CFL and plants

[jzmtl]

I have some indoor plants that I keep in dining room in the winter (heater is always on so temp is high enough). Since sun barely comes out in winter in the north and the room window is facing the wrong direction, they don't get much if any sunshine at all. I'm wondering would the CFL bulbs I use provide the correct light wavelength to substitute for sunlight? I'm pretty sure incan can do that but not sure at all about CFL. If I recall chlorophyll absorbs blue light, how much of that does CFL produce?

Now before you ask, no I'm not growing pot in basement.

 

[will]

In short - probably not. People used to mix warm white and cool light in flourescent fixtures years back. The CFLs I have seen don't offer different color temperatures.

There are all kinds of plant lights available. There are daylight color CFLs.

 

[LukeA]

Plants like all colors of light except green.

Considering that CFLs operate using the same concept as LEDs, that is they emit UV radiation which causes a phosphor to phosphoresce visible light, and this results in a large blue spike in LEDs, so it should also in CFLs.

 

[acourvil]

My experience is that plants grow tall and spindly with incandecents, and short and stubby with flourescents. A mix of the two gets you closer to natural light.

 

[jzmtl]

My experience is that plants grow tall and spindly with incandecents, and short and stubby with flourescents. A mix of the two gets you closer to natural light.

That's really interesting, because some of my plants are growing weird, I wonder if it has anything to do with CFL.

I'm gona switch back in incan bulbs and see if anything changes. Technically they are 100% efficient as heat is also utilized in winter.

 

[HEY HEY ITS HENDO]

ask yourself this question first,(or google) how many lux on a sunny day versus the lux off your cfl or incan? .... you`d be amazed how crap they are!

as far as plants are concerned heat and light go hand in hand ie when its sunny its warm, when its dull its cooler,
keep your plants at the min. temp. poss.to overwinter them and the more light the better ..... lets think HID and at 1 metre
................. and dont feed or overwater them, they really can get by on very little... :thumbsup:

 

[Ken_McE]

II'm wondering would the CFL bulbs I use provide the correct light wavelength to substitute for sunlight?

Plants have absorbtion peaks in the red and blue. They might survive under CFLs, but they would do better under a proper plant light.

 

[Kinnza]

It would depends of the plant's specie.

"Shade" plants, requiring low light levels, perform good under CFLs. "Sun" plants, requiring high light levels, requires something with more intensity than CFLs can give. Still its possible to use them with sun plants, but then you need to place them very close in order to obtain enough irradiance (lux, or uE/m2).

Respect to spectrum, a cool white fluorescent (or CFL) have a very good one for plants. They have only one lacking, not enough far red (~725nm), so plants adapted to shade (tropical, as orchids) like more far red. For such purpose, any incandescent works, included halogens. you only need to add about 1h of incandescent light in order to provide enough far red, being the last hour of light the best moment to supplement it.

Incandescents grow lights gives very little energy, so they only works for plants requiring very low light levels, and usually dont worth (a CFL of equal power gives as more plant usable light as 5 incans).