maybe high output T5 fluorescent lighting. None of which are usually available in stores unless you go to a hydroponics shop.

    Abid Raza Toronto Canada thanked User
  • 8 years ago

    Yep.

    lack of light is a definite reason.

    First of all, 60w equivalent leds are not 60 Watts, they’re actually 9.5 watt.

    100w equivalent leds which are, depending on brands, (don’t use no name junk) 1600 lumen would be the lowest I’d use, and I’d use about 4 or 5 of them on 12-14 hours per day.

    Also, your lamp is too far from the plants and doesn’t have any type of reflector so you’re wasting light.

    Get some of these clamp work lights (below), 3 100w 5000k leds, 2 100w 2700k leds and place them 6 inches or so from the top of the plants. You can go closer than that too.

    I used to use the 23w CFL’s, but the led version are at 16w and now are putting out the same 1600 lumens and not producing as much heat.

    Now im speaking of the bare minimum. If you really want things to do well, get some high pressure sodium and Metal halide lights or T8HO or T5HO.

    Abid Raza Toronto Canada thanked Dave
  • 8 years ago
    1. Sorry these are 23 watts which are equivalent to 100 watts ordinary bulbs.
  • 8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Then they must be CFL’s and not leds. Get some better reflectors, get more lights and get them a lot closer.

    Things wont work very well with your current setup, unfortunately.

    youre on the right track though! It shouldn’t take much money or time to get get everything setup a little better.

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