AJ,
As promised!
In the other thread, the conversation about how long to leave the lights on came up. Continuing that:
Hopefully, my Siletz toms will actually self pollinate so I can test the light theory (12, vs. 14, vs. 16, vs. 18 hours per day) this spring/early summer.
A trivia side note: if one is growing under lights with the intention of selling produce, using a 150 watt bulb, it would cost $2.70/mo. more running 18 hours rather than 12. That would equate to about two pounds of tomatoes per month more. That's not a lot.
Something else in this arena: I have plants at the office (tomato and lettuce, with one extremely leggy green bean!) that get no artificial light and only direct sunlight for maybe six hours a day, max. In the few days the plants have been there, we have had as many days of completely overcast days as sunny days. Yet the lettuce and the tom seem to be growing nicely. This leads me to wonder if I could get away with maybe four hours of lighting per day in a south-facing greenhouse? That would save me $36 per row of lights per month. Maybe run them from 6-8 am and pm each day in the dead of winter, 6-7 am and 7-8 pm.
I love the idea of experimenting to find out!
Mike
As promised!
In the other thread, the conversation about how long to leave the lights on came up. Continuing that:
Hopefully, my Siletz toms will actually self pollinate so I can test the light theory (12, vs. 14, vs. 16, vs. 18 hours per day) this spring/early summer.
A trivia side note: if one is growing under lights with the intention of selling produce, using a 150 watt bulb, it would cost $2.70/mo. more running 18 hours rather than 12. That would equate to about two pounds of tomatoes per month more. That's not a lot.
Something else in this arena: I have plants at the office (tomato and lettuce, with one extremely leggy green bean!) that get no artificial light and only direct sunlight for maybe six hours a day, max. In the few days the plants have been there, we have had as many days of completely overcast days as sunny days. Yet the lettuce and the tom seem to be growing nicely. This leads me to wonder if I could get away with maybe four hours of lighting per day in a south-facing greenhouse? That would save me $36 per row of lights per month. Maybe run them from 6-8 am and pm each day in the dead of winter, 6-7 am and 7-8 pm.
I love the idea of experimenting to find out!
Mike