Humidity trays - Page 3 - Orchid Board

MJG · #21 07-24-2020, 05:18 PM

WTF. Honestly, what nasty characterizations of members of this board who are so generous in sharing their time and knowledge to help others on this board. These are good people. Go spew it somewhere else.

Back on topic. I have humidity in the teens and 20's in my orchid-growing area of my house in the wintertime. It's a fairly open room, but I try to contain it to the extent possible by shutting a few doors. When I run a couple of humidifiers, I can get humidity up into the low 30s. All of my orchids are clustered at one end of the room with the humidifiers. That also helps a bit.

I went all in on humidity trays last winter. I bought 24 trays that are 30" x 8" and 1.5" deep. I ordered 280 lbs of stones -- no sh*t! -- to fill them. That's a LOT of water sitting in trays. It raised the humidity in the IMMEDIATE area by about 6%. That brings my wintertime humidity to 38--40% around my orchids.

I'll take the extra 6% humidity from the trays in my climate! But my conclusion was that humidity trays don't do much of anything unless they're done on a huge scale relative to the space. Even then, the gain is modest. I would have done better to add a 3rd humidifier, but I'm stretching the capacity of the circuits in the room with the grow lights running too.

Ray's and DC's point about containment is right on.

PS. The stones were from Home Depot, free delivery. Who can resist that? It turned out to be fourteen 20-lb boxes of rocks. I still cringe thinking about the UPS man. My husband had a few choice words for me, and helped the UPS man carry them all up to the porch. Not my finest hour.

MJG · #22 07-24-2020, 05:32 PM

The infamous growing area with humidity trays...

avian · #23 07-24-2020, 05:33 PM

Didn't expect my question to cause controversy but this is a very interesting read. A well known and respected hybridizer recommended the humidity trays because I was concerned that my orchids were not getting adequate humidity with the misting I was doing. Was also not sure the misting was the best thing for some of them. Can misting cause issues with some orchids?

I appreciate everyone's opinions and input. Many of you don't seem to believe that the trays are beneficial so not going to purchase one of those expensive trays but I might just purchase a cheap tray and some mesh as per CareBear2 and try that with a few orchids. Might not be effective since my orchids are not in an enclosed space but don't think it would hurt the plants and if it isn't of any benefit I wouldn't have tossed away $$$.

Ray, your link does not work for me.
"This page isn’t working firstrays.com redirected you too many times.
Try clearing your cookies.
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS"

Most of my orchids seem to be doing OK without extra humidity but I'm concerned about a few of them. Not seeing any spikes or new growth on those but that could be due to not enough light as well as the blooming/growing season and age of the orchids. I'm trying to figure all of that out and been reading through a lot of online sources as well as the posts in this forum. I've only been growing orchids for about 9 months and trying to learn as much as I can so I can do the best for my orchids.

I'm experienced with roses, succulents and cacti but this is very different. With my other plants I just water and sometimes fertilize. Most of them are in bright sun throughout most of the day and others are partially shaded. I don't think about temperature, light or humidity with them as much as I do for the orchids.

Ray, the plants you have in S/H are beautiful. Can you please identify them for me? I've been reading up on S/H but not comfortable giving that a try right now. Just using bark, perlite or pumice and/or sphagnum moss if I repot and I've only repotted a few of them.

BTW, how do I turn off the automatic linking to mist king when I type "misting"? I'm not using that product. Just a spray bottle and water.

MJG, that looks great! Thanks for posting the photo. They don't raise the humidity much, do they, but at least they raise it a bit. I think in my home with the a/c running and the generally dry CA climate any little bit might help.

estación seca · #24 07-24-2020, 05:38 PM

Tee hee. Measure how much water evaporates per day from the trays, then calculate how much that will raise the relative humidity in a typical room. Realize most rooms in homes have 5-60 air exchanges per hour.

Or put a hygrometer in a room and check the humidity before and after.

I've done both.

Humidifiers often run around 8 hours on a gallon/3.78 liters of water. That's a lot more than would evaporate from 20 typical humidity trays in that time.

Roberta · #25 07-24-2020, 05:39 PM

Avian -
Where I live humidity is a bit better than where you live, but still not all that high (right now, in the 40-50% range in the middle of the day), and I'm still at the "June Gloom" stage of summer. When it gets hotter, August may be icky but September/October will be quite dry. And all I do is increase watering when it gets dry. I think in another thread I showed the setup that I had in my condo days... or you can take a look at my website under "Growing Areas" for a photo. There, the issue wasn't really humidity (maybe it helped and maybe it didn't), it was water control - like keep it off the floor and not have to dump it. So I vote for just increasing watering frequency when things dry out faster. It's simple and it works.

Now, I wasn't trying to grow high-humidity cloud forest plants at that time in my orchid-growing career, but there are other reasons that those would have been dicey in that environment anyhow. I have "graduated" to some of those, I actually get away with those outside, but I do water a lot, automatic sprinkler system helps a lot. Inland they would probably need a terrarium or similar controlled environment.

avian · #26 07-24-2020, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roberta

Avian -
Where I live humidity is a bit better than where you live, but still not all that high (right now, in the 40-50% range in the middle of the day), and I'm still at the "June Gloom" stage of summer. When it gets hotter, August may be icky but September/October will be quite dry. And all I do is increase watering when it gets dry. I think in another thread I showed the setup that I had in my condo days... or you can take a look at my website under "Growing Areas" for a photo. There, the issue wasn't really humidity (maybe it helped and maybe it didn't), it was water control - like keep it off the floor and not have to dump it. So I vote for just increasing watering frequency when things dry out faster. It's simple and it works.

I didn't want to try the rocks and tray because that would be a pain to clean here. That's why I thought I would try the tray with a grid on top. I've been moving the orchids to the sink and watering them there and then letting them dry out a bit before putting them back. Right now, since I don't have 100s, that works for me. I can't imagine moving trays with rocks and water in them.
I'm concerned about overwatering so I've been generally watering most of them once a week I always check the medium first to make sure that it is still not wet. The ones I have in net pots with no medium have to be watered more often as do a few others.

Watering more often, though, is definitely much simpler than using the trays.

WaterWitchin · #27 07-24-2020, 05:52 PM

Avian, you unfortunately started a thread that’s become a target that has not much to do with your questions. Thus, my apology