You need way more light than you will get from any bulb in standard sockets for them to do well.  

That socket might not be able to provide much benefit. CFL and LED grow lights should be around 1- 6 inches away from plants and HPS 1-2 ft.

If you aren't getting much light from windows, it would be best to invest in something like a 400w HPS system at minimum to grow a tree indoors. Marijuana forums have all kinds of good info that would apply to figs as well.

Of course, growing the tree outdoors would be best of all.

There is a great post from a while back by a member who grows his cuttings under lights and using heat pads and a humidity box,AWSOME results,he says on it what lights he uses so that might be worth a read,just go to the Search function and search for twigs to figs,when you see what he can achieve under lights you can't really dispute the results,hope that helps

I figured a bigger tree would have more leaves, hence more ability to take in light so that was why I didn't think bigger tree/higher lumens.

Anybody have any thoughts about the two links I posted?   The first bulbs emit red light at least in appearance, claiming the led combo gives "waste free" photosynthesis.

Yet I'm a bit suspicious about LED lights.    It seems they're always feebler in person than you expect.

As for the second link, its basically a mammoth sized CFL, maybe a foot long.   I'm not sure about plain CFLs vs directed light, as in a spotlight.

What I've seen in hardware stores is plain bulbs go as high as 1800 lumens, but you rarely find a spotlight above 1000.   I'm not sure why this is.   Are spotlights more effective, concentrated light?

Well as a last ditch effort I have an enclosed driveway, and can grow them outside in the summer and then bring them indoors say October thru March?   The Turkey fig is listed as 'cold hardy' but the other is not. 

I'm sure the pots will be a pain but it would only be moving them twice a year.

ON A SECOND note, here's the Turkey fig I bought:

https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/store/other-edibles/fig.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=270&category_id=23

I'm in Zone 6, central Illinois.   Or possibly, 5b.   What are my odds of planting this one in the ground outside?    I obviously don't want to do it if it will be killed this winter.

I built a few LED grow lights from information I found online.
I use it each winter on my cuttings.
That light has 2-100 watt LED chips each LED puts out 10000-12,000 lumen.
Works for me.


Doug



 

Doug can you say a little more......   are you growing fig trees indoors?    Are they also by a window.

What do you mean by using each winter, you mean you summer them outside.

Would two overhead bulbs putting out 10,000-12,000 lumens each be about the same in your opinion?

Where is this information or can you show what you did.

Summer plants like the plumeria come in for winter.
I start my cuttings in december and plant them outside in my orchard
the first part of march.
Details on how to build one,, you will have to look it up on line.
I just do not have the time to go into detail.
It needs a power pack or driver to run the LED at required voltage and amperage.
The LED's need a cooling source, I used aluminum and a fan or two. You will need thermal paste.
The LED's will need a resistor,
That you will have to investigate. They are fairly easy to build.

A lumen is a lumen. 10000 of lumen in one bulb is the same as 10000 lumen
of another.
Led's run much cheaper than comparable lights with equal lumen.

Hope it helps
Best I can do.
Im on this forum too much the way it is.

Doug

Alright I found a sodium bulb that says it puts out 50,000 lumens.    Two of them overhead would then be 100,000 lumens?

If a plant needs a minimum of 30,000 lumens, surely that would work?    I measured direct sunlight outside yesterday with my smartphone and it showed around 135,000 lumens.

Its 400 watts though, so two would be 800 watts.    Although they have a lifespan of about 24,000 hours, I'm wondering if running two of those 12 hours a day would bankrupt me.

Any fig planted in the ground will die back down to the ground most winters without any protection. The brown turkey should survive but grow back from the roots each year and severely limit fruit if any. Various protection methods from covering to burying to heat lamps are described in previous threads.

If you wanted to keep it from going dormant, you would probably have to bring it in at the start of October to the end of April. Frost or freeze will cause it to lose leaves and go dormant.

Both of the bulbs in the original post would be good for small plants or cuttings / seedlings if placed closed to the plants. In the application that you described above as I understand it, it won't provide much more benefit than regular house bulbs. You'd probably want several of either of these placed strategically close to the leaves if you wanted to use them on a growing tree. Figs can grow up to 8ft a year in a zone 6 growing season if happy, healthy, and vigorous.

The led is pretty low power and will put out funky purple light which you may or may not like in your house.

The CFL would direct more light where you want it if screwed into a deflector.

Generally, people will grow the figs outside during the spring / summer and let them go dormant in the fall / winter.

In ground, they get Hardy and early fruiting varieties like Improved Celeste, Florea, Malta Black, the various Mt Etna, etc and protect the during the colder months to get a good crop and hope the grow back and fruit early if the protection failed and they did back to the ground. Pinching around June / July would help induce fruit.

