WOW! Looks great!

My adenium collection grew this summer and its time to cycle the plants into dormancy.
Every year I get nervous about the process as the plants vary on when they decide to cycle and I inevitably kill one due to over or under watering.

This year I've decided to use a grow light set up to power my younger adeniums ( 3 year olds & younger) right through the winter.
I've selected a 5' x 5' Mars Hydro grow tent lit up by their TSW 2000 LED light. I'm only growing for vegetation so the lights are speced for 4' x 4' coverage. This leaves 6" around the edge of the tent enclosure with inadequate light. I set the lights 22" above the average plant and placed my favorite babies in the middle and my other plants around the edge of the tent. I'll let you know if the edge plants get enough reflective light to stay in growth mode or not. I'm running the light on a 16 hour on 8 hour dark cycle. My plant are grown in full sun outside.

I'm using three 5' x 18" metal shelves set on cinder blocks & 2x4s to raise the plants off of the floor to make it easier for me to reach the plants. The tent has access from the front & both sides enabling me to reach all of my adeniums easily (other tents don't offer this access).

The tent is located in an enclosed patio heated by a smaller space heater to around 60 degrees in the winter. Currently it gets to 60 at night outside and the mid 80s during the day. The tent, heated only by the light is running 75 to 97 degrees with the top & lower vents open. The black tent catches sunlight in the late afternoon generating the maximum temperature. I put a small fan in the enclosure to keep air moving.




If anyone has some experience that they would like to share regarding growing high light plants in a grow tent I would value your advice. I'm one week into this and learning. Thx!

I have pretty much the same set up but I have it indoors. I have fans because it was getting too hot in mine. I put the lights much closer to the plants. I'd guess it's about 10 inches above them. I open it up daily for a few minutes to change the air. My Adeniums, Plumerias and Hibiscus grow well, and many of them bloom during their winter time in there.

Thx Karen! That must be nice having blooms in the winter.

I kept the light higher up thinking that it would cover more area, but it's at the expense of the intensity. It appears bright to me, but I haven't put a meter on it yet.

All of my plants in this tent are young so I am just trying to mature them faster by growing them 12 months a year vs 8. Have you tinkered with the duration of light per day?

I am just setting up a second tent for my favorite mature adeniums. I want to keep them in sync with the seasons so I plan to mimic the shorter daylight hours plus a little bit. How do you handle light duration with your plants and how often do you water?

I always envy to you guys in 4 season countries who can enjoy a lot of beautiful flowers in Spring, but when looking at the hassle that you have to go through out the winter, then I feel lucky and appreciate the tropical climate where I live.
Sometimes we just take it for granted on what we have. If I am in your situation, maybe I can hardly keep 10% of my current plant collection.

It is a bit of a hassle, and I consider it fairly expensive, but it's worth it to me. I love my flowering plants!

I don't mess with the lighting. I just let them be on for 12 hours a day. I tend to water the tropicals about once a week, but it's best to stick your finger in and make sure they are dry before you water. I have gone on trips and not watered for 2 weeks, and all was fine.

TJOE, I would love to grow in your environment, but I bet that I would dislike the rainy season.
Your roof top looks wonderful.

Thx 4 ur input Karen. I'll keep u posted if I learn anything.

Mishapr,
I believe that succulents benefit from some period of darkness, but maybe the light is so dim that they need all that they can get. I look forward to seeing a picture of them

I've placed my younger adeniums into a 5' x 5' Mars Hydro grow tent lit up by their TSW 2000 LED light.
The light is centered in the tent and is designed to effectively cover a 4' x 4' area for vegetation growth. Therefore the perimeter of the 5' x 5' area is out of the specified area.
I've been running the light 16 hours a day from 6AM until 10PM at a height 22" above the top of the plants.
The temperature ranges from 72 degrees to 98 degrees F.
I'm using the Agro-thrive organic fertilizer designed for plant growth (not blooming).

The preliminary results are great. The plants love it. They have changed from going dormant in October back to growth mode.
My objective is to grow the adeniums larger faster by growing the young plants 12 months a year vs 8 months (March to October).
Unfortunately 35% of the young plants have begun to flower which is pretty, but diverting energy from growing larger.
It appears that the plants located in the perimeter of the grow tent are getting sufficient light to grow and some are even blooming.

If the blooming persists I will back down the duration of light to 14 hour per day or dim the light from its highest setting.
Does anyone have experience that can help me keep these plants in growth mode without blooming?

2ManyPlants said:
Does anyone have experience that can help me keep these plants in growth mode without blooming?

