lights

[Guest]

Alrighty. Well, my new house will have an extra room just for my plants. I was wondering what types of lights I would use for some sarracenia and nepenthes. I'd probably use them over a table. And does anyone think a northern windowsill in Alaska would get any direct sun with 18 hours of daylight? Thanks guys and gals!

 

[Guest]

I'm starting to think you are just ignoring this topic

.

 

[Tony Paroubek]

The topic on lighting highland Nepenthes pertains very much to your situation and I would rather not repeat myself.

I will say however with your situation. Most Sarracenia are not suited to pure under light growing because the tall thin upright nature of the plants. Under lights they do not get the proper lighting without much more involved set ups to provide light hitting the sides of the pitchers from an angle. S. purpurea however will do well because of its more prostrate growth habit.

As for how the sunlight will be in Alaska.. I have no clue. Your are deffinately up for a challenge though particularly when they have their season of almost no sun.
Tony

 

[Guest]

I thought the other topic just pertained to terrariums, but I'll check it out. Man is it going to be a difficult year

. Thanks!

 

[Guest]

I read the other topic, and was wondering if I could use the same setups over an open table, with some kind of ficsture hanging from the ceiling?

 

[Tony Paroubek]

You can hang any type of fixture you want. The number of fixtures and how far they are from the plants will depend on they type of lighting and the power rating of them. High intensity lighting like Metal halide and High pressure sodium will need to be farther away from the plants but on the other hand you need less fixtures to illuminate a certain sized area compared to Fluorescent.

T

 

[Guest]

Tell me if this sounds like a good setup. I'll have two tables, one for sarr, pings, dros, dionaea, and the other for nepenthes. Over the nepenthes table, I will hand a 4-tube fixture complete with reflectors, and put in 2 cool white bulbs and 2 warm white bulbs. On the other table, it will be the same, exept I will have all warm white bulbs. Does that sound like a good setup?

 

[Tony Paroubek]

3 cool white 1 warm white in each fixture is what I would recommend.
As for how you organize the plants.. you will need to organize them on how tall they are. Keeping the similar ones with each other since you can only put the lights as close as the tallest plants. If you have really tall ones with short ones, the short ones will be much farther away and not get enough light. (this is one of the main reasons why high intensity lighting is used.. it makes this problem much less of an issue)
Tony

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

Or just put your tall palnts under another fixture all alone then your set.

 

[Guest]

Tony, so you would sugdest using four metal halide bulbs per fixture? And exactly how far away should I put the lights. The thing I'm worried about is the heat they produce.

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Cool white and warm white refer to color range on a fluorescent tubes. When you mentioned them I was thinking you were talking of 4 tube fluorescent fixtures.

If you use metal halide or high pressure sodium you will probably only need one bulb over each growing area. One of these bulbs designed for plant growth is sufficient in the proper wave lengths to give good growth. The distance between the fixture and the tops of the plants, and size of the area illuminated will depend on the wattage of the bulb.

Yes they run hot and the light can scorch plants that are not used to it or are too close. So you need to be much more careful about using high intensity lighting. I can't give you a simple answer that such and such wattage bulb needs to be x feet above the tops of the plants. Perhaps Martin or someone else with more experience in practical use of such lighting systems could comment.
Tony