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lighting Lighting and Heating

frjeff

frjeff

I am new to the forum, new to gardening, new to growing my own peppers and a bit lost on the lighting and heating needs of my late Winter pepper seedling indoor germination future process.

My confusion lies in the wide range of opinion on grow lights; some saying inexpensive shop lights will do fine, others saying highly expensive systems are required. What is a decent set-up without being a bank breaker?

Also, my seedlings will be started in a pack porch converted to a "sunroom". It does have windows on the South side and is heated, but I doubt that in March and April it will be a steady 80-85 degrees. What is the best and most cost effective way to maintain the needed temps?

My advance gratitude for any input offered............
 
How many plants are you growing?

If you are not growing a lot of plants then I think fluorescent lights would be fine as long as your able to adjust their height. I think peppers like temps in the 80's.
 
hot stuff said:
How many plants are you growing?

If you are not growing a lot of plants then I think fluorescent lights would be fine as long as your able to adjust their height. I think peppers like temps in the 80's.
Click to expand...

I'll have seven different peppers, maybe 2 to 5 plants of each.

My question is the "how to" of keeping them in the 80's. Thanks.
 
14 plants. Well you'll probably need at least 1 4' 2 bulb per 4' of plant space. AFA heating goes, any old space heater ought to do if your room holds heat. I would just check the size of the room with the packaging of space heater. You have a sun room in your rectory? :)
 
hot stuff said:
14 plants. Well you'll probably need at least 1 4' 2 bulb per 4' of plant space. AFA heating goes, any old space heater ought to do if your room holds heat. I would just check the size of the room with the packaging of space heater. You have a sun room in your rectory? :)
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Well, somewhat. The room is on the back of our home and is used by the wife for some sewing and will be used by me to start plants. We live in a private home, not owned by the church.

I've got an electric space heater. Likely it would do the trick (if I can afford the electric bill!) :lol:
 
Hmmm. Wife's sewing room? Have you gotten permission yet? :rolleyes: I'd hate to have to start a counseling thread in the lounge. :eek:
 
frjeff said:
the lighting and heating needs of my late Winter pepper seedling indoor germination future process.

My confusion lies in the wide range of opinion on grow lights; some saying inexpensive shop lights will do fine, others saying highly expensive systems are required.
Click to expand...

Germinating seeds/growing seedlings is a lot different from raising plants to maturity! For germination, you only need to keep the soil at about 85 degrees. Once they come up, they can (and should) be removed from the heat if you are more interested in stocky, bushy plants rather than tall, lanky ones.

Shop lights or 23 watt CFL bulbs work perfectly for seedlings - no need for expensive MH or LED lights, unless you want a cheap 14 watt, all-blue LED panel. Yeah, if you are starting 400 seedlings, a more expensive light may be a better route.

BTW, if you are planning on raising superhots, unless your grow season extends into November, you need to start seeds way before March - at least I do in OH. I start the hottest ones the last week of December so I can transplant them at the end of May.

YMMV,

Mike
 
I have two set ups for growing, I have one that I mainly use for my plants that I'm overwintering this year I have eight, my set up for them is a 2 8ft double bank of regular florescent lights I used it last year to get my 40 some odd house plants through the winter they seem to work ok for that. My main growing set up is a 4ft. 4 bank system two regular fluorescents and two grow lights I use them two start things off, I start out with about 60 starter pots under the set up and raise the lights as the seedlings get bigger, when I lived in Springfield, MO. I built a set uo using 6 8ft. double banks of regular fluorescents and had 200 hundred pepper plants that I grew in it. It worked pretty good at least till they out grew it, but by then, I was able to move them all out side. I'm sure though that some of the other people here have their own set ups that may work better than what I'm using, but you get the idea, and they don't use much power. As I have a spare room I use it as my grow room, I don't have a spouse anymore that might veto things that something you might want to check on. Oh yes You can find used industrial lights fairly cheep and just replace the worn out pieces
George W
George W.
 
