Continuing from my post two days ago on light, I had emphasized that you should consider “the total visible area of sky.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
When most people consider “light”, they think of how many hours the sun is shining directly on the plant. But since light travels in straight lines, if the sun isn’t in the direct line of sight with your plant, then the plant isn’t getting direct sun (obvious) – so then, what is providing light? What is the source of indirect light? Yes, the light originates from the sun, but that light is bounced around everything outdoors and diffused through the sky. Thus, if #whatmyplantsees is just outdoor objects and the open sky, then that’s its source of indirect light. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Without a light meter, you might think “yeah, I can see the sky, so it must be fine for my plant” – but I encourage you to be more specific. See how moving two feet away from the window decreases the light reading from 462 to 156 foot-candles. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Now, it’s natural for you to want to know “okay, so how many foot-candles does this plant need?” – but light intensity varies so much throughout the day and depends on cloud cover. That’s why I talk about light as an environmental guideline: what is physically different about the two points of measurement? Answer: the total area of visible sky has decreased. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So, consider natural light in these two ways:
1) Number of hours of direct sun
2) Total visible area of sky ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For next time, we’ll talk about how these two can be applied to the traditional categories of light (hint: they work for considering outdoor growing situations too!)
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