Up next in 10
Light Requirements for Indoor Orchids: 4 Solutions for Artificial Light
33K views
Oct 3, 2024
Welcome to Orchideria! I'm Amanda Matthews, your host for today's video. Growing orchids indoors with artificial grow lights isn’t complicated, once you know what you’re doing. In fact, it’s quite easy. Some orchids have light requirements that have to be supplemented since indoor light isn't enough. The most vital question now is how much light is right for your specific orchid? Once I purchased my first household plant, a Boston Fern, I quickly realized a big flaw: my house sits on all the wrong angles to provide sufficient sunlight. None of my windows get adequate sun and growing plants indoors would require some real thought. Artificial grow lights were the solution. I’m not an electrician. None of my electrical-conduit-processing neurons actually understand all the electrical-conduit processing, so research was mind-picking. With a ton of articles in the orchid light requirement section with information that I just didn’t grasp, I got frustrated—fast. What light to use? How long to keep the lights on? How far above the orchids? High Light Intensity Orchids: what's that? PAR? CRI? Lux? Lumens? Foot Candles?
View Video Transcript
0:00
When growing orchids indoors, you need to think about things like what kind of light do I need to supplement if my house does not have natural light in abundance
0:10
How long do I keep these artificial lights on? How do I know it's the right intensity
0:16
What is par? Lumens, CRI, foot candles. How far away do I keep my orchids from these lights
0:26
And what are the best lights to use? In this video, I'm going to go over the different types of terms that you need to know when
0:34
choosing the correct light for your orchid. I'm going to give you four solutions or possibilities that you can choose from to best provide
0:44
for your orchid. Hi, I'm Amanda Matthews and thank you
0:59
for watching this video at Orchidaria. When I lived overseas, I grew all my orchids outdoors
1:05
so I didn't need to provide artificial lighting. But once I moved back to Kansas, I realized
1:11
that the house that I chose didn't have any good natural lighting for my orchids. My east-facing
1:19
window was right up next to my neighbor. So I had to provide artificial lighting. And I didn't know how to
1:27
grow orchids indoors and that's when I started my research. I had to provide the right lighting
1:33
the right humidity, the watering, everything was now provided by me and not nature. When orchids grow
1:42
outdoors, they get a full spectrum of sunlight, which is visible and non-visible. When light companies
1:50
saw the potential for selling light bulbs to orchid hobbyist and other indoor gargible
1:57
gardening hobbyist, they did research and realized that there were two colors that influenced plant growth
2:05
the most. The first color is blue, which is vegetative growth. The second is a red wavelength
2:14
which will produce a flower spike, which the plants naturally absorb more when they are in a
2:22
flowering state. So these electrical companies that produced light bulbs, they, produce these two wavelengths. That's why you'll see red and blue lights, but we all know from
2:35
our class that when you mix red and blue, they get this purply tinge color. Are those good for
2:42
your orchids? Yes, they are. But in nature, do orchids only get red and blue? No, those are the
2:51
colors they absorb the most. So that's what they're going to use the most. But they also use
2:57
all the other colors in between. So when you provide these purple lights, the orchids will react well. It's not that they
3:06
won't, but they are missing some of that full light spectrum that natural light will provide
3:15
With a little more research, the light companies came to find out that the hobbyists were moving away
3:22
from these lights. So they produced a light called a lead light. The advanced
3:27
The advantage of the lead light, and I will go into more detail about this in the video
3:32
is that they don't produce heat. If you have a light bulb that is converting energy to light and not just energy to light and heat
3:41
the cost will go significantly down. Significantly, the cost will go significantly down
3:50
Let's start with one question, which is how much light do orchids need
3:55
When you're growing them indoors, first you'll need to know that there are different types of orchids
4:04
Some will need more light. Others will need less light. But you can aim for at the beginning, during winter, they'll need from 8 to 12 hours of light a day
4:17
During summer, they can do from 12 to 14 hours of light a day
4:22
The time that the orchids are under these lights is what's going to
