Quote:
Originally Posted by peppero
Mark those lights will not put out enough heat to do any good and I do not know about providing the right light frequencies needed for growth. Maybe someone else could chime in.
jon
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Just to clarify, this is not being used for lighting, just cheap heat. They do provide heat, albeit not much. I am not trying to heat my whole greenhouse space with it, just get a couple of degrees extra under my fabric blankets during the night.
My seed germination box had an inside temperature of 28 degrees Celsius. It was inside my unheated house where the temp was 14 C. I was using 1 20w string of cheap LED Xmas lights. When my house heated up, I actually had to use one of functions on the LED string to turn half the string off as temps were going to 30 C and rising. They work great as bottom heat source better then a fridge.
If you have a string of LEDs, put them in your bed, under your blankets at home. You will see the effect it has. Yes its not going to help you late winter in cold zones but if you need 2 C, I think you could get it in combination with insulation. That might just be what you need to to overwinter pepper plants.
Other benefits of using LED lighting are you can get waterproof exterior ones, they last a long time and are low fire risk. They are also flexible and you could coil them in pots, around pots, under pots.