Grow Lights

[Ripple]

I would like to grow some of the Western herbs and vegetables that i am used to in my condo, but can't find anywhere in Bangkok that sells grow lights. I am especially interested in LED grow lights. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ripple]

Thanks tomster. After more investigation I found that using the correct type of fluorescent bulb at the appropriate time-- vegetative grow, flowering, etc. should do the trick. A little more research and I should be ready to go!

LED grow lights are way overpriced and at best average at growing plants.

As far as I know nobody sells grow lights here due to lack of demand with sunlight being so plentiful.

My advice would be head down to Homepro and buy some fluorescent tubes and and small housing, You should be able to knock something up from there pretty easily.

Tom.

[riceyummm]

Thanks tomster. After more investigation I found that using the correct type of fluorescent bulb at the appropriate time-- vegetative grow, flowering, etc. should do the trick. A little more research and I should be ready to go!

LED grow lights are way overpriced and at best average at growing plants.

As far as I know nobody sells grow lights here due to lack of demand with sunlight being so plentiful.

My advice would be head down to Homepro and buy some fluorescent tubes and and small housing, You should be able to knock something up from there pretty easily.

Tom.

I did a lot of indoor medicinal herb farming in California a while back. I occasionally used T-5 and CFL (compact fluorescent light) indoors. The CFL's are better in that you can get up to 600 watt sizes (I think, I had 125w if I remember correctly). I don't know if the big ones are available here. Not cheap but cheap to run and don't produce a lot of heat.

There's a forum on indoor lighting here: http://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/ . Different herbs but works the same.

LED for growing was in it's infancy then and only the die hard experimenters played with it. That's probably the future of most lighting though.

HPS (high pressure sodium) and MH (metal hydride) are the way to go for serious production but expensive to buy and operate, and VERY hot.

I hope this helps.

[cloghead]

www.accenthydroponicsthailand.com

if they're out of lights they will get them from their partner in Australia: www.accenthydroponics.com

[Ripple]

Thank you all for your considerate replies. I like the idea of the T5s, but I wonder what would work best for the flowering stage? Though I largely intend to grow flat leaf parsley and wheat grass and won't have a flowering stage, I would still like to get all the bases covered in case I decide to grow anything else, so if anyone knows a relatively cheap fluorescent way to go during the flowering stage, that would be great.

I have hunted through Home Pro and they actually do sell Metal Hallide lamps (a little over 3,000 baht--I think they were 400 watts). I found out that they also have 150 watt high pressure sodium lights as well. They just don't think of or know these as "grow" lights as I believe people generally buy them for residential lighting. It took tons of questioning to find this out since things are not labelled so well.

And thanks so much for the web address. I think I will get a native Thai speaker to call them and find out all the details as the site was a bit hard for me to navigate.

Thanks again!

Ripple

[Ripple]

From what I have been able to gather online. If you are just growing a couple of simple things, and especially if it's more of a hobby than having a serious reason for growing something indoors, I think CFL bulbs can handle the situation. Cheap and easy on the electric bill. If I ever get off my lazy ass and start growing something instead of just talking about it, I will definitely share my experiences with you all. It seems to me that the benefit of MH and HPS bulbs is they produce more lumens, thus making the growing process faster. This is great for a professional, but I can wait an extra week or two for something to mature. Not to mention the serious amount of power are needed to run these lights and in a hot city like Bangkok, you will be faced will having to find a way to remove the excessive heat generated by such high power bulbs

[riceyummm]

Thank you all for your considerate replies. I like the idea of the T5s, but I wonder what would work best for the flowering stage? Though I largely intend to grow flat leaf parsley and wheat grass and won't have a flowering stage, I would still like to get all the bases covered in case I decide to grow anything else, so if anyone knows a relatively cheap fluorescent way to go during the flowering stage, that would be great.

I have hunted through Home Pro and they actually do sell Metal Hallide lamps (a little over 3,000 baht--I think they were 400 watts). I found out that they also have 150 watt high pressure sodium lights as well. They just don't think of or know these as "grow" lights as I believe people generally buy them for residential lighting. It took tons of questioning to find this out since things are not labelled so well.

And thanks so much for the web address. I think I will get a native Thai speaker to call them and find out all the details as the site was a bit hard for me to navigate.

Thanks again!

Ripple

A couple of things. The metal halide (MH) and high pressure sodium (HPS) bulbs require a large ballast and I doubt the B3000 includes that.

T-5 and CFL come in different Kelvin ratings, 2700(insert that little degree sign here)k, and 6500(here too)k. The 6500 is used for vegging and the 2700 for flowering.

I hope this helps.

[Ripple]

I appreciate your info very much riceyummm. Thank you!

[Chillaz]

I've successfully grown herbs using HPS light.

Great result. Now, the new LED with special technology beat everything.

Energy saving and gigantic result. Worth the money spend.

Got lots of info and experience in indoor and out door herbs cultivation.

Would be great to get in touch with peace farmer