A Greenhouse with No Windows

[btuser]

I've heard of growing mushrooms in the dark, but this is crazy stuff.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20110411/EU.Netherlands.Sunless.Farming

A few weeks ago we were talking about indoor growing with LEDs. I don't think I'm going to wheel my strawberry pots into the basement just yet, but here in the North East with such a short growing season this could cut down on the food I get from abroad.

 

[btuser]

I don't intend to smoke mine. That only makes you more hungry.

 

[begreen]

Red-Blue LED lighting is pretty popular for greenhouse growing. You can get the panels via Amazon.

 

[btuser]

I checked them out and I'm a little leery. Good for suplementation but I just cant justify $400 worth of lights for $100 worth of seedlings. Within the next 5 years there will be some big time gains with LEDs that allow for major power increases. Hopefully these trickle down into the growing aparatus.

 

[oldspark]

Depending on how much light you need you can use regular flor. lights with gro tubes, dont ask how I know this, plus metal halide lights work also.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

I like the setup where they grow lettuce on top of fish tanks with Tilapia in the tanks.The fish fertilizes the lettuce and the lettuce cleans the water. Sure beats those imported tilapia grown in sewer pits in vietnam.

 

[btuser]

Depending on how much light you need you can use regular flor. lights with gro tubes, dont ask how I know this, plus metal halide lights work also.

Both flourescents and HPS/MH are for visual light and they do very well. The real interesting thing about LED is they don't waste wattage on a part of the spectrum that a plant is not interested in using. Reds and blues, some white are what these do, so you can get the same grow rate with a fraction of the wattage and heat build up, meaning you can get real close to the plants. There are a lot of things to work out but its going to happen very quickly as growers figure out the magical mixture. You may indeed be able to grow your own food indoors for what it costs to ship it from a foreign country. Paying for and heating the extra space would be a challenge but instead of a 1000w HPS you may be talking about a 100 watt LED grow light. That's a lot of tomatoes.

The covert pot growers are loving it. The cops can't track heat or electrical usage!