Photoperiod

[iiwii]

Just curious as to what people have their indoor light schedule set to. Right now I have mine at 14 hours of day and 10 of darkness. I have Phals, Paphs, and violets and didn't know what people commonly do in terms of light cycles. I hear to mimic the current natural sun pattern but wondered if anyone had any input about this. Is 14 hours of daylight under a 4' 4 bulb T5 fixture too much for being March in the NE U.S.?

Thanks for any help!

Pete

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I do the natural light cycle thing, but I'm in Los Angeles. Works well. Northeastern US might be a different story.

[camille1585]

I'm also doing 14 hours. I originally did 16, but my phals were getting very purple under it. Since I couldn't raise the lights any further I reduced the number of hours. They're blooming just as well, and I save on electricity.

[Ray]

14 & 10 seems to be a good cycle, in general.

[Paul Mc]

I'm in the Midwest, St. Louis, MO. I have almost all of my orchids in windowsills so they are getting the natural light cycle as we progress. That being said, I do have a few in my basement along with my BIG tropical plant collection. The lights down there have been giving artificial daylight longer than the daylight outside throughout most of the winter. However, now the lights coming on/off are getting much closer to the natural light pattern outside. I personally do this because all of my tropicals are from places where the day is a bit longer during the winter than ours is. Plus, I have noticed that the plants seem to do a bit better (and this year they all survived) with a longer light pattern.