Hi everybody,
I am Waitak and I am new to this forum. I live in Elk Grove, CA and have been growing orchids for 5 years. I have a self-made 8'x4' shadehouse that at the present moment houses 100 plants (half each of adult plants and seedlings). To make a long story short (I am sure there are chances for the long story later), I have just installed 8 13W White Daylight energy saving bulbs along the underside of the 8 feet long roof joist and I wonder if this set up is OK? Light density and distance are my major concern.:confused:
Please also help with uploading pictures!
Regards,
Waitak

Hi Waitak...welcome to the forum! I dont use lights but we have lots of members here who do...what do you grow?

:hi::welcome:

Welcome
The spiral flourescents are a relatively low cost way to add some light. You can put higher wattage CFLs in the same fixtures for more light. The thing to remember is that light decreases as the square of the distance from the source.This means that if the plants are 2 inches away and you increase the distance to 4 inches (double the distance) you get 1/4 the light not 1/2. The lights need to be close to the plants to provide much benefit.

Hi Waitak welcome to the slipper orchid forum! Glad you joined us!

Hi there welcome!!!

Welcome!

You're on the right track but 13W compact fluorescent is probably not strong enough. Depending on how close the lights are to the plants, I recommend higher wattage compact fluorescents for them to be worth the cost in terms of what they're actually doing for the plants.

Would love to see some pics of your shadehouse!

I think that the flourescents are too far away to make a big difference for your plants. I have 40W flourescent strips over mine, and the bulbs are about 4 inches away from the leaves. An option that you have is to get about a 400W HPS light on a light mover and have that about 3-4 feet from the tops of the plants. This will be powerful enough to give the plants the light that they need. You would only use this when the sun is not shining though. Having one of these lights with the sun could fry the plants out.

Hi Guy
I started off with a few Maudiae type hybrids. Unfortunately, most of them were 'fried' in 2005 when at the same time the summer heat killed a few people. At that time, I also had 100 or so Rothschildianum hybrid seedlings but there are only about 10 left and they do not seem to be growing. I have some Cattleyas and they all are doing pretty good especially the Slc Jewel Box.
Regards,
Waitak

Good luck on your roth hybrid seedlings...hope they do well!

Yeah, you're going to need way more than those 13 watt cfls. How much natural sunlight makes it to the plants? Have any pics of your grow area?

This is what it looks like.

Your picture is not showing.:confused:

This is what it looks like.

Im not seeing it either.

With Nick (Paphy57) walking me through the whole process, here are the pictures that I intended to post. Thank you, Nick. I had posted my Paph pictures at the other thread that is on multifloral Maudiae type hybrids. By the way, other benefits aside, the lights had caused the two flower buds of my Blc Long River Compton to properly 'orient' themselves to avoid having one of them opened up side down. I'll post the picture say, on Sunday, when the flowers will be in full bloom.:woohoo:

Nice plants! I'm glad you could get te pictures posted!

so nice:Party::Party::Party:

Wow nice plants and setup!!

Nice plants! :thumbsup:

You have nice plants! Thank you for sharing them with us!

Nice work!

Looks like you would need much more wattage, and to do any good cfls have to be within inches of the plants. This size of set-up would normally use a HID lamp like metal halide or high pressure sodium if indoors. I'm wondering why bother with lights and just use a lighter shadecloth?

Keep in mind I live in Ohio so I really have zero experience with growing orchids in California.

Fabulous plants...why cant you use natural light?

Hi Guy,
:iagree:You sure are right that California is a state of sunshine and nuts, sadly without much orchids. In fact, I intend to use the lights to supplement natural light during the 'dark' days. Winter skys in Elk Grove/Sacramento are usually grey. The picture attached was taken at 5:10 pm Christmas eve and it tells me why my plants never liked the previous winters. In the contrary, summer days can be very very hot and that was why I 'fried' some of my Paphs in 2007 when they spent their first summer inside the (then and still is primitive) shadehouse. Last summer, I put up shades to block off some ray but at the same time sacrificed light; furthermore, the inside temp was still in the upper 90s. I am thinking of additional shades when summer comes and I hope that the light setup will help!:fcrossed: Oh, A/C is out of the question because a 1500W heater during the winter is already too much trouble, especially when my wife has to use her blow dryer!

Merry Christmas to all friends of SOF.

Waitak (Stephen)

That makes sense...nice pic...Merry christmas to you and all!

Thats nice!very soon you may need a bigger one!Lol