Medinilla magnifica with supplementary metal halide grow lamp

This is a Medinilla magnifica belonging to a friend. These are notoriously difficult to grow in the UK (and other Northern lattitudes) because they are very demanding of bright light, and require a long period of sunlight. They're also susceptible to frost and overwatering.

After years of failure to grow, I've set up a "grow lamp" to help it out. This is a 6500K full-spectrum 150W metal halide lamp (EYE lighting Color Arc Renaissance 6500K), which is widely used as a grow lamp for shallow-water marine corals, due to its excellent photosynthetic power, high blue light content which regulates plant growth, and it's excellent colour rendering quality, ensuring that the plants' full colouration appears bright and undistorted.

I've also got a 150W sodium lamp, which is considerably brighter. I'll be testing it later in the year, once there's a bit more natural daylight. The longer lamp life and lower lamp cost of sodium makes it preferable, but the effect of lack of blue light will need to be tested.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Medinilla magnifica
• Grow lamp
• Metal halide
• High intensity discharge
• HID
• 6500K
• Daylight simulation
• Daylight
• Spectrum
• Iwasaki
• EYE lighting
• full
• spectrum
• Conservatory
• Horticulture
• Hydroponics
• Supplementary
• lighting
• HPS
• Sodium
• Sodium-vapor Lamp
• High-intensity Discharge Lamp
• Lights
• Dwarf
• Banana
• Musa
• acuminata
• Musa musa
• Orange
• Tree
• Musa (genus)
• Lemon
• Plant
• Citrus
• Orangery