• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

lighting Lights Out

Well I think the answer is clear. You need to tunnel deep under your raised bed and build an underground grow room.
 
hard to tunnel in rock...bedrock is only about 4 feet down here...

keep the ideas coming Josh...
 
AlabamaJack said:
hard to tunnel in rock...bedrock is only about 4 feet down here...

keep the ideas coming Josh...

Do you have a feezer out there. You can just prop it open haha.
 
You mentioned about tying it into your central air system. If the garage is insulated well I am sure this would be a good idea. How big is your garage? To reduce cost you could always put in a partition and only cool that area.
 
AlabamaJack said:
hard to tunnel in rock...bedrock is only about 4 feet down here...

keep the ideas coming Josh...


What are you trying to accomplish by simulating year round Trinidad temperatures and humidity.
 
to grow 7 Pots and Scorpions year round...to me the trinidad environment is perfect for growing the type of peppers I want to grow...7 Pots, Scorpions, Etc...I don't know how the Naga/Bhut cultivars would do in that tho...it seems the Assam province in India is warmer than Trinidad but it does have a wet season...
 
AJ,

Well, in Trinidad, the highest temps are above 90 degrees 25 percent of the days in a year (though only above 95 .1 percent) so I'm not sure your weather would be a whole lot different. Of course, during the hottest periods you could take a page out of the NFL's sideline game management and set up giant fans that blow air from behind a large ice chest toward the plants!

Mike
 
it's the cyclic nature of the weather that is the problem more than anyting mon...

I would love to have monthly highs and lows like Trinidad...the weather varies much more drastically here than there...
 
AlabamaJack said:
it's the cyclic nature of the weather that is the problem more than anyting mon...

I would love to have monthly highs and lows like Trinidad...the weather varies much more drastically here than there...

And here? On an average year, only about 100 degrees from top to bottom. In recent years, 115 degrees. I have seen swings of as much as 130 degrees, but that was just for a couple of years back in the '70s.

Mike
 
Here's an interesting abstract on tomatoes that I came across which suggests 18 hours of light is optimal, and some other intersting info. I think you have to pay for the full article:(

"ABSTRACT

The experiments were carried out to investigate whether other plant species, in addition to tomato plants, show injury symptoms when grown for 2 to 4 weeks in an aperiodic environment and to obtain information about physiological mechanisms involved in the response to the absence of environmental periodicity. The growth of seedlings of pea, peanut, and soybean, exposed to different daylengths at constant temperature, increased with Increasing length of the light period up to 16 to 20 hours, defending on the species. Further lengthening of the photoperiod did not result in significant increases in dry matter accumulated. The absence of environmental periodicity did not cause injury in these three species. Tomato plants responded in an entirety different manner. The optimal photoperiod for dry matter production by tomato plants was 18 hours and photoperiods longer than 20 hours caused interveinal chlorosis. Thus, tomato plants have an absolute requirement for a daily periodicity, white the other species do not in short-term experiments. Under conditions of constant temperature development of chlorosis by tomato plants may be prevented by a daily dark period of 4 hours or longer or by a daily period of drastically lowered tight intensity. Complete darkness is not essential, however. This suggests that development of chlorosis is not mediated through a photoperiodic response system. Involvement of a circadian oscillation may also be excluded. Aperiodic environmental conditions appear to affect the physiology of the tomato plant in a direct manner, possibly by influencing chlorophyll synthesis or degradation."
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119707284/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
 
that's a good read Potawie...

so from what we have discovered on this thread is that over 20 can be bad, and optimal is somewhere less than that...18 in the article you post...

It would be interesting to know the diffence between 14 and 18...wish we had the graphs of the data...
 
Well, the first article I believe was based on supplemental light in a greenhouse, and the second article, I'm not sure but is likely based on all artificial light?
 
I think, especially since I have a tom that is starting to set a lot of fruit, I'm going to have to add at least four more hours of light (I've been using 12/12) if I want more production.

AJ, I read the data to say that in peas, peanuts and soybeans more than 20 hours was not bad, as it is in toms, but that it did not help.

Perhaps after April, I'll be able to try a test. Using hydro units in the same room where the temps will be the same, set up three sets of lights, one running 14, another 16, a third 18 and the last 20. Two plants per chamber, each plant in a different bucket. Using hydro and being indoors, the environment would be the same and the amount of nutrients each plant is getting would be the same. Hydro would also enable me to measure root mass as well as dry matter and tomato production. The Siletz tomato would be my choice to grow as it is suppose to be determinate (though it produces fruit over a long period of time) and is also parthenocarpic so I would not need to rely on the birds and the bees for pollination.

Mike
 
Back
Top