Yes what Gerry says is true, but my understadning is plants will do best
with a mixture of fluorescent and incandescent lights. Alternatively,
you can actually buy fluorescent lights which have the correct output
for plant growth and don't require the supplement from the
incandescent. But like Gerry says, the real issue is how bright are the
lights compared to sunlight.
Barry
--
Dr Barry Pogson
Photosynthesis Center, Dept. of Plant Biology, Box 871601
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
Email: pogson at asu.edu; Fax: 1 (602) 965-6899; Ph: 1 (602) 965-2583
http://lsvl.la.asu.edu/plantbiology/faculty/pogson.html
Gerry Deitzer wrote:
> Dear Lance,
>> Light is light, irrespective of its source. We use fluorescent light
> alone
> in growth chambers and plants grow and develop perfectly normally.
> The
> only problem is to get enough light. Ideally you would need about
> 20,000
> lux (2,000 ft can or about 300 micro moles of photons/ m2/ s) and room
>> light is only about 10% of this level. However if it is supplementing
>> sunlight it might be sufficient. In any case, it is better than
> nothing.
> Sunlight generally produces superior plant growth because plants
> evolved
> in sunlight which has a better spectral quality than fluorescent
> lamps, but
> photosynthesis will use any available visible photons.
>
> Gerry Deitzer
> -------------
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Lance wrote:
>> > do house plants get anything from fluorescent lights? I know someone
> who
> > leaves the lights on in his office (which has no outside
> > windows) "for the plants". I always thought that the kind of light
> from
> > fluorescent lights was pretty much useless for plants aside from
> real
> > sunlight....
> >
> > --
> > -------------------------------------
> > Lance Wong MapInfo Corp.
> >
> > Spam Sucks.
> > please reply to lance at mapinfo.com> > -------------------------------------