4:25
influence their interpretation of what season it is. The second thing we need to know about lighting is plants get their energy by the converting
4:36
the sunlight that hits on their leaves with the help of chlorophyll
4:41
So photosynthesis is what we're aiming at because if we're providing artificial light
4:45
we want that light to hit the leaves and transform this light into energy with the use
4:53
of carbon with the aid of carbon dioxide and chlorophyll. So it makes sense to measure a light's capacity
5:07
to induce this photosynthetic reaction in the plant. That is what PAR is called P-A-R. Par is
5:18
photosynthetically active radiation So it the plant capability of getting that light and transforming that light into energy The range of measurements on par go from 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers
5:36
And this makes sense because on the light wave, that is what visible light measures at
5:44
400 to 700 nanometers. Going back just a little bit, remember that the producers of light bulbs realize that
5:51
plants will grow best with red and blue wavelength links, they do not absorb green. The red
5:59
ranges between 620 and 750 nanometers. So it's on the highest range of your light bowl
6:10
The blue is a cooler range of light ranging between 450 and 490 nanometers. And just remember
6:21
The red will focus on flowering and budding, and the blue will focus on vegetative growth like leaves and roots
6:30
Another thing that is really important to know when we're talking about light conversion is the temperature
6:37
Now, we're used to Kelvin, but when it comes to plants and when it comes to how they absorb the light
6:44
the Kelvin is going to be measured on what this light looks like at different temperatures
6:50
We all know that Kelvin, the temperature can influence the color of the light depending on what it is
6:59
When we measure light according to the temperature, it's called CRI, which is color rendering index
7:08
Just so you have a parameter, the sun is at 5,000 Kelvin, and it has a CRI of 100
7:16
So 100 would be the maximum, like if our plants were outside during midday, during summer
7:24
And when we turn off all the lights in the middle of the night or if we grow them indoors without any light at all, that would be closer to zero
7:33
So we have a parameter of CRA from zero to 100. You are looking for lights
7:40
You want to get that number as close to 100 as possible
7:45
Fluorescent lights will range around 80 to 89 CRI. This part inverts a little bit because our natural thought is a little bit different
7:56
So bear with me here. A cool light leaning more toward the blue spectrum has a Kelvin of 5,000 to 6,000
8:05
Now, a red light, remember this is in terms of light, not in terms of temperature
8:11
That's why it confuses us. A red spectrum is about 2,700 Kelvin
8:18
So it's a little bit different. You know, we think of terms of Kelvin only in temperatures
8:23
but remember, it's how the light reacts in these temperatures. So in this sense, a warm-growing orchid will want 2,700 Kelvin when you're looking for lights
8:36
A intermediate orchid will want 4,200 Kelvin, and a cool growing orchid will want 6,000
8:46
So it's kind of inverted in our minds because we always think of Kelvin as temperature
8:52
But if you can separate that temperature from how the light interacts with the temperature, then you'll get it
9:01
So keep those parameters in mind. foot candles is the next term that we're going to talk about and foot candles is really neat because
9:09
imagine you have one candle and it's in a totally dark room and you light it how far that light
9:18
reaches in terms of feet is one foot candle so if you have a light that can illuminate two foot candles
9:27
then you have a very weak light because it only illuminates two feet for per first you have a light that can illuminates two feet
9:33
For parameters on a bright summer day in the middle of the afternoon, you can have 10,000 foot candles
9:41
Now, in terms of orchids, that is the number that you'll want to, you know, you don't need to worry as much about PAR or CRI or any of those others
9:53
You need to worry about foot candles. If you have an orchid that is a low light orchid, like phalanopsis orchids, you don't
10:02
need that much light now as I said before my house has no good windows and if I
10:09
you know those regrets that you only see after you move in but so it's
10:15
artificial lighting for me so my phalanopsis orchids are on the light the lower
10:21
shelf back here they do not require that much light that's why people can
10:27
grow them on their east facing windows because that light comes in and that
10:31
