Growing shelves - Balancing light, temp, air and humidity

[jlyonia]

Hello -

I am new to this world but have gained an incredible amount of knowledge from simply searching and reading the copious threads on this site. To everyone participating, I thank you for sharing your knowledge, experience and expertise.

In an attempt to short circuit the mistakes of many a cacti-noob, I have been reading as much as I possibly can and then attempting to apply that into action in the construction of an indoor growing chamber. To this end, I have come to the basic conclusion that the main things I need to be aware of in the construction of such are light, temperature, air and humidity. In relation to those parameters, could I possibly seek your thoughts on the following based upon my construction of a four shelf system, roughly 75cms wide and 130 cms high - the top shelf of which is 45 cms tall and has installed 4 x 18W tri-phosphorus fluorescent tubes?

=> My current temp. in this top shelf during the day peaked this afternoon at 40 degrees C. Is that too high? Is it still too high if I have enough air flow, (there is currently bugger all)?

=> Do you think drilling air-holes into the top of this shelf would expel enough hot air through convection or should I install a sucking fan and an exhaust fan? (I was thinking left over PC fans 80 or 120mm...)

I should also add that I have covered all sides in double layers of wall insulation, (sarking?), which is tightly held on using velcro - al-foil on one side, green plastic on the outer - courtesy of Bunnings.

I am primarily interested in using this chamber in the short term for growing out cutting of Perekiopsis and eventually grafting the usual suspects on top of those cuttings. (Thank you for the excellent teks Teo and Ace.)

=> ...and do I need to let cacti have a winter dormancy period or can I just do nuts if growing indoors?

Any thoughts, mis-givings or lectures on the requisite cultural sensitivity to entheogens gratefully accepted. It is a pleasure to learn.

Ciao,

J.

Edited February 24, 2008 by jlyonia

[gilligan]

Nice post, j... Welcome...

Well, temps can get pretty hot in the cupboards, but think about where the cacti come from - desert areas which are pretty warm in the first place. They do need air flow, which can be gained by either a small computer fan sucking out from the top of the cupboard, through a hole saw drilled hole (even without the fan, this provides convective airflow - depending on how big/many holes you have), or by keeping the doros slightly open which is what i am currently using (seems to work better than the opther methods, larger air exchange volume available. The fact yopu are using 4 lights may need fan forced air flow to keep the temps down to a reasonable level, but from my experience 34-40 seems ok - i've not suffered any losses at around these temps...

I have a 2 door melamine cupboard, which due to it being white has no need for the sarking. I have split this into 2 sections, and am running 2 single fluoros in the top section, 2 doubles in the below section. as mentioned above i keep my dors ajar for the airflow, which seems to do quite well.

Humidity - i tend to water the cacti once a week, but spray them every couple of days or so, just cos i like to i haven't seen that it makes any difference, but it doesn't hurt in my opinion. Seedlings def need humidity once you get to them, see teks...

I haven't worked out yet whether you need the growing period, but i'm letting them go nuts on 16 hours a day, and they're not showing any signs of angst... it's all trial and error, due to different environs and their own peculiarities - give it a go, and adapt as ytou see necessary.

[Vertmorpheus]

Sounds good. Wouldn't they go ok outside in Syd as long as they don't get frosted? I've looked into a few ways of short-circuiting natural processes, and in hindsight it was just trading time (free) for money (not so free) or spending a month building somethign to save you three weeks in overall time to harvest. Avoiding risk of outdoors to be replaced by fear that id return home to a smouldering hulk or that the door would fall off its hinges JUST as the agent was completing a rental inspection, haha.

Test your reflective sheeting against a lighter flame or putting some in a hot pan... if it shrinks down and goes up in flames, its a bad thign to go wrapping around lightbulbs in your house.

Remember too that if your house burns down because you were growing dubious plants, it can lead to all kinds of ... unpleasantness.

And most importantly - smoke alarms save lives!

best of luck

VM

[jlyonia]

Thanks for the thoughts and feedback guys - I appreciate your time.

I've made a couple of tweaks and adjustments on the basis of your ideas and have now got some decent airflow, confirmed that I'm not going to burn down the back shed and got everything set up nicely. Once I get it bedded down properly, I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on.

Thanks again!

J.

[apothecary]

No dormancy required for indoors growing.

Like Vert said, if you live in Sydney, then indoor setup not really required at all, even over winter.

[jlyonia]

Thanks Sina -

RE: the indoors/outdoors thing - I guess I want to do both. Outdoors for anything established, (I already have quite a few nice ornamentals happily living on our front balcony which catches the morning sun), and then use the indoors area for getting propagation sorted and trying my hand at grafting and rooting out pups or cuttings. My idea was to try and avoid downtime over winter using the indoor set up where I can control conditions and once summer rolls around again move anything mature enough outside.

Does that make sense or do you think it is overkill given the Sydney climate?

Ciao,

J.