Propagation: Please critique my diy grow light set-up, 1 by avianut

avianut wrote:
I've grown plants from seed indoors for several years as well, but my experience is a little bit different. I'm sure grow lights are wonderful, but they are beyond my budget and I use just plain florescents. I have read that, if this is what you do, you should actually use one "cool white" and one "warm white" in each shoplight fixture, but I haven't gotten quite that far (maybe when these bulbs burn out :-))
In addition, I only leave my lights on 12-16 hrs/day, even during germination. Actually, some seeds need darkness to germinate, but that is usually stated on the package.
As you can see from the pic below, I do keep my lights just a couple inches above the flats (lights are on chains so I can raise them as the plants grow), so maybe that is why I 'get away' with just using flourescents- Jill