Grow lights

[desertgirl]

OK,I give. In my deep rooted fear of legginess ("rooted", Ha! Get it??!! ) I broke down and got some grow lights. Question-how many hours do I set the timer for? 12 hours of light?

 

[wifezilla]

What do you mean by grow lights?

 

[digitS']

"Sixteen hours a day is fine."

How to Succeed at Seed Starting, North Dakota State University

 

[Catalina]

I never shut them off.

 

[vfem]

I used to not shut them off... but I found hardening them off was HORRIBLE and I'd have a lot of loses. Then I changed to shutting off the lights when I goto bed, and I seemed to have lost less during the hardening off process.

Just my $0.02... and I'm BROKE! lol

 

[silkiechicken]

16 hour light 8 hour dark is what I do. There are many publications on the cyclic requirements of optimal plant growth. The light cycle and temp cycle induce various hormonal cascades in the plants that signal vegetative and reproductive growth. For example, raise an average (always exceptions) tomato at a steady 70F year round and you'll never get fertile fruit. Sure you can leave it on all the time, but a day night cycle would be best for most plants to get a "natural" start to life. There are bunches of studies on circadian rhythm on arabidopsis, everyone's favorite plant model system.

For fish tanks though, unless you have some good co2 injection, I tend to only run 10 hour day cycles.

 

[digitS']

. . . arabidopsis, everyone's favorite plant model system. . .

Arabidopsis just likes another part of that slippery slope towards Soylent Green, Silkie.

Steve's digits

 

[desertgirl]

"It's people! Soilent green is peeeeeeeeeopllllllllllllllllle!!!!!" Classic.

Man, plants have circadian rhythms?? Who knew?

I have so much to learn.....