Lights for growing tomato plants indoors

[KarenD]

I would like to grow tomatoes indoors over the winter and need advice on lights to promote flowering and fruiting. I have a metal shelving unit that's 4 foot long, 18 inches wide and approx 6 foot tall . Any and all information is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Karen

[dmforcier]

Shelves aren't important to the question. Soil is important. LIGHT is critical. For production (i.e. getting actual tomatoes rather than promising plants) you will need a lot of light. How much money are you prepared to spend?

[KarenD]

Are the lights very expensive?

[dmforcier]

How many plants? How big?

[KarenD]

Two plants, one is an Adelaide Festival and the other is a Rosella Crimson. Both are about 12 to 15 inches tall.

[PureHarvest]

A 400 high pressure sodium light system would get you some tomatoes to pick.
A 600 watt would provide more light penatration into the canopy and you'd probably get more fruit.
They run about $250

[kurt]

Originally Posted by KarenD

I would like to grow tomatoes indoors over the winter and need advice on lights to promote flowering and fruiting. I have a metal shelving unit that's 4 foot long, 18 inches wide and approx 6 foot tall . Any and all information is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Karen

From the archives just last year,great stuff.


http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...ndoor+lighting

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by kurt

From the archives just last year,great stuff.


http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...ndoor+lighting

That is a fantastic link even if I did start the tread.

I dont claim to be an expert but I do know a little about electricity and lighting.
Can you grow tomatoes in the house without it costing a fortune yes you can.
But you have to be willing to make everything and learn how to wire 120 VAC.
You have to learn how to calculate amps from watts.
These calculators are on line and the formula is simple.
The next thing you have to realizes it as soon as the put grow light on a setup or bulb/lamp the price goes sky high AKA rip off.
The next is most of this (Grow) stuff is directed towards pot growers.
And even then it is misinformation big time to sell stuff to pot smokers.

Next comes the flowering and fruiting hoax.
65K for growing and 27K for flowering.
Hog wash.
Pot plants flower on daylight and darkness length not light spectrum.
As a matter of fact you can drop the daylight length down to 10 hours or so trick the plant into flowering and then jack it back up to 16 hours and it wont know you did it and keep on flowering.
NO change in color spectrum at all still running on 65K all of the time.
I did this back in the early 80's years ago with great success.
The statute of limitations has ran out so I feel safe in saying this.
I don't do it anymore and haven't for years.
Where did I get my parts?
From construction site remodel dumpsters.
Your tomato plants will be as happy as a clam running on bright daylight AKA active area lighting all of the time.
They put out the same color spectrum as the noon day sun from red and green on to blue.
No need for fancy grow lights.
The other option is the LED grow lights.
They have nothing but red and blue lights and no green.
But you can do the same thing with the bright daylight high output LED lights for home for people.
The only draw back is you will be running a green LED along with the red and blue costing you about 1/3 more in energy use for a color the plant doesn't see for the most part.

What I like about CFL lights is I can slam more light in an area than I can with the tube type lighting for less energy used.
Plus you can position them all over the plant.
The optimum is 100 watts per square foot.
Watts add up so you can put two of them together and get 200 watts of output.
The farther away the lamp is the less watts/light.energy will reach the plant.

The next option is the HPS and HID/HAD? lights.
They consume 500 to 1000 watts and put out the same.
They are hot so you have to put them farther away but they put out one heck of a lot of light per area.
They will also run your electric bill over the top.
Running one of these is like running every light in your house 13 75 watt lamps all of the time.
Or running two normal 500 watt blinders under load all of the time.
No big deal for the weed grower for profit but it will make one heck of an expensive tomato.
Worth

[dfollett]

I'm not a lighting expert, but...

I have had really good results with these lights on 4 ft. shelves

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VG-46-T5-Gro...oUwebNQG_GPbcg

They fit tightly between the two end shelf supports of the my particular 48" shelves and don't need any other mounting support. I have taken many plants through their entire life cycle and they seem to blossom quite heavily. I have the 6500k tubes. They use a little over 300 watts.

Recently I installed a couple of shelves using three 4' LED shop light from Costco for each shelf. Side by side, they fill the entire shelf.

https://www.costco.com/4’-Linkable-L...100284402.html

I can't say for sure how they compare for the entire life cycle, but for seedlings and early growth, I don't notice a difference. These are 4000k tubes. In the store they sold them for $19.99. They use less than one third the power of the others.

Your mileage may vary

[oakley]

Thanks Dan. Just the information needed. That should help you KarenD.

I should know more in a month i hope. I have a few different light set-ups over various shelving. I just dance my plants around while checking for stress and dry pots. (i let them get close to bone dry).

I also have the Costco LED. New this year and found it outstanding for the seed starting shelf.
My t-5 and t-8 's were free from construction and work situations. The others i spent no more than 100 total. That includes the one from Costco that was a good price in the store.
I've got a rotation of micro-greens going at all times but they don't need much. The Costco led has them up and ready much faster than any other light bank i've used.

[Ricky Shaw]

Great info here! I've got more t5 and t8 than I need, but the LED stuff is intriguing with it's efficiency. Definitely the wave of the future.

[dmforcier]

Originally Posted by KarenD

Two plants, one is an Adelaide Festival and the other is a Rosella Crimson. Both are about 12 to 15 inches tall.

Ah, dwarfs. That makes things considerably easier. They may be 12-15" now but will get at least twice that tall (which is what you have to plan for now).

The recommended high-intensity fixtures ($250) are best, but I think you can get by for less without building your own. Two 4 tube T8 (or T5) fixtures mounted sideways, one on each side of the plants, should give you enough light (you light growers correct me if I'm wrong, please) for fruiting. They should run you around $100.

24" long tubes will do for now, but won't be long enough for three plants, so might as well buy 48" tubes. Not much price difference.

The tricky part will be mounting the fixtures. Hanging from the ceiling by chains seems simplest, but there are probably 100 ways to do it.

Neglected to ask. Is your shelf unit open front and back? Adjustable shelves? Like a wire rack?

[schill93]

With limited plants, recommending anything too expensive seems like an over kill. Two T8 shop lights from Lowes ($17.99 ea.) plus the 4' bulbs is all that is necessary. I have three kinds as I like to experiment. T5s, T8's and Costco LED. Though I haven't hooked up the LED's yet.

I find the T5's produce too much heat for the 10 x 10 room they are in. Now, they would work to your benefit, if you wanted to use them in a cold garage or basement.

[dmforcier]

Two T8 shop lights from Lowes ($17.99 ea.) plus the 4' bulbs is all that is necessary.

I assume you mean two 2-tube fixtures? And that's enough to support fruit production?

[schill93]

Originally Posted by dmforcier

I assume you mean two 2-tube fixtures? And that's enough to support fruit production?

Yes, two 2 tube 4' fixtures (4-4' tubes) As far as "supporting" , I assume you mean bringing the plants to flower? She can use two types of bulbs if she likes - 6500 and one lower K for flowering. However, I have some tomato plants growing now under just 6500 K tubes, I have been having to pinch the flowers off.

I think someone who has done it over winter should chime in with their experience and which tubes they used.