FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Good <insert appropriate time of day here>!

I'm wondering if anyone has any hands-on experience with IKEA's grow lights, the "VÄXER" series. (Please see here and here.) The web page isn't too specific about the lights' specs and I'd like to know if it would be suitable as supplemental lighting for plants kept on a windowsill.

As of late April I'll be living somewhere that doesn't receive much in the way of direct sunlight during the day, so I'd like to give my Mexican Pinguicula a boost if I find that the windowsill isn't enough on its own. I don't have much in the way of funds and space will be at an absolute premium, therefore I was curious about IKEA's range of cultivation lights.

I've looked into other types of lighting but cannot get them in the UK, so would appreciate your thoughts on these particular kits.

Thank you!

Good Whatever to you too!

I don't have experience with those IKEA lights, too stylish looking for me, but I do have a suggestion. Have you looked at Amazon.UK? They seem to have a variety of LED lighting in various sizes, colors, and power levels.

You could always buy the IKEA light, try it, and send it back if it doesn't look powerful enough. Barry Rice had a light measuring technique using an SLR camera, The Barry Factor, not sure how well it works with colored LED lights but worth looking at.

Good luck on your new domicile.

Good growing,
Mike

If you scroll down to product details and click on "Good to know" it indicates that these lights provide 100 μmol/m²/s which I believe translates to around 8000 lux (a bit low if you ask me.) You can increase the light intensity by lowering the fixture of course - you'd have to look at the instructions to find the intended mounting height they measured that value at.

Thank you both for your feedback, I'm afraid the lighting jargon is a bit lost on me, so I appreciate your thoughts. The article about the Barry Factor sounds great, too.

The light unit μmol/m²/s is the most correct way of measuring plant lighting. It's a measurement of photosynthetically-active photons per square meter reaching the plant canopy. It can be converted to lux by multiplying the value by various factors depending on the type of lighting - in the case of LEDs, 70 is a good approximation but it varies by around 10% depending on the LEDs. Unfortunately the website doesn't state the light output in μmol/s (basically PAR lumens) which would make it much easier to compare to other light fixtures.

I personally have found Barry's light intensity estimates to be quite low - I would consider somewhere around 400% on his chart to be the bare minimum for healthy sundews.