Expert: Christopher Littrell - 8/21/2008

Question
QUESTION: How much light does it take, in watts, to bring out color in Pings? I have some of the colorful pings and I'm
currently using 40 watt cfs(?) about 5 inches above them. Will it take
a
stronger light?
Thanks
Marian Hill
twotut@yahoo.com


ANSWER: Hello Marian,

You can use stronger lights than that. You can place a set of 40 watt shop light tubes over them. I use 12000 lumens of cool white florescent tubes, that would be 4 40 watt tubes of the 4 foot long variety about 5-6 inches from them. I also have mine sitting about a foot from a south facing window where they receive partial sun through a screen and pane of glass. Some rosy coloration is coming up on the colorful Butterworts in my collection and the adult plant is consistently flowering.

Christopher

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: The lamps I'm using now are 3 clamp-on desk lights with a max of 40watts using with the curley cue light bulbs. Any ideas on what to use to up the wattage? I don't want to cause a fire....It's the lamp itself that keeps me from going higher in watts, it's not possible to use the tubes.


Answer
Hello Marian,

Those compact florescent lights do put out a lot more heat then the shop lights. The only way you might be able to up the intensity would be to use the highest wattage cfl bulbs possible for the 40 watt lamps. The cfl lights have a wattage on them, so if you are using the 40 watt ones, those would put out about 80 lumens per watt, so altogether you would have about 9000 lumens or so. If the wattage is 23, they would be about 4000-5000 lumens. Another trick would be to place white reflectors around the lights and plants so that the light cannot escape, so keeps bouncing around inside the reflectors and onto the plant. Just try to keep that heat down by using good air flow from a fan.

Christopher