Thomas Johnson
P.O. Box 12281
Glendale, CA 91224-0981
The seed bank has a number of seed packets of Nepenthes x (ventricosa x ??)
available and he still has the single packet of P. pachuca.
Rick informs me that Gordon Snelling is not on the net anymore. The reason
may be Compuserve and their very expensive pricing for internet e-mail.
This computer at U of L that I call into is being returned to DEC, and with
it everyone's account including mine will be terminated soon. I may be off
the net for a few weeks while I figure out how to get an account somewhere.
I still have my Cleveland Freenet account at "al423@cleveland.freenet.edu".
There's a movie late this Friday night on TNT called 'Mad Love'. Take a look
at the Darlingtonia in this! Good movie!
Metal Halide is said to be the most economical plant light. This is
from the Worm's Way catalog:
a 100 watt light bulb gives 17.5 lumens per watt
a 40 watt flourescent tube gives 22 lumens per watt
a 1000 watt metal halide bulb gives 125 lumens per watt
Just as important are what frequencies are in the spectrum of light each
produces. I haven't seen data on how they compare in this respect. For CP,
you would probably want something high in blue and ultraviolet. If you get
metal halide, be sure to mount it so the bottom of the reflector is below eye
level so you won't look directly up at the bulb when it's on. The light is
very intense and could hurt your eyes or cause sunburn if you're not
careful. I'm probably going to buy a 1000 watt metal halide from New Earth
soon. I called Diamond to ask about their lights, which were a little
cheaper than New Earth, then I asked how much shipping would cost and
they said $44! New Earth ships for only $16.50. Heat shouldn't be much of
a problem. We're getting close to wintertime and the lights should help keep
the plants nice and toasty warm. Temperature here was down to 35F last night.
Cost of operating the lights is about $1 a day, which is fairly expensive
but still should be less than trying to heat a whole greenhouse for six
months out of the year. Halogen and mercury vapor lights are old technology
and are no longer used for growing plants. These lights are intense,
but they don't produce the right frequencies for plant growth.