indoor growing lights?

I want to grow a dwarf orange and litchee tree indoors.

i know nothing about indoor lighting.

does anyone know of something like this would be suitable-
http://ledgrowlights.com/KT022TL.htm

if not, can anyone send me a link to an indoor lightset, they would recommend for the task

Looks very fancy, but it also looks very expensive.

I use fluorescent shop light fixtures, which run about $15, plus cool and warm fluorescent light bulbs (about $10 and $5 for sets of 2 bulbs each). I think they work fantastic for any plant which requires bright light or part shade. I have a small orange tree I got last year that I kept under this setup during the winter because it would die outside, but it went outside in mostly sun this summer because the fluorescent lights can't compete with the sun.

I didn't go over the whole sales pitch these guys were throwing, but it sounds like the same deal except for a lot more. They said here
http://ledgrowlights.com/growing-with-leds.htm

So you'd have to still grow your plants outside (until fruit production begins) because those lights can't compete with the sun.

Of course, I have no experience with these lights and could easily be wrong. But it just seems to me you'd be paying $300 for essentially the same thing I got for $30.

This message was edited Jun 4, 2006 1:47 AM

thanks cjolene.

I too, intend taking my trees outside once the temp hits 55 or so.

so to make sure i understand your setup- u use 2 fluorescent light fixtures, one using a warm bulb and one using a cool bulb? is that right? do you leave both lights on 24/7? how high above the top of the plants should the bottom of the fixtures be? what is a cool bulb versus a warm bulb? etc etc

anyone else out there that agrees or disagrees with cjolene?

I agree with cjolene--I've used a setup similar to that for starting seeds over the winter and it's worked great. Only difference was I used a full-spectrum fluorescent bulb designed for aquariums which I think is supposed to work the same as the separate warm and cool bulbs, but I'm not sure about that part.

I keep the lights just a few inches above the seedlings, but I'm not sure if the distance should be more if you've got a larger plant. And the lights shouldn't be on 24/7...when I'm growing seedlings I leave them on for ~14h a day, but I'm guessing with an already grown plant you should try to mimic the number of hrs of daylight that it would get if it were outside during the time of year you have it indoors.

I use a timer for the lights. I increase or decrease light hours according to the light outside.

I also just use one fixture above each shelf. Each fixture holds 2 bulbs and I put one cool bulb and one warm bulb in there. A cool bulb emits the blue/violet spectrum of lights needed by your plants (although can't remember the specific purpose of the different lights, but I think a small part of it was it kept the growth tight (less space between leaves)...anyone out there remember??) and the warm bulb emits the red/yellow spectrum. The full-spectrum bulb works the same as using warm and cool lights, except it's a tad more expensive. If you're setting up more than one light fixture, you'll save a bit by buying separate warm and cool lights. If you're using one light, I'd just buy the full-spectrum bulb.

Of course, different plants require different amounts of light, and some lights are brighter than others. Look for bulbs with high lumens. I can't remember what the number of lumens were for my bulbs, sorry. I generally keep the lights 12 inches away for foilage houseplants and 6 inches for flowering houseplants.

I cannot stress enough how much I love how healthy the plants are that are under this setup. I'd love to set up a few more shelves like this. It's just finding the space and convincing my DH.

Hope I was able to help. ; )
Cheryl

Does anyone have pictures of their set up? Some of my little plants are on a baker's rack in the corner of the living room and I'm not sure how I could rig something like that. Do you just have a shelving place with the lights above the shelves?

I don't have a picture and my setup was dissassembled when I moved so I can't take one now, but the way I did it was to buy a cheap 4 or 5 shelf wire shelving unit from Target, then I used twisty ties to attach lights to the underside of each shelf. Since I was using it to start seeds this worked really well, but depending on how big your plants are you may need to find something with more distance between the shelves.

Lowes, HomeDepot and sometimes Wal-Mart etc. have a wire shelving unit that has adjustable height shelves. We use them in a couple of places around the house. These we have use plastic peices that snap around the upright poles. The are slightly bigger at the bottom than at the top and the shelf can't slide any farther down the pole. Works great and they are very sturdy. The bottoms of the poles have twist out adjusters to level out the unit - or like we did, you could have the front slightly higher that the back to help it not fall forward.

crazy4vines- I'll take a picture of my setup and dmail it to you as soon as I find where I placed my camera...we just got back from the zoo 75 miles away and with a baby (and with a grandma who's always getting more and more stuff for that baby), that means many, many bags to go through! lol

hahaha cjolene..I completely understand .. whenever you can would be great!

you have dmail