Recent content by Dave-in-Virginia

Thanks for the light meter LED advice. I’ll test plants there very soon.

Good point, but I’m not finished yet to place the plants. In Another couple of weeks it should be ready.

I got two spider farmers and a light meter shows that each puts out about 800 foot candles 30” up from the bench. So I either need to double up or augment with another bulb. For now I’m trying some metal halides leftover from my aquarium days.

Welcome, I'm a new member also. But without the decades of growing experience. Your Cattleyas are beautiful.

Southern Belle, it was great to see your beautiful orchids. You sure grow Cattleyas well! Hope to see you at Ginter Gardens soon.

Thanks for the welcome. I'd working on the grow room but this last project before retirement is keeping me busy 7 days a week.

Thank you.

If it’s not appropriate to post prices here, could you PM something to me? Thanks

Thanks Rich, I'm about ready to order 4 of their fixtures. They don't appear to be dimmable which isn't much of a problem, but the mars hydro ts1000 is dimmable. So I haven't pulled the trigger just yet, but will soon.

Abax, I believe all that you say. But the price difference between the dimmable LED arrays and a bunch of 11 watt grow light bulbs looks negligible. Given that the arrays are well reviewed by nurseries and the grow lights don't appear to have many reviews out there, I'll stick cautiously to...

Tony, I am clueless regarding the differences between cacti and orchid lighting needs. But the 6500K daylight bulbs that do well for your cactus are lights that I would not take a chance with on orchids. I don't know if they have the red spike that orchids need to flower well. I have a high...

Terry, I agree with you. I lean toward LEDs that were especially built for flowers rather than grow light bulbs. The spider farmer, botanical LED and Mars all fit this criteria. Once researchers show that LED light bulbs cause orchids to flower just as well, at that point I'm happy to admit...

OK Abax, at first I thought you were building your own fixtures with hundreds of soldered little LED bulbs. Now I realize you are plugging in a bunch of regular light bulbs into “pigtails”. Now I see that your method is incredibly easy. However I think I trust fixtures made by orchid growers...

Thanks, it was worth a try.

Ray, is it possible to run Kelpak (at proper dilution) through a mister?