For containers, they will move them to a protected location like a garage that will stay between 20F - 45F when it gets cold and move them back out in the spring into 6 or more hours of direct sunlight.

For indoors, South facing windows with supplemental light or high powered HPS lights are used 400 - 1000W or possible high powered led lights but some are still skeptical and others love them (again high wattage/output).

The tree will survive inside with poor light but wouldn't grow well and may go dormant anyway, node spacing may be excessively long, might not fruit, would ripen slowly if it does fruit, and will taste different from sun ripened fruit.

Your phone app might not be that accurate of a reading.

800 watts * 12h a day would cost about $40 a month on an electric bill at $.15 a kwh.  800*12/1000*30*.15 = 43.2

Good luck in whatever you go with.

My light draws 1.8 amps at 120 volts. Say 20,000 lumen. (I have tested with light meter apps and mine is slightly higher)
Compare that to the current draw of a HPS or metal halide of the same lumen.
Then you can see the difference in lighting and what it will cost you to run.

Yes I use a southern exposed window to start my cuttings.
I extend the short daylight hours of winter with the lighting.
Longer day light hours stimulate the cuttings growing, they think it is
summer with the long daylight hours.

Doug

Its looking like outside in pots in the summer and 'hibernating' them inside over winter.   Chicago Hardy and Turkey figs claim to be cold hardy, but now I'm hearing they die back all the way to the roots each winter and what's the fun in that?    That's not a tree.

The halide bulbs seem counterproductive.  I mean for $40 a month I could buy buckets of figs all year long at the grocery stores work free.

All the websites proclaim "And figs are easy to grow in pots indoors too!!" but the more you get into it you start realizing no, its not exactly that easy.

You do live in a zone almost too cold for in ground trees.
Die back is common for the first 2 years where I'm at.
They usually always grow back from the root even
stronger in the spring.
If I were you I would grow in pots outdoors then bring them in when
night temps are around 45 degrees for the winter.
Let it go dormant in a area that the root ball can not freeze.
Bring it back out when temps stay above 45f.


Doug

Hi Jeff,

I had some cuttings that had just rooted last fall and I was afraid to let them go dormant due to their age.  so I invested in heating pads and 2 of the Tao lights you described.  I mounted them just several inches above the plants in the top of a humidity box.  At first (Oct-Jan) the plants thrived and I was proud of myself.  Then in late Feb they slowly started losing leaves, it seems like every week another leaf would fall.  I think it had to do more with the temperature than the lights, but in the end it was a waiting game hoping spring would get here before the plants died.  When spring arrived, there were few leaves left, but I'm happy to report they all came back and are doing much better outside.

Figs like heat, humidity and sun.  They are best grown outside and best to let them go dormant when colder weather comes along.

Well, so it is to the driveway they go in pots.   If they like humidity they will love it here, lol.   I don't know if they'll get a full 8 hours of direct sunlight but in August when it comes out believe me it bears down hard enough to drop a 1,000 lb polar bear in 10 paces, lol.

Jeffpas maybe you can try growing in a pot for the first few years and then plant in ground.. Try to increase the caliper size of the main trunk/s first before planting inground since that will (reportedly) give your fig tree a much better chance of surviving the cold winters.. So long as you always protect them that is! Especially since you are in a 5b/6a zone.. Honestly though, keeping it in a pot makes it much easier to protect in the winter.. Just bring the potted tree in your garage or basement (dark & cool/cold area, temps at or above 15-20 degrees but no warmer than 50ish). Let the tree sleep in the winter unless its just so tiny you are afraid it won't have enough energy to wake up next spring.. Try rooting a few cuttings over the winter for fun, but they really need mother nature's sun and warmth to do their thing in the spring & summer :) Best of luck to you!

You need special ballasts/enclosed fixtures/sockets. HPS/MH put out an incredible amount of heat. In the winter they practically heat my entire  2 1/2 room 2nd floor. If I run them early spring I need A/C to cool things off.

Easy to calculate electricity cost. Watts × 1.15 (approximate ballast waste) ÷ 1000 × number of hours per day × 30 × cost per kilowatt (check your bill) last I looked mine was .185

 

LED's produce little heat.
The LED it's self is hot needing cooled but very little can be felt
with your hand a foot below the lights.
I believe led's will be the grow light choice soon
for the future.
I'm not knocking one light or any other.
A lumen is a lumen, it just makes a difference on the
electric bill to provide that lumen for less.
Not everybody can afford the ridiculous prices
people are charging for led grow lights. That was
when I found the pot head forums where they describe
how to build your own grow light.
That is all I did, nothing special.