morning light it's only for a couple hours, it doesn't heat up. That's important. Remember, light and heat are different. The phalanopsis
10:40
orchids do not require that much light. So in terms of foot candles, they will only want 1,000 to
10:47
1 foot candles Medium light orchids which are a step up they will prefer to have longer light absorptions or brighter light They can stay out a little bit longer They will be between 2 and 3 Now these could be
11:07
catlias. They could be dendrobiums. They could be other orchids like that. Highlight orchids
11:15
remember highlight orchids still do not like to be in full sun in the afternoon
11:22
Do not keep them outside all day where sunburn the leaves. You'll sunburn the whole flower and it will die
11:31
It also will overreact to the heat that it's getting. Highlight orchids will range in between 3,000 foot candles
11:40
So foot candles are what you really need to know about lighting
11:45
To convert foot candles to lumens for math people. One foot candle is 10,764 lex or 10 lumens per square meter, if you like the map
12:00
So I know this was very technical, but the best way, and I'll give you a little secret here
12:06
the best way to realize if your orchid is getting enough light, it's going to tell you, look at the leaves of your orchid
12:14
If you have a phalanopsis orchid, if it's dark, dark green, it's not
12:19
getting enough light. Catlia orchids will be a little lighter, a little yellow or green
12:26
and they're happy with that way. It's usually like a little sick color, but that's the color
12:32
they're happy with. If you have these dark, rich green, broccoli color leaves, then your orchids
12:39
not getting enough light. Another way to tell of foot candles, if you put your hand in between
12:45
the, here's the light source and here's your orchid leaf, if you put your
12:49
hand and you can see the exact outline of your hand, you're in a highlight situation. If you back your
12:59
light back up and you can see a slight outline of your hand and it's blurry but you can still
13:08
tell that the shadow is there, then you're at the right low, in between low light and warm light
13:15
orchids. So that's a good measure if you don't have it. Most smartphones will have apps that can measure the
13:22
lighting of your orchid. Of course, these are not as professional, but it will give you some idea of what
13:30
the light range is. This is a great tool to have because when we use our cameras, the camera lens
13:37
already adjust to how much light is in that surrounding. So it's a feature that's already built into your
13:43
camera the apps just read that and will tell you what the light is around you but don't trust them
13:52
the other thing that's really important to know is there are four types of lights there are
13:58
fluorescent and i have to read the list here because my memory is done fluorescent cfl which is compact
14:07
fluorescent lamps, H-ID high-intensity discharge, and LED grow light. So there's these four
14:16
The first one is the light bulb, you know, the idea lamp and don't use it. Why? Because first
14:27
that light is going to not only transform to light, but it's also going to transform into heat
14:32
So if you put a high light orchid right by the lamp, it's not only going to get the light, it's going to get heat and it's going to sunburn that orchid
14:44
It also has to be replaced every three to five months. The second one, CFL, compact fluorescent lamps
14:51
So if you're just starting out with orchids and you don't want to spend a lot of money, you can get two fluorescent bulbs and put two per shelf
15:02
When you install your lights, you should have between 4 and 12 inches from the light to the top of the plant
15:10
Now remember, top of the plant is not the leaf. It's right here
15:15
That's out of the video. But because this part is going to be almost touching the light
15:21
So make sure that your, this isn't an orchid, but imagine if it was
15:27
So if your orchid is here, you're going to install your lamp
15:31
So it's 4 to 12 inches from that light. If your plant shelf is extremely wide, wider than 22 inches, then that light is not going to cover the front of the shelf
15:46
It's going to taper off. The strongest light is right directly underneath it and then it gets less as it moves out
15:55
So if you have high light orchids, put them right on the middle of your shelf and move the lower light
16:01
orchids out to the front or to the back of your shelf
16:06
The one trick with using fluorescent lights is you'll have to mix and match the red and the blue
16:13
the warm and the cool lights. You can find those in stores and it will tell you on there which is the red and which is the blue So every once in a while trade those out to get a good balance for your orchids And if your orchids are in bloom remember just keep
