Can plants benefit from fluorescent light?

[garudamon11]

Hi, I've got 3 herb pots (chives, parsley, dill) and a hellfrucht tomato (a dwarf variety) and they're all still in the seedling phase, I put all of them on my room's windowsill where they get direct sunlight for 4:30 hours, then I take them to my parent's room windowsill where they get 3 hours of weak afternoon light, I suspect this isnt enough so I've been wondering if I can put them in the living room when we are watching TV and the fluorescent light is open? Can these plants make use of the room's hanging fluorescent light or does it make no difference?

[rainbowgardener]

Yup, browse in the Seed Starting section for lots of info about how to do this and pictures of people's set ups. Light diffuses by the inverse square law. So if a light was 4" inches away and you move it twice as far, to 8" you now have 1/4 the light on the plants. If you move it four times as far away, to 16", you now have 1/16th the light on the plant. So that you can see that light on the ceiling to plants on a table or something, they would be getting next to no additional light.

Agree with everything Mg said, except when I start seedlings (in the basement where they have no natural light), I have the fluorescent tubes about 3" above them and on for 16 hrs a day.

[garudamon11]

That's too bad, I guess they'll have to make do with the light they're getting currently