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Ott bulb vs. GE plant bulb vs. any others
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Posted by quicksilver z6bMA (My Page) on Wed, Jan 17, 07 at 20:36
| Greetings! I won an auction on ebay and will be potting ten oncidium orchids soon. They are small plants. They will be in a room with southern exposure that gets a lot of light. I plan to augment the light with a 48" overdriven florescent light fixture. Will the plants do better with one particular type of bulb? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Ott bulb vs. GE plant bulb vs. any others
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| How much light do Oncidiums need? How much natural light do you have already? |
RE: Ott bulb vs. GE plant bulb vs. any others
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| The natural light comes through a sliding glass door. There are deciduous trees outside that filter the light somewhat. The best locations in the room for plants are already occupied. Last but not least, I am in Massachusetts, and we have LOTS of cloudy days. I don't know off hand how many lumens oncidiums need. A general guide for some orchids is that if your hand casts a distinct shadow on the leaf, there is too much light. In conclusion I must tell you that my mother says you are a picky stickler for responding to my question with two questions of your own.:)!!! |
RE: Ott bulb vs. GE plant bulb vs. any others
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| So how much area do you need to cover? And why do you want to overdrive? LOL! Seriously, there is no good reason to overdrive unless you need more light intensity than you can get from regular fluorescent tubes (and I doubt you do for your orchids), just use as many tubes as necessary to get the light. This is because electricity is the expensive part of plant lights, not the tubes themselves, and overdriving uses electricity less efficiently. You may adjust this calculation if your mother pays the utilitiy bills but you have to buy the plant lights ;) Without direct sunlight, the light intensity more than a foot or two from any window is surprisingly low, the human eye is remarkable in hardly noticing but the light intensity can drop a factor of ten or more just by going an extra couple of feet into the room. Probably you have enought experience to play it by ear and adjust the light as you you go along based on what the plants tell you. I believe that the Ott lights are all high CRI tubes designed for excellent colour rendition and daylight simulation. And that the GE Plant & Aquarium lights are somewhat pink, intended to make best use of the preferred red and blue wavelengths for photosynthesis. You might want to make your decision on that basis alone. Particularly as a supplemental light, I wouldn't consider the spectrum to be critical and the plants should grow healthily under either. |
RE: Ott bulb vs. GE plant bulb vs. any others
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| Thank you very much for your help! I will go with the less expensive brand and watch out for signs of the plants getting too much light. Thanks again! |
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