Even LED lighting won't help that Majesty palm in the corner. Don't buy them. Doomed to die! If you have sweaty palms for a palm, buy a Kentia or Rhapis palm instead. Grow it in a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) with adequate light and it will be with you for a lifetime.
Watch the video for some smiles. Cree: Lighting the LED Revolution
You might view this as the next step up from Beth's indoor cucumber garden. Note the 8-tube T-5 fluorescent fixture lighting the plants and the mylar reflective material lining the surrounding area to optimize the effectiveness of the light. This is right out of the marijuana growers playbook.
A forum member's question: Your 8-tube fixture looks very similar to the Sunleaves Pioneer lights. Is it that one? With all that foil, are your temps very high? I worried about being too hot for the tender seedlings. The setup looks good, and it would help if you explained what we're seeing in your photos. I know several folks here would like the specifics on the lights you're using.
Beth from the EarthBox forum shows how an EarthBox and fluorescent lights equals cucumbers in the winter. Critiquing the cost of these cucumbers would miss the point. Beth has learned something valuable about urban food production and has enjoyed the reward of eating fresh cukes in the winter while doing it.
Meanwhile, dedicated dirt huggers are probably reading seed catalogs and dreaming about summer or they're on the web lobbying for a dirt garden at their kid's school.
When affordable LED lighting is here in the future we will look back with amusement, much like we do now when seeing old photos of kerosene lamps. I well remember them from summer vacations in the country.
Hi All, Thought you'd like to know that I was able to harvest 22 snack size 5" (Persian) Cucino cucumbers from 2 plants grown in an eb in the basement under fluorescent lights. I'll do this again! Fresh cucs in December and January! Come on spring!Beth
This setup is so cool. AP captioned the system as hydroculture (a passive method) when in fact it is more accurately a hydroponic system. However, that's beside the point. The significance of this photo for me is that it is set up on an InterMetro type rack just like the racks in the CuGreen plant lab.
A big difference is that the lighting is LED while mine is ordinary fluorescent. Fluorescent lighting is adequate for growing and maintaining most indoor plants (i.e. houseplants) but not for growing vegetables. This is a peek into the future of urban greenscaping in city apartments and homes. Bravo!
via armoks.com
Visitors look at the hydroculture lettuce and herbs grown only by LED lamps at a booth of Japanese company Synergytec during the Eco-Products 2009, Eco Style Fair, in Tokyo,
Are we going to lag behind in this technology too? Read Tom Friedman's "Have a Nice Day" column about Applied Materials and their overseas solar panel factories. There is no doubt that we will be growing vegetables in SIPs (sub-irrigated planters aka "self-watering") under LEDs in the future. The big question is who is going to make them?
Plant growth gets the red light from Showa Denko
The Japanese LED maker has developed high-performance 660 nm chips that accelerate plant photosynthesis.
Showa Denko K.K., a Japan-based LED maker, has started selling samples of AlGaInP (aluminum gallium indium phosphide) LED chips that emit red light with wavelength of 660 nm. This, says the company, is the optimum light for accelerating the growth of plants.Red light stimulates plants
Showa Denko has developed a new light-emitting layer and claims to have achieved an output of 11 mW at the drive current of 20 mA, which is believes to the world’s highest level for 660-nm LED chips to date.In recent years, there has been widespread investigation of the growth of vegetables under conditions where various aspects of the environment are controlled, such as lighting, temperature, humidity, CO2 concentration and nourishment.
Nearly 30 facilities of this kind are already in operation in Japan. They ensure stabilized production regardless of season or location; they allow multiple harvests; and they do not need fungicides or insecticides because of the controlled environment. Read more...
Here is yet another cool looking LED desk lamp from Toshiba Lighting Systems. It looks like it could easily help you keep a living plant on your desk while lighting your work. Note that it folds flat. The lamp was displayed at the recent Milan Design Week.
Via: Design Milk
Could these be windows of the future for your dark apartment? Let's hope so.
They are organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels by Research Institute for Organic Electronics (RIOE) shown at Lighting Fair 2009 in Tokyo.
Light being the primary limiting factor, there is potential here with OLEDs and LEDs to revolutionize the use of plants in buildings. Stay tuned!
Source: Research Institute for Organic Electronics (RIOE)
Via: LEDinside.com
