From

Location

Message

Date Posted

San Diego

I was curious about lighting small seedlings. Do they need to have some dark for night or will they grow better with 24 hour light? Or maybe that's bad, I don't know.

5/6/2002 7:32:02 PM

Liverpool , England

Yo Jim,
I think the jury's out on that one.


Alun

5/6/2002 7:46:48 PM

Yukon, Canada

I wonder about light too. In the Yukon we are so far north that in June there is daylight almost twenty-four hours a day. I hope the experts will pipe up here!

5/6/2002 8:57:45 PM

Puyallup, WA

From what I have read, a rest from photosynthesis is best for the plant. The figure that comes to mind is four hours.

5/7/2002 1:56:46 AM

Cologne / Germany

During the first 10 days from sprouting to first true leave I´ve never turned off the neon growing bulb and it worked great (inhouse).
From that point it all depends on the needs of your plants related to their genetic background - they can be either long-day plants or short-day plants. Take a short-day plant from south to far north, so it will be out of balance: early maturing and low consumption of nutrients from soil (because light consumption dominates) is what you get. So keeping it as nature directs is the best way.

5/7/2002 6:03:01 AM

Western Pa.

Plants definately need a "rest" from the light. I think somewhere around 14 hours of light will produce optimum growth. Cutting back to around 8 hours "fools" the plant into thinking the days are getting shorter, and it will spend more energy trying to reproduce. Varying amount of artificial light daily can leave the plant "dazed and confused"!

5/7/2002 9:02:15 AM

Bemidji, MN

The scientists say just as we humans do our growing at night, so does plant growth. So following this theory, plants need 4-8 hrs of darkness for full growth potential.Steve

5/7/2002 9:04:04 AM