Post by Rug on Aug 21, 2010 19:18:16 GMT -5
Well over the last year or so I have notice a steady decline in some of my plants and not in others which were in different areas of my large indoor greenhouse. I was really confused as to why most of my most prolific pitchering Nepenthes, over time, gradually stopped pitchering when pretty much all of my conditions have stayed relatively the same. Humidity and temperature are monitored all the time with a combination temp. and RH meter and don't vari much except for the normal spikes at night when all lights go off. I recently had told Rick Hillier that if he was using an older Mh bulb that the spectrum and light output reduces exponentially which could explain a downturn in plant's health. Little did I realise that I was having the same problem with my florescent bulbs. They are currently well over a year old in my T5 HO fixture and over 2 years old on some of my other T8 and T12 fixtures. For some reason I was not even thinking that this could be problematic for me as I had just had a recent bout with Thrips and attributed the lack of pitchering with the very light infestation. I was looking to borrow a light meter from work or possibly buy one on ebay but I decided to to a bit more research before going down the "buy it now" road. Low and behold I find these two websites (Below) (links from on to the other on the page as well) As it seems florescent lights lose their spectrum within about 6 months! It states:
Replace Tubes Every Six Months
Although fluorescent lights are very energy efficient, there is a particularly nasty phenomenon known as "cathode decay" that causes, over time, less energy to be transferred through the mercury vapour. The net effect is that the tube will emit less and less light as it gets older. To all appearances, the tube will put out the same amount of light until it suddenly stops dead one day, (which can take years), but for all practical purposes, because the drop off in light output is an exponential decay, the tube should optimally be replaced every six months or at the very least once a year. Writing the installation date on the tube itself with a permanent magic marker can be a big help here.
Please read these 2 sites and get what you can out of them! I have "seen the light" so to speak and am going to replace all my tubes in the coming weeks and hope this gets my pitchers a poppin again! Again as stated it was a slow decline which could explain my problem I hope! Lets keep our fingers crossed! Hope everyone learns something. It also good for what Kelvin light output each manufactures bulbs put out!
retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/light.html
retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/tubes.html
Replace Tubes Every Six Months
Although fluorescent lights are very energy efficient, there is a particularly nasty phenomenon known as "cathode decay" that causes, over time, less energy to be transferred through the mercury vapour. The net effect is that the tube will emit less and less light as it gets older. To all appearances, the tube will put out the same amount of light until it suddenly stops dead one day, (which can take years), but for all practical purposes, because the drop off in light output is an exponential decay, the tube should optimally be replaced every six months or at the very least once a year. Writing the installation date on the tube itself with a permanent magic marker can be a big help here.
Please read these 2 sites and get what you can out of them! I have "seen the light" so to speak and am going to replace all my tubes in the coming weeks and hope this gets my pitchers a poppin again! Again as stated it was a slow decline which could explain my problem I hope! Lets keep our fingers crossed! Hope everyone learns something. It also good for what Kelvin light output each manufactures bulbs put out!
retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/light.html
retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~jerry/orchids/tubes.html