radiation

burkhard@aries.scs.uiuc.edu
Sat, 7 Dec 1996 11:13:45 -0600 (CST)

Hello all,

One of the concerns that a plant grower has is lighting. We are all aware
that usually plants do better with natural sunlight than with artificial
light. A reasonable explaination for this is sunlight provides a wide
spectrum of frequencies. However, ideal "black body" radiation provides
all frequencies of radiation. The heating of a ceramic rod closely
simulates the frequency output of such a black body and therefore
analagous to an ordinary tungsten incandescent light. Yet, most "grow"
lights are flourescent.

I am currently using halogen lights in place of incandescents, but have
not seen any dramatic improvements other than in my electric bill.

If anyone could provide any information on the frequencies of light that
plants utilize the most, I would most appreciate it. I am under the
impression that it must be in the ultraviolet region.

Thanks,

Paul Burkhardt