16:33
with the ones that are red and the blue and which ones go with which. But don't take all the red
16:40
away. Always keep both on there and just switch them out regularly. Go with a normal fluorescent light
16:47
which is 45 to 60 watts. If you have a small collection of orchids
16:54
that's, you know, 5, 10. If you have more than that, go with 250 watts
17:01
The problem with CFL Compact Fluorescent Lights is that you'll need to mix and match the red and the blue
17:08
which I said before. The other problem is the cost of these
17:12
At first we think, wow, two lights. That can't cost as much. You'll be trading them out every 1.8 years, so this cost can be a little higher
17:22
Maintenance, there's not that much. You do need to wipe the bulbs down every once in a while, and lots of people forget to do that
17:29
because if there's dust on them, they won't be giving off the right amount of light
17:34
And remember, the compact fluorescent lights will not give all the lighting that your orchid needs
17:41
High intensity discharge lights, or HID. There are three types of HID light bulbs, and they are mercury vapor, high pressure sodium, and metal halide
17:55
Now, the problem with, and I'm going to jump straight into the problem, because I don't want to talk a lot about a light that isn't going to benefit your orchid
18:03
The problem with these is the heat. The HID lights will produce tons of heat, and they will sunburn your orchids and will cause heat damage to your leaf
18:15
They also raise your energy bill. If you really, really want to use an HID light
18:21
then you'll pick one that is 250 watts and keep it about a foot above your orchid
18:27
If it's still too strong, move it to three, two feet or three feet
18:32
With the 400 watt bulb, you can keep it almost at the ceiling
18:38
and you can cover a good portion of your orchids with that
18:42
And the problem again with these, you'll have to change them out every two years
18:47
The orchids that will prefer in HID are the highlight orchids because they also tend, be careful with this
18:56
don't quote me, because lots of people will say, oh, you said this, and then it's listen to what I'm going to say first
19:04
Most all orchids, most all orchids, when they're high temperatures or also high light
19:12
So they'll like that extra heat. They'll like the higher temperature that these bulbs will produce
19:19
Do your research. Do not get a high light orchid thinking it is also high temperature because sometimes they're not
19:28
So most all are. Got me? And the fourth option for lighting are leads, which I love
19:37
Leds provide the full light spectrum and they're not purple. and they won't raise your energy bill and they do not heat up so it's just you know like they
19:46
finally made a light that is perfect for orchids that is the lead light full spectrum do not buy a
19:54
lead light that is not full spectrum how long do lead lights last more than a decade so this light
20:00
I have up here I don't have to change that for another 10 years so that is why it is so
20:08
cost effective. You mean you you purchase it once and you're home free. It is a little expensive in the
20:15
beginning but add all up those you know add two fluorescent light bulbs every every year you know
20:22
or add an incandescent light every five months. That's more expensive. Trust me. If you do want to know
20:30
what light I used on this setup, you can go to my webpage at Orchidaria and I explain
20:38
a little bit and can point you to where I bought it I was completely satisfied
20:43
with mine and I did get it at a discount so it's really good if this video answered
20:48
any of your questions or provided some kind of value to you please hit that
20:53
like button that means a lot to me it means a lot so I can know that this video
20:59
is the kind that you would like to see more of and leave a comment so that we
21:04
can interact and I can answer some of the questions you have and
21:08
Or if you just want to say hi, it really means a lot because these videos do take a long time to make
21:16
But don't stop your orchid care here. I can suggest two more videos that will really enhance your knowledge about heating and lighting and everything that's related
21:27
And the first one is about heating pads. And you can watch that video right here
21:33
And during winter, we need to supplement the heat inside. our homes and a heating pad is a good idea. The second one down here talks about temperatures
21:45
and what is the right temperature for each orchid. So I thank you so much for watching this video
21:52
and happy cultivating
#Home & Garden