Clint Eastwood frequently said, "A man has to know his limitations." I am finding out, first-hand that a corollary is you cannot fool Mother Nature.
The plants in my GH are doing great, as far as growing, not turning brown, developing blight or other problems. Yeah, somewhat leggy but still healthy.
The problem is they are not getting enough sunlight, specifically strong light per day. All the manuals say one needs about 18 moles a day to be "productive" with 20-22 moles a day to be goodly productive. 20 moles equals about 25,000 foot candle hours (2000 fc an hour for 12.5 hours; 3,000 fc for 8.33 hours; etc.)
On a sunny day, I was able to get the light I needed, maybe with a bit left over. And I knew we had periods where it seemed the sun didn't shine for a few days, but I had never really tracked the sunny vs. completely overcast days. In the last two weeks, we have had two days of sunlight and another couple of days where the sun came out for 20-30 minutes at a time. The result is 8-10 moles a day, some days less.
This does not seem to affect the ability to set fruit; since I started shaking the plants with blooms, I've had good luck turning blooms into baby toms. But it is taking weeks, several weeks, for the toms to grow and ripen. From a financial standpoint, it is not worth keeping the GH warm if I was starting from scratch. But with nearly 40 plants, 30 of them getting ready to start blooming in the next two weeks, I am not going to turn out heaters.
An option would be to install four, 400-watt HPS lights over a couple of rows, but I do not have the wiring to support this. No, I just have to ride this out. But it isn't that bad - the days are getting longer and usually after the first week or so of the new year, the number of sunny days increases significantly. By then, almost all of the plants should be blooming and I'll be able to start harvesting fruit.
Even better, I can use this knowledge next year. Have the plants started so they will produce the majority of fruit in October and November, finishing up in December. At the same time, start plants upstairs so they produce fruit from mid December until March then have plants in the GH staged to take over in March through July.
It will actually be as cheap, or perhaps cheaper, to run five 400-watt HPS for the hours I will need them than running heaters in my GH. And I may be able to use the latter for things such as lettuce which will survive a freeze.
OK, so I am
and I view a "failure" to so one thing as a success in doing something different.
Mike
The plants in my GH are doing great, as far as growing, not turning brown, developing blight or other problems. Yeah, somewhat leggy but still healthy.
The problem is they are not getting enough sunlight, specifically strong light per day. All the manuals say one needs about 18 moles a day to be "productive" with 20-22 moles a day to be goodly productive. 20 moles equals about 25,000 foot candle hours (2000 fc an hour for 12.5 hours; 3,000 fc for 8.33 hours; etc.)
On a sunny day, I was able to get the light I needed, maybe with a bit left over. And I knew we had periods where it seemed the sun didn't shine for a few days, but I had never really tracked the sunny vs. completely overcast days. In the last two weeks, we have had two days of sunlight and another couple of days where the sun came out for 20-30 minutes at a time. The result is 8-10 moles a day, some days less.
This does not seem to affect the ability to set fruit; since I started shaking the plants with blooms, I've had good luck turning blooms into baby toms. But it is taking weeks, several weeks, for the toms to grow and ripen. From a financial standpoint, it is not worth keeping the GH warm if I was starting from scratch. But with nearly 40 plants, 30 of them getting ready to start blooming in the next two weeks, I am not going to turn out heaters.
An option would be to install four, 400-watt HPS lights over a couple of rows, but I do not have the wiring to support this. No, I just have to ride this out. But it isn't that bad - the days are getting longer and usually after the first week or so of the new year, the number of sunny days increases significantly. By then, almost all of the plants should be blooming and I'll be able to start harvesting fruit.
Even better, I can use this knowledge next year. Have the plants started so they will produce the majority of fruit in October and November, finishing up in December. At the same time, start plants upstairs so they produce fruit from mid December until March then have plants in the GH staged to take over in March through July.
It will actually be as cheap, or perhaps cheaper, to run five 400-watt HPS for the hours I will need them than running heaters in my GH. And I may be able to use the latter for things such as lettuce which will survive a freeze.
OK, so I am
and I view a "failure" to so one thing as a success in doing something different.Mike
You are saying I would get ~1600 BTUs of heat plus 48,000 lumens from the light but from the heater just the 1600 BTUs?