Question
Hello:

I am growing some African Violets under fluorescent lights and was wondering what the ideal time for the lights to be on daily is. (12 hours, etc.)  Thank you!

Answer
Hello Tyler:  Ten to twelve hours is about the range most people leave their lights on for their African Violets. However, there are some variables. If you plants start to get brittle leaves or the leaves appear "bleached" such as a lighter color you might want to cut back by a couple of hours a day. Sometimes you have to experiment to find out the right amount of hours. That can take a while since violets might not show changes for a few weeks when you make a lighting change.  I have a plant room that has white walls, white ceiling and white window blinds. When I first built the room and moved my plant stands in, I kept my lights on for the same amount of hours--didn't change anything but the location of the stands. After a few weeks my plants got so brittle that when I touched the leaves they snapped like vegetable greens!  I was totally stumped. Luckily, our violet club had a university horticulture professor that specialized in lighting for plants at one of our meetings. I told him the problem and he told me all the white in the room just instensified my lights. He told me to cut back to 8 hours a day and since then my plants have softened and have done just great. If you haven't visited the African Violet Society of America web site, you owe it to yourself to do so. http://www.avsa.org  Hope this info will be helpful and if you have any more questions, please get in touch again.  Best wishes and happy growing.  Mary Hill, Tulsa