sman87

Yeah you are going to want some much heavier duty grow lights for a plant that size growing during the winter. I had a 48" 4 tube high output fluorescent grow lamp rated @ 16,000k lum and it was BARELY enough to keep 4 or 5 basjoo growing past 2 feet tall! With my experience last year growing indoors, the larger the plant is the more demanding its light requirement will be. I hear fluorescents don't have the penetrating power that metal halide lights do so light intensity quickly diminishes the further you are from it, making it difficult for lower leaves to gather energy. If money isn't that much of an issue you might want to look into growing your plant inside a grow tent. The tents are specially designed with Mylar insulate that reflects as much light as possible off the inside walls and keeps heat and humidity consistently high. This plays just as crucial of a role keeping your banana plant green and healthy looking as your lighting does. Keep in mind also that you may not see any great significant growth throughout the winter season indoors. You quite possibly may only see 2 or 3 feet of new growth added on since artificial conditions are far from ideal. I know some of the veteran members on here told me a rule of thumb is to focus on keeping it ALIVE rather than keeping it beautiful and they were def right about that lol good luck tho and hopefully you get good gains!