Richard

Mike,

My main interest is in the number of days under your lights, environment, and nutrition regime the plant takes to bloom. Let's wait and see.

Other than that, what were the initial conditions; i.e., state of the plant prior to the start of your experiment, the approximate age, environment, and nutrition?

As for my part of the walk, you can read my previous posts in this thread about it.

__________________
Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

wordwiz

The plant was about 14" tall (roots and all) with 3 of the four leaves sort of broken. I rinsed the potting mix off and put it in a five-gallon bucket. The nutrient solution is EcoGrow with a ppm pf about 2100. The room is usually between 72-84 though night-time temps are dropping. From what the seller told me, it will produce fruit when it gets about 40-50 leaves - that would mean in about another nine months or so at its current rate of growth.

The light is on about 13 hours a day and sits about 2.5 ft. above the plant.

Mike

Richard

Mike,

With your knowledge and experience, you should be able to break previous "days to maturity" records for indoor growing using 100-200 Watts as the only light supply. You can read about these elsewhere on Bananas.org. Send me a message when it fruits.

Number of leaves is no indication of maturity. Check the postings -- most recently by Gabe on this subject.

You must mean 2100 total ppm -- which is not a useful measure considering the concentrations of micronutrients etc. in the product. Find out from the manufacturer what dosage of the product gives 100pm Nitrogen, then work from there to get the desired feeding concentrations of N-P-K, etc.

That's about it for me on this subject.

__________________
Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

wordwiz

Richard,

I typed that I use EcoGrow - you can Google it to find the percentages of N,P & K as well as micronuits.

From you post, I gather you are not interested in growing a plant indoors under 800 watts of light and charting the progress?

I ordered and supposedly was shipped a Dwarf Cavendish, not a Super Drawf - I trust Ted to send me what I order, he always has.

Sounds like you aren't willing or able to grow a banana plant indoors using 800 watts of lights. I understand - trying to back up claims is much harder than making them!

Mike

Richard

Actually you are just unwilling to read what I have already written in this thread about my experiences, and apparently unwilling to read the experiences of many other growers on this site. I do sincerely hope that you have a positive outcome with your experiment and find many new friends here at Bananas.org.

__________________
Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

wordwiz

Richard,

I ave read what you have posted. Here are the posts:

Forget LED's for crops, although they are great for indoor tropical plants that enjoy low light in their natural habitat.
In the long run, the T5 High-Output Plant light systems are more cost effective, plus they give out a better quality light for crops and full-sun plants in general.

HPS plant-light bulbs are manufactured to be a supplement to daylight in translucent outdoor greenhouses in northern latitudes -- not a stand-alone source for indoors. For example: http://www.search.philips.com/search...oad/p-5828.pdf

The vast majority of HPS bulbs sold by manufacturers are used as lighting supplements. My clients -- who buy lights by the truckload, prefer the T5 HO full spectrum. It is also true that many distributors are making a nice sum of cash selling HPS bulbs to indoor growers. Its a small dent in the big picture.

I'm not selling any lights. I just do the physics as part of my consulting service.

When I evaluate plant bulbs, there are 3 manufacturers' graphs I value:
1. Output power spectrum. This is a graph of Watts or typically log(Watts) vs. nanometers. I ignore graphs that do not have units in the vertical range and do not extend through the infrared.
2. Output power spectral density. This is variance of power vs. nanometers. It shows you deviations in output under operating conditions.
3. Total power vs. operational time. This shows you when and how the output decays.
(The rest of the post truncated)

The greenhouses are all about 1 acre in size. One of them is dedicated to bananas. From fall through spring, the light through the roof is supplemented with full-spectrum plant bulbs for a total effect of 13 hours daylight at a rate of 1200 Watts per plant (at times, some of this is coming from the sun).

In terms of energy requirements to have a solitary dwarf Cavendish produce a meaningful crop, you'll need 800W output full plant spectrum for 9 hours per day provided the ambient air temperature is in the 75F to 85F range and the plant is receiving 2-3 lbs of something like 15-5-22 + minors & micronutrients per year.

For more standard size bananas, we use 2kW output per plant, of which about 1.2kW is incident upon the plant. The bulbs are 1 meter distance from the foliage. During the summer months, the sun provides about 1/2 of this but during the winter only about 100W to 200W. The nutrients are the same as below but the levels are at 5-lbs per plant per year.

(Taken from a post)
Fruiting banana cultivars do not occur in the wild.

These clients are in Riverside and San Bernardino counties (CA). They are growing dwarf varieties for local asian markets. My understanding is that the 1st two hands per bunch covers the production cost and the remainder is profit.

The relationship is non-linear and has more to do with fruit production than leaf growth. There are accrued energy levels to be obtained over time for maturation, etc.

