colldp68

I know its still summer, but I have been thinking of overwintering my bananas through the winter. I have a few small tissue cultured bananas that I want to keep growing over the winter in a small room in my house. I plan to run a humidifier and maintain a temperature of 60-75 degrees. I am wondering what you recommend for the most cost efficient or cheapest method of artificial lighting??

ewitte

For small plants CFL power strips would work good. I found it doesn't work well for larger plants because you have to be really close to get good light output (I was aiming for 5000LUX). Well my larger banana plant takes up a lot of extra space when putting out new leaves.

Ohio'sBest

How big is your area?

colldp68

I have an area of about 8 x 10' to work with. Last year I built a miniature 4 x 4' greenhouse in my basement and grew under two 48 inch cool white CFLs and maintained a temperature of 65 - 80 degrees and a humidity of 75+. The bananas did not put on much growth as I would have thought and new leaves dried out quickly. I think the lights were the problem. This year I want to get some decent growth out of my bananas (maybe a new leaf every few weeks). I was thinking of trying another lighting method.

fergus banana

I use 600w HPS on a 16hr on and 8 hr off cycle. But, i dont know what to use for the tissue culture plants.