The Moon Society Forum

March 13, 2009
We have been working with radishes as they have a short growth cycle, take up little room, and are inexpensive to procure.

We have started plants in a lab room at the college of Menominee nation Green Bay campus using a plant growth chamber constructed by Dan Hawk and set up on a folding table. This chamber has illumination from four
circular florescent bulbs two red and two blue. We are able to see these small plants sprout and develop
a three to four inch stem with two initial and two secondary leaves over an initial two week period.

We have then moved plants started in the plant chamber into 5 gallon plastic buckets with their own lighting system on a timer so that we can control the lighting schedule unaffected by the lighting environment in the room. The interior of the plastic bucket was spray painted with silver metallic paint so that the interior would be "mirrored and highly reflective of the light generated. The buckets are ventilated with four 1" holes drilled at 90 from each other at both the bottom and top of the bucket.

Unfortunately we have not had equipment to quantify the level of photon flux delivered to our plants and that is a serious deficiency in our standard of work as this is one of the expected parameters of the Controlled agriculture guidelines. We need to increase the number of bulbs and intensity of lighting for adequate growth and we are no doubt well below the level of illumination of field agriculture.

We have tried to conduct a lunar lighting schedule (Initial lighting 24/7 for the first two weeks) combined with a reduced lighting level in lower temperature environment (38F) for a subsequent two weeks.
The idea was to see if the lower temperature would allow us to use a lower level lighting during a lunar "night period where power (and therefore lighting systems might be constrained)
We tried two different low level lighting arrays<

The first was a gallon plastic bucket with both white and blue LED lights. After only two days these plants fell over
and were returned to the original plant growth chamber. Some revived with both warmth and a more continuous lighting system.

A strobe light bulb was mounted under the cover of the bucket so there was an intense flash within 6 inches of the soil surface of 5" clay pots that we used to plant the radishes. The second lighting systems was a strobe bulb that was set to flash 4 times a second. Half the plants did not survive but the other held their own but did not show leaf growth for the two weeks they were in the cold. They were then returned to the original plant growth chamber where they continued to do grow and expand their leaves.

After traveling for the next 3 or four weeks I will repeat this experiment again over the summer to see if the a higher frequency flash rate of the strobe bulb will make a difference in the survival and growth of the radishes at the cold temperature level.

Could you share specific information on the intensity of the light, lightband, and reguired energy usage?



Is there an established protocol for this lunar lighting schedule, or is it one that has been established "in house" ? Also, are there any standards for an adaptive lighting protocol that takes into account lighting variations based on different locations on the moons surface?