I was reading last night that plants needed 20-60 watts per square foot of growing space. Can anyone confirm that?
 
hot stuff said:
I was reading last night that plants needed 20-60 watts per square foot of growing space. Can anyone confirm that?
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I just read this in Wayne Schmidt's site:

My link

Beware of "Watts-Per-Square-Foot" Recommendations

I came across many of these while researching my system, ranged from 10 to 40 watts per square foot. The problem with such recommendations is that they say practically nothing about the amount of light placed on a plant. First, different type bulbs vary greatly in the amount of total light (measured in lumens) they produce. Incandescent bulbs can produce as little as 13 lumens per watt whereas fluorescents can be as high as 85 lumens per watt. Second, bulb shape, reflector configuration and the distance of the plant from the light have an enormous impact on the amount of light a plant receives. Finally, the color or spectrum of the light greatly influences how well the plant can use the light hitting it. Only 20-percent of the light from an incandescent lamp is used while virtually 100-percent of the light from a good fluorescent grow lamp will be absorbed.

Consider a 100-watt bare incandescent bulb 1 foot away from a plant covering one square foot of area. Such a lighting set-up will shine 108 lumens onto the plant's one square foot of which the plant will only be able to use 20 lumens. This is so dim the plant might as well be locked in a dark closet. One the other hand, consider a 100 watt fluorescent grow light equipped with a good reflector. It will produce 8,000 lumens, of which 7200 can be channeled onto and used by the plant (some losses are unavoidable.) This is enough light for any plant to flourish. Clearly, citing a "watts-per-square-foot" recommendation is not the best way to design a plant lighting system.

Another problem to consider is the design of the bulb's reflector. Many long fluorescent fixture place the bulb so close to the reflectors that much of the light is trapped and lost behind the bulbs.

 
OK, would this light give me enough light for a 4' 12" wide growing shelf? (assuming properly reflected)

4' Jump Start Fixture & Bulb
(T5 bulb is 54 watts & 5000 lumens)

Its cost is $55

Or, would a cheaper 4' shop lite with a couple T12 GE Plant and Aquarium bulbs do just as well for about the same or slightly less money?
 
Here is what I got....I went to Wal Mart and got two dual 4' fixtures, $10 each. Wal Mart also sells dual packs of 6500k 4' lights for $7.97. For your average grower, thats plenty fine. As long as you keep them fairly warm, and keep a normal schedule going for the light, you dont need a bunch of high end stuff. But again, my set-up is JUST for getting plants going so I can get them outside as soon as they are ready. Im sure if you are wanting to grow full-sized plants, you will need a different set-up. But hell, for $36 plus tax, you can have the 2 fixtures WITH bulbs. 6500k is pretty close to daylight, so it'll do what ya need!
Hope this helps man!
 
hot stuff said:
That would be direct sunlight.
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Maybe in Missouri, but not in Ohio. It's a partly cloudy day with the sun at 11:15 hiding behind a cloud cover and I measured 41,000 lux. On a mostly sunny afternoon in late September, I got between 30,000-40,000 lux in my greenhouse and that's with milky-colored 13-mil plastic covering the roof.

Mike
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux

gives the following--not that wiki is infallible of course.

10,000–25,000 lux Full daylight (not direct sun)[2]
32,000–130,000 lux Direct sunlight
 
And following the link to "sunlight" provides this:

120,000 lux Brightest sunlight
110,000 lux Bright sunlight
20,000 lux Shade illuminated by entire clear blue sky, midday
10,000 - 25,000 lux Typical overcast day, midday

It takes at least 20 mols of light per day to productively grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc. Assuming 14 hours of daylight, you would need about 1.43 mols each hour. To get that many mols, ~21,430 lux is needed every hour. In Cincinnati, there are 14 hours between sunrise and sunset only from May 6 to August 6.

Mike
 
On the heating question, you might also consider heating mats specifically for germination. I'm in the NE Ohio region, and will definitely be doing that when I start growing my own from seed. Unfortunately, found my son's cat just loves seedlings, so I won't be trying that again until he moves out with her.
 
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