ChrisFL
General Disarray
All other things being correct (temp, humidity, water, ventilation), what would you look for or what have you seen as a sign of too much light. Or is there such a thing.
Too much light?
- Thread starter ChrisFL
- Start date
Help Support Slippertalk Orchid Forum:
Trithor
Chico (..... the clown)
Sun-loungers and spare sets of sunglasses starting to appear under the greenhouse benches? Smudges of SPF50 sunblock on your roths early in the morning is also a sure give-away!
Rick
Well-Known Member
Chris
I would definitely say too much light can be an issue (separate from temp), but it can be hard to separate the two.
Leaf temps can be elevated even if air temps are normal (ever touch a dark surface on a cold sunny day? It will be warmer than ambient air temp).
But In my indoor box with CFbulbs running at 16 hours on 8 off, my pleuros where stunting/dieing. Lots of symptoms of excess TDS. Black spotting, leaf tip die back, purple/red leaves. I lost 8 masdevalias in about 6 months.
This was after reducing K and always using RO water for daily misting. This program was working great in the GH so I was pretty cocky about trying a group of masdevalia with it in the indoor box that had good temp/humidity control.
I cut lights back to 12 on 12/off. and growth has been wonderful. My first masdevallia to successfully leaf out and bloom, and long term struggling restrepias, and scaphosepalum taking off. The fert reduction that was doing so good in the GH was only good for the indoor group after reducing light.
We can detail all the other lighting details some other post, but the big difference in this group of plants was a simple reduction in day length.
I would definitely say too much light can be an issue (separate from temp), but it can be hard to separate the two.
Leaf temps can be elevated even if air temps are normal (ever touch a dark surface on a cold sunny day? It will be warmer than ambient air temp).
But In my indoor box with CFbulbs running at 16 hours on 8 off, my pleuros where stunting/dieing. Lots of symptoms of excess TDS. Black spotting, leaf tip die back, purple/red leaves. I lost 8 masdevalias in about 6 months.
This was after reducing K and always using RO water for daily misting. This program was working great in the GH so I was pretty cocky about trying a group of masdevalia with it in the indoor box that had good temp/humidity control.
I cut lights back to 12 on 12/off. and growth has been wonderful. My first masdevallia to successfully leaf out and bloom, and long term struggling restrepias, and scaphosepalum taking off. The fert reduction that was doing so good in the GH was only good for the indoor group after reducing light.
We can detail all the other lighting details some other post, but the big difference in this group of plants was a simple reduction in day length.
AdamD
Catasetinae Crazed
Rick brings up a good point, are you worried about light being too bright or too much exposure for too long? In my experience, plants can take short bursts of brighter light given the temps aren't too high, but what I saw happen this summer with bright lights + high temps was a bleaching of the leaves, along with blackening of leaf tips. Could also be due to too much fert on my part.
Stone
Well-Known Member
As my g/house runs east-west, I have an area where some paphs get very bright morning sun (through very light white shade cloth) for about 4 hours or so. There is no burn and in fact they seem very happy. From then on the shade gradually increases to where they are in full shade after about 2PM. Late in the day, the other side of the g/house gets the sunshine, but here I need 2 layers of 70% shade cloth or they will burn. I would like to have all my plants facing east but there's only limited space. Personally, I think they really like bright light when the sun is very low but shade when its overhead.
ehanes7612
Well-Known Member
I used to grow under lights and gave 12/12. I grew my multi paphs and phrags 6 feet underneath 1000 watt and that was way too much..I know a grower that grows cattleya and vandas like that and seems perfect. He also grows phrags four feet under T-5 flourescents (4 x 2 four bulbs) and they bloom and look healthy. He grows his dracula and masdies way off to the side (probably 8 feet away) where they only get bouncing light from the T5's.
If I don't get shade cloth out in February as the sun gets higher and stays out longer, I notice that Paph leaves become noticeably paler, but return to normal color once the shade cloth is out.
papheteer
Well-Known Member
do you mean (4 x 2-foot bulbs)? I grow mine under 4 x 4-foot bulbs about 18 inches away. I think I need to pull the lights up higher!
NYEric
Well-Known Member
Generally if there's too much light the leaves are bleached out/light or yellow looking.
After that you will burn the leaves.
After that you will burn the leaves.
This has been my observation as well. All of my plants go outdoors during the summer on an east-facing porch where they are exposed to direct sunlight from early morning until around 11 AM, at which point the paphiopedilums are protected from any further direct sunshine from the plants that are benched above them. In the winter they are in a south-facing room that gets lots of light. Since the angle of the sun is lower at that time of year, the paphs are able to take much higher light levels without showing any signs of bleaching.
