Lighting for Plant Growing: Incandescent vs Fluorescent Lights

Posted by lindseyshoe

Which light is true, which light is good for you and your plants? Not to mention your wallet and the environment. The war of the lights … who will be the winner. Read more to find out.

Of course the most ideal and most green light for plants comes from the sun. In the partnership between sunlight and plants, microscopic chloroplasts inside each cell in green plants trap and convert energy from light. Mixed with water and carbon dioxide, plants use this energy to create simple sugars. The sugars fuel the plants growth, flowering and seeding cycles. In eatable plants these sugars also provide fuel for the animals and humans that consumes them.
There are times when artificial light is desirable for growing plants. Erratic weather patterns mean that some days may be too sunny, too cold or too windy to provide the ideal conditions, including light, for plants. Many researchers and gardeners find artificial light that can be controlled for intensity and duration a perfect solution to start seeds, root cuttings or grown plants indoors.
But Which Lights Are Best? Incandescent or Fluorescent
The hands down answer is that fluorescent lights are better for growing plants. The great news is that fluorescent lights are also a more eco-friendly choice. Fluorescent lights are more efficient than incandescent lights. Fluorescent lights give off more light per watt of electricity but with less heat, which is important too for plant growing. The combination of light quality and cooler temperatures makes them the preferred way to establish seedlings. You can go green while you grow green.
Choosing Fluorescent Lights
Fluorescent tubes have power ratings that range from 15 watts to 215 watts. Most indoor gardeners find that a 40 watt 4 ft. tube works well. These florescent tubes range in price from about $2.00 to $20.00. What do you get for the difference in price? Higher priced fluorescent lights have a longer useful lifetime. Lifetimes can range from 12,000 hours, which would last about a year a half to 34,000 hours, which would last about 4 years.
Investing in longer useful life times, means less replacements for you and less recycled waste for the environment.
Guidelines for Successfully Using Fluorescent Lights for Plant Growing
Tests and experiments have given gardeners some general guidelines for using florescent lights to grow plants.
-Vegetables and flowering plants need around 30 watts per square foot.
-Germinating seed need at least 10 watts per square foot.
-Seedlings and houseplants can do well with 15 to 20 watts per square foot.
Remember, a standard 4 ft. 40 watt fluorescent tube is giving off 10 lamp watts per square foot.
Go Green with Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
While fluorescent lights are the best choice for growing plants, they are also the greenest choice for your home and office lighting needs. Compact Fluorescent Lights or CFLs, use 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent lights and CFLs last ten times longer. While they usually have a higher price tag of 4 to 1 dollars for CFLs versus incandescent, they are not more expensive in the long run. When you consider that they last ten times longer, they are actually more economical and more eco-friendly.
For every incandescent light bulb that is replaced with a compact fluorescent light bulb, you can save $45.00 in energy cost over the lifetime for each and every bulb. Also, for every fluorescent bulb that is replaced by a compact florescent bulb, the CO2 emissions will be reduced by 67 pounds over the lifetime of the bulb. These stats are just for one bulb so just count all of the bulbs used in your house and times these stats by that number to find out exactly how huge the impact would be for your wallet and your world if you replaced all incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lights.
Clearly, florescent lights are better for growing plants indoors but fluorescent lights are more eco-friendly for all livings things growing on our planet.