Everything I read says that if you get it close enough to provide significant lighting (lumens) it will fry your plants.

Mike

Here is an image of the initial setup.

{{gwi:1025071}}

Due to popular demand :) I am setting up a control as well. The control will be a south window light source away from direct sunlight to avoid UV damage in the seedlings early stages. This pic will come soon, these plants will be jalapeno only.

BTW if anyone is interested, the plants in the metal pot were grown from Cantelopue seeds extracted from a Wal Mart canteloupe apx 2 years ago, I do not know if they will fruit lol we will see. The plants on the right are Jalapeno and one tomatoe, they are sick...long story.

The control will be a south window light source away from direct sunlight to avoid UV damage in the seedlings early stages.

Damaging UV does not pass through glass. You can't get a tan or sunburn through a closed glass window.

The ultimate goal should be to produce the most plant product per dollar of electricity. Thusly, as an experimental control, you need a commonly used electric lighting source with approximately equal electrical wattage to determine which produces the most plant product per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

@Struwwelpeter, I think you are missing the point here. I am not going to test incandescent bulbs against fluorescent bulbs to see which produces the most plant product per kilowatt wattage, quite simply, because I believe it the winner would definitely be a fluorescent fixture.

If you have only read half of the things people say about incandescent grow bulbs, you will be left with the impression that they are worthless for growing plants, this I believe is a stretch, and I am hopefully going to prove it wrong.

"Damaging UV does not pass through glass. You can't get a tan or sunburn through a closed glass window."

BTW you can get a tan through glass, and damaging rays can penetrate. UVA rays pass through glass rather easily, and some UVB get through as well. For seedlings this is no good.

I am going to test these theories

These are facts. You should listen to the majority.

I told her about what I had heard, but she is critical of online postings, and i gave in

Sounds like a bad choice made by an adolescent.

I should note these plants are supplemented with a small amount of daylight

The control will be a south window light source away from direct sunlight to avoid UV damage in the seedlings early stages.

That is not control.

I would like to hear anyone's theories, experiences, or ideas about this setup, the bulbs in general, etc

They are at best "Spot Lights". Trash as far as growing anything but mold, algae and bacteria. Your melon vines are already long and spindly and won't get any better. You are wasting electricity. This is not an experiment. It's a feeble attempt to prove others wrong.

On another note.

Damaging UV does not pass through glass. You can't get a tan or sunburn through a closed glass window.

If that were true a tanning bed or UV lights would not work. Evidently you have not sat close to a window in direct sun for very long. Some glass is made with UV protection but not all.

@ Taz

Me: I am going to test these theories

Taz: "These are facts. You should listen to the majority."

Rebuttal: I have not seen any studies, so they are theories to me, give me some info and I will gladly end my fun project."

Me:I told her about what I had heard, but she is critical of online postings, and i gave in

Taz: "Sounds like a bad choice made by an adolescent."

Rebuttal: That is an immature comment, thank you for showing us a little bit about your character.

Me:I should note these plants are supplemented with a small amount of daylight. The control will be a south window light source away from direct sunlight to avoid UV damage in the seedlings early stages.

Taz: "That is not control."

Rebuttal: How so?

Me: I would like to hear anyone's theories, experiences, or ideas about this setup, the bulbs in general, etc

Taz: "They are at best "Spot Lights". Trash as far as growing anything but mold, algae and bacteria. Your melon vines are already long and spindly and won't get any better. You are wasting electricity. This is not an experiment. It's a feeble attempt to prove others wrong."

Wow you are something else, I am having fun with this project, and if you are not interested feel free not to comment any more.

Not Me: Damaging UV does not pass through glass. You can't get a tan or sunburn through a closed glass window.

Taz: "If that were true a tanning bed or UV lights would not work. Evidently you have not sat close to a window in direct sun for very long. Some glass is made with UV protection but not all."

Rebuttal: First of all I know this, I was replying to another poster, for once it looks like we actually agree on something! :) Maybe you should read more than talk.

Where did the notion that UV light would damage seedlings come from? Have you ever direct sowed tomato seeds or had volunteers come up? They get direct sunlight from Day 1.

Mike

First of all I know this, I was replying to another poster

That's why I added "On another note".

Maybe you should read more than talk.

I read fine and haven't said a word. Sorry but my friends do say I'm brutally honest. I don't mean to insult anyone. This country is in a crisis and we don't need people wasting resources just to waste. You are wasting electricity, water and seeds not to mention your own time.

Ok Taz, I have great respect for conservation and I do realize the energy demand of these lights is rather high considering the unfavorable outlook for their performance. However, these bulbs are only going to last me one year, and when they burn out I will be switching to CFLs no matter what.

You must understand my excitement for anything gardening right now, I am completely new to horticulture, not botany, but gardening in general is a new thing for me.

Well wordwiz it is funny you say that, I though about that today, from various sources on hardening off plants from indoors to outdoors, there is usually something said about being careful for how much sun to expose the young plants to at first. But, I suppose you are right, the UV damage to seedlings might only really apply to plants that were not "born under the sun"....thank you for the input....I NEED IT!

To answer your question, I have not direct sowed tomato seeds before lol this is my first year of gardening.

I will go ahead and give them direct sun.