No where do you state that you have any experience growing bananas, only "what you advise clients" which is using far more energy than necessary - IMO. I made a really simple proposal - we both grow a Dwarf Cavendish, me using a 125 watt LED panel, you using a 2,000 watt HID system that you posted you use. Then we compare the output.

If you get 16 times as much output as me, I'll concede.

Are you willing to put up?

Mike

Patty in Wisc

'Well Mike, you were good about answering questions ... too bad your questions didn't get answered. Just want to say that I was told my IC would flower at about the 35th leaf and it DID!... both of them.
I have a IC in south window & getting 500w halogen light from about 3:30 till 8pm. 2 I forced dormancy & the rest will go into sunroom (50 - 60f) with T8 32 w flourescents. I noticed a big diff between reg 40w floures & the t8 ...the t8's are much brighter.

__________________
Got a lite?
Patty




____
Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

Richard

Actually all the technical questions he asked did get answered.

__________________
Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

The Hollyberry Lady

wordwiz

Richard,

I guess these are not technical enough to qualify?

Do you have any idea what PAR is, or DLI?

So what variety of banana are you growing and what is your average harvest per tree?

$100 per hand. That's what, $4-5 or more per banana? (Your answer was a simple “Nope.” Not really an answer.)

C'mon - this is easy. Show us what you know and am doing. I'll be honest, I don't know if my 125 watt LED panel will be powerful enough to produce fruit or not, but I will post my personal observations, not what I recommend to my clients.

Just tell us about your personal experiences using different lights. Or take the challenge and grow your own in the next year. This is not rocket science - you pick your plant, your method of growing, your lighting and 12 months from now post your results. Are you up to it?

Mike

The Hollyberry Lady

wordwiz

I suspect Richard cannot back up his claims - it's been more than a week and he has not responded.

IMO, he should have stuck around and put up his 2000 watt system against my 125 watt one. At least we all would have benefited from the results!

Mike

Kevin

Can we just drop this already?

wordwiz

Kevin,

No problem dropping the part regarding Richard, but IMO it would be a disservice not to continue to post how my hydro DC is doing under the LED light - that's at least part of the OP's question. I'm still adding a leaf per week, with very, very tight internodes. If no one cares about how the plant grows, I'll quit adding updates; otherwise I'll continue to add them. Members are free to read or skip over them. It's not like I'm wasting electrons that cannot be recycled.

Mike

The Hollyberry Lady

Kevin

True, but if the initiator of the thread is not involved in the conversation anymore, what's the point? Are you talking to that person or just to Richard? Seems, for the most part, to be a 2-person thread, which can be valuable, but in this case, is just dragging on. If one person is not interested in the conversation, it just becomes one person posting on the thread. Yes, you can keep posting about your findings, but don't try to involve Richard. Just because he hasn't responded doesn't mean he can't back up his claims. Maybe he just doesn't want to be involved in your 'competition'. Maybe you should PM him to find out for sure where he stands before making assumptions.

If I ever get a banana to flower indoors, I'll post my findings to compare.

Patty in Wisc

There are several threads here where the original poster didn't post for years & it is still going on.
There are several ppl here who got a nana to flower indoors - including ME.
Yes, I'm interested in hearing how Mike's lights are doing on his nana.
Yes, there is a guy on here that loves to confront & start arguements here & then backs off when he gets stuck.

__________________
Got a lite?
Patty




____
Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

jmoore

If there's a problem complain to a moderator.

Personally, it amuses me.

I'd like to see a banana flower under lights, so keep us posted.

wordwiz

Well, if the guy I bought it from is correct, it will be another nine months to get fruit. I don't have a clue regarding the time from flowering to ripe fruit!

Mike

wordwiz

An update.

Not sure what to post as far as how the plant is doing under the lights and in a DWC system.

About two months ago, the new shoots quit developing. I thought it might be because the temps dropped from the 80s to the low 70s, even the 60s during the night. The leaves turned yellow on the edges, then brown and then they died. But the roots, in the DWC system, kept growing and stayed white, even after trimming.

The plant now has a pup growing, but get this - it is under the lid of the container. Close to 5" long with two large leaves. Plus, a new shoot has suddenly developed above the lid. But so has something else - a piece of stem (root, shoot - I don't have a clue) that is about 1/4" thick but does not have a top or bottom - it is more like an upside-down "U."

I would like to remove the pup but do not know 1) if it is large enough and 2) how to do it. I can post pics, both of the pup and whatever the heck that one growth is, tomorrow if that will help.

On another note - I'll be growing dwarf apple, orange, tangerine, peach and cherry trees, blackberries and strawberries this year, in addition to the banana plant. My goal it to have a fruit salad, totally grown by me. But I cannot find a marshmallow plant, at least the kind that has fruits that can be roasted over a campfire. If anyone has a source for the plants, please let me know!

Mike