I think you can simply just take out / cut all the flower buds when you see it. Then the plant will go back to growing mode.
We did this when we grow fruit trees in a pot, when we want to focus on positioning the branches, if the plant produce flowers, we just cut the flowers.

Then I'll leave the light on full power 16 hours a day.
Thanks TJOE!

I was thinking that one day I may want to set up a cactus/succulent terrarium ( eventhough I can find the reason why I need one) , started to think of the design and setup.
I went through this thread to understand further on the light requirements & specs, find it so difficult to judge by the printed lumens value on the box, then adjusting the light further up and down. When I buy bulbs at store, whenever possible I will use lux meter in mobile phone to measure the lumens. This make me dig further that there is a PPFD/PAR and DLI measurement for plants.
Found the application, not knowing how accurate it is, but it is interesting to play with.
I measure the light at 6 am in the morning. The rising sun.

Outdoor under a tree/shade


Outdoor no shade and no sun


Outdoor with direct sun at 6 am


Those figures may not be accurate at all, but at least we have some figures and benchmark to measure the brightness of the light.

Another area is that I find a lot of PPFD standard requirements for various type of plants, but can not find any information about PPFD requirements for cactus or succulents, would appreciate if any of have those information and can share it here

Or use your hand. Hold your hand at leaf level. If your hand casts a sharp shadow, bright light. Fuzzy shadow, medium light. Faint or no shadow, shade. If you need to put on your sunglasses, the light is just about perfect for cactus.

I have a light meter and did the same kinds of experiments, moving it about to see what numbers go where. I think whatever the unit you want to go by, the light intensity is going to be the same wherever your meter reads the same, or the whole process is pointless. So presumably you'd want to find out the ideal exposure range, maybe by testing different locations where plants do well, and then try to approximate that (at the given distance you intend your plants to live below the light).

@elgecko, did you play with a meter when you were figuring out the light to use for your Haworthias?

Baja_Costero said:I have a light meter and did the same kinds of experiments, moving it about to see what numbers go where. I think whatever the unit you want to go by, the light intensity is going to be the same wherever your meter reads the same, or the whole process is pointless. So presumably you'd want to find out the ideal exposure range, maybe by testing different locations where plants do well, and then try to approximate that (at the given distance you intend your plants to live below the light).

@elgecko, did you play with a meter when you were figuring out the light to use for your Haworthias?

No I did not. I have no light meter.
I experimented with different lighting / bulbs and watched how the plants responded.
When I started out using artificial lighting I was growing carnivorous plants. Most CP's like as much light as you can give them.
I have not tried the Current LED's that I have for growing other succulents or cactus....well 2 Agave in tanks. I know Haworthias can tolerate lower light levels then most cactus, so I don't know if they are strong enough for cactus.

@Kaktus just curious what is the app you used on your phone?

It called PPFD meter, this is how the logo looks like, it also has lux meter in it


Btw, what is the color of the lights that you use for the plants? I am fine with white or natural yellow color, but do not like the red or blue color, make the whole thing looks weird

Thanks.
Think I found the same apps. I'll see if I have time to take any readings tonight when I get home. I'm curious what it will show.

I hate those blue / purple lights.
The Current lights, you can change the color / intensity of the colors.
I think I had to do a Google search which preset setting was the natural sunlight color. That's what I set them at and never changed anything.

This post show the color of the lights well.
https://garden.org/thread/view...

@elgecko, any info on the measurement? I measured all the lights at home, all the energy savings and LED lights show a very low number,
Only this reflector light, 12 volts/35 Watts show some figure at a low benchmark.

Thought I would give a quick update on my lighting.
This pertains to how I now control the lighting schedule.
Since I like to simulate a changing photo-period throughout the year, I use to manually change the timer on the lights to achieve this.
Several weeks ago I decided to try some smart plugs to make this easier to do... well make it happen as I would not always remember to change the schedule on the timer.
With the smart plugs I'm able to use a sunrise and sunset function.
You are able to change the time up to 1 hr before or 1 hour after sunrise / sunset.
I ended up having the lights come on a 1/2 hr after sunrise and turn off 1 hour after sunset.
I chose 1 hour after sunset, so in the winter time when the sun would set at 4:30pm, I'd have more time to observe my plants before the lights went out.

Just curious on why you need follow/simulate the summer winter timing? Since you can control the environment, if the plants like summer, why not giving them summer all year round ? Or winter all the time for winter grower?
I have read some where that people switch grow light on at night to make the plant photosynthesize for 24 hours a day. For fruits btw.