Doug

On the plus side I spend almost nothing to heat the 2nd floor. Leds are the way to go but incredibly expensive, the 1000w before the sale is almost as much as my first car

http://www.blackdogled.com/products-led/led-grow-lights.html

That's me and my first car on page 3 :)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/28/pontiac.love.irpt/index.html?iref=24hours

I think I paid $75 in parts.....


:)



Doug

If you're going to go with outside summer, indoors winter it better to try to trick a fig tree into hibernation late in the fall, say let it get hit by a light frost so it drops its leaves... then put it into a cool dark basement until Spring?

Or can you take it in earlier fully leafed, and leave it inside under the 'feeble' 100 Watt  flourescent lights say 12 hours a day, basically on bare minimum rations  all winter?    Which is the better approach for Summer pot figs?

20000 lumen will grow figs through out the winter. Full leaf formation, and
will grow 6-12" during winter months.
I do it every year.
Even the plumeria flowered under my lights last winter.
I wish more people would investigate just how easy it is to assemble LED lights.
I just don't have time to spoon feed electronic basics.

Doug

I can look into that.   I spent quite a bit of time putting in and wiring overhead plant lights with standard sockets and wall timer and switches already, in general anticipation of growing plants inside (not specifically figs).   And haven't even used it yet.   So it would be nice not to scrap all that start all over and at least build on what I've got.     If they had for instance very bright full spectrum overhead LEDs that fit standard bulb sockets or with converters, it sure would be nice.

I already opted for summers outside after a chorus of encouragement to go that route.... but I did talk to a hydroponics store before that and they started their in-house plant growing kits at $600 bucks and up, ranging into the thousands.  Crimeny for that money I could hire people to fly to Honduras and pick me fresh figs....  and I'm sure what you've got is more cost effective.     I still would like to winter them inside in the spot I had set up and if they do more than remain dormant or die then fantastic.     But growing indoors all year has the plus you don't have to worry about squirrels possums and birds swooping in to harvest your work.

I understand what you are saying.
Just be careful you do not over load one circuit by adding too many cfl bulbs to it.
Be careful to keep an eye on the base of cfl bulbs, when they start turning a caramel color
they risk catching fire.
Some cfl bulbs can be mounted facing down, others will state vertical mounting and operating only.
Due to heat and heat rises.
Please use every precaution you can, do not overload circuits or wiring going to the lights.

Have fun and best of luck how ever you go.

Doug

While lumens are primarily designed to be used for human vision, they are typically all we have to go with.  Human vision is most sensitive to green light and photosynthesis is least sensitive to green light so you see the problem.  Common lights are rarely rated for PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) Watts.  Lumens measure the amount of visible light put out by a light source so there are other issues with using them.

lumens (the unit) is not all that helpful for plants bigger than cuttings.  With most cuttings the total leaf bearing length of the stem is usually less than 6 - 12".  With the lights 4 - 6" from the leaves the lumens per square foot of illuminated surface isn't all that different from one person's setup to another's.

When you have a 3' plant and 1 light source, the light may be 6" from some leaves but 2.5' from others.  You're all familiar with the inverse square law - the amount of light falling on an object decreases with the square of the distance.  So if the bottom leaves are 5x further away they're getting 1/25th (4%) of the light that the upper leaves are getting.  There's no way a plant can stay healthy if that light source is a 6,000 Lm fixture.  

The units you need to measure are based on how much light the leaf surfaces actually receive.  That means how much light per unit of leaf surface area on the leaf, not at the light source.   That's measured as Lux (Lumens/sq meter) or Foot-Candles (Lm/sq foot).  Optimum photosynthesis occurs at 2000 FC (21528 Lux).  You might be able to keep a fig plant alive at 600 FC  (6458 Lux) but the growth will be weak and lanky and is likely to break, especially if in later years it has to support fruit.  The minimum I'd attempt to grow a fig at is 1000 FC or 11,000 Lux.  And that's on all leaves.  You'll need several lights surrounding the tree to make that happen.

The other issue is will Brown Turkey ever produce fruit that tastes good that way.  In general people who grow BT in Z6 say it doesn't get the heat or season length it needs to ripen well so it doesn't taste good here.  Will lights change that?  You'd have to find out.  1,000 FC might, 2000 FC (for 8 -16 hrs per day) probably would as that's the maximum amount of light a plant can use.  You'd also have to keep it between around 82 - 90 degrees F (just an educated guess) to get the fruit to ripen properly.  I think you'd be better off with a Hardy Chicago or Salem Dark which can ripen good figs in less optimal conditions.