I have not seen any studies, so they are theories to me, give me some info and I will gladly end my fun project.

Here is a good place to start.

http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/duckweed/phytochrome.htm

http://nemesis.lonestar.org/reference/electricity/fluorescent/efficiency.html

If you have only read half of the things people say about incandescent grow bulbs, you will be left with the impression that they are worthless for growing plants, this I believe is a stretch, and I am hopefully going to prove it wrong.

The vast majority of us already know that you can grow plants under just plain incandescent. You just can't do it efficiently. In fact, I first became interested in this topic when I successfully grew a banana plant under a table lamp with a regular incandescent bulb, in 1960, when I was 14 years old.

Furthermore, I have been recommending supplementing regular metal halide (MH) light with incandescent light for years.

The problem might be with the way some people conceptualize useful/useless. In one sense, a rock is useful for pounding nails into wood. But, in another sense, a rock is useless when a hammer is available. The first sense is useless.

BTW you can get a tan through glass, and damaging rays can penetrate. UVA rays pass through glass rather easily, and some UVB get through as well. For seedlings this is no good.

I stand corrected on the tan part. There is not enough UVB coming through regular glass to matter. A problem is that when plants are grown without sufficient UVA, violet or blue light (as in the case regular HPS), they do not form pigments (beta carotene?) that protect them from sunburning when they are later moved outdoors.

I first became interested in this topic when I successfully grew a banana plant under a table lamp with a regular incandescent bulb, in 1960, when I was 14 years old.

Successfully?? What is your definition of success? Did it fruit?

wood,

There is absolutely nothing wrong with experimenting! I've started and later tossed probably a hundred plants just to see how they would perform under different lights, different soil mixes, different hydro solutions. And I do not believe everything I read from on-line posts (See Struw's posts and those about Monsanto leading the way to outlaw backyard gardens!). At the same time, if I read enough experiences from smart growers - including those herb people - that is backed by science, I tend to believe them.

I have another experiment I'm trying now - supplementing a R/B/O 125-watt LED with a 2.8 watt, 60 bulb white LED. It has a blueish cast to it and doesn't produce many lumens but I can let it touch the plant, and I get about 20,000 lux at that distance. It's to see if it affects the internode length. As I want to grow several (60) tomato plants indoors this winter, I need to keep them short and stocky so the LED lights are effective.

I'll also experiment with different nuits for the hydro. Toms really don't need much nitrogen so once the plant starts growing I plan on switching to more P & K plus calcium.

Much to my surprise, and this is from an accident, hydro toms don't seem to need much in the way of foliage. Thanks to inept weather forecasters, I didn't open my GH doors one day when the temps were in the 40s and the forecast was for mostly cloudy skies with highs barely reaching 50. Instead, it became very, very sunny and warmed up to 60. By the time I got home, the temps inside, two feet off the ground, were 125. My air pump shut down and I lost all but one plant out of the nine in hydro (the dirt ones survived, but the baby toms were fried). On the plant that survived, almost all the foliage was toast. But a few leaves survived and later blooms appeared. Since then, three toms have formed and almost all the other leaves have died. But those toms continue to grow. I'll be curious to see how they do.

Mike

Successfully?? What is your definition of success? Did it fruit?

My definition of success is that it grew fast. I grew a small musa cavendish sucker that I stole from Garfield Park Conservatory until the space around the lamp shade was too small to accommodate it. Elsewhere, it eventually attained mature size but never fruited.

Struwwelpeter, thank you for your valuable input on the quality and efficiency of incandescent lights. I am frustrated with the lighting companies (Philips) who advertise an incandescent bulb as a suitable way to grow plants, when they could just as easily slap that label on a CFL or T8 found in the same aisle of the hardware store (yet they don't....). My gut told me to go with the CFLs but being a newcomer and influential the advertised uses, I was swayed me against my better judgment. I do not understand why these companies do this, I also saw a 2' and 4' "Plant and aquarium" fluorescent tube, but its color temp was under 3000k, my wife thought that was a good choice too lol, probably would have been better than what I have now though. I do not understand these companies. When the bulbs burn out I will choose the highest wattage standard socket CFL I can find with an appropriate color temp for my replacements. I am still excited to see how these bulbs perform against natural sunlight, however.

@Wordwiz,

I am interested in your experiments, please update with progress!

hey how did your experiment turn out with the plants? I just bought a philips plant light and and wondering if your experience turned out well.

Thanks! You can email me too directly (granne@hotmail.com)

i`m useing 120 watt agro`s right now on an exiremental basis have you progressed at all with the lamps you are useing?if so what growth have you acheived?I`m pretty sure the blue agro`s are good for veg stage but i think that you will have to get different color for flowering.Please let me know if you have made any further progress with your project.I had one plant die due to over fert,new plant seems to be thriving and growing on schedule,but seems to be thin.

Just wondering what the results were?

Bump

fruiting/flowering plants benefit from more of the red spectrum of the PAR range.

Its cool to experiment, in this case I think it will show you how using inefficient lighting is not worth the expense of time or electricity.

I think that pushing the boundaries of efficient lighting is a better experiment imo.

if a light generates a lot of heat, it's not a very efficient light and probably not ideal for horticulture. My definition of ideal is not needing to keep a light fixture 3 feet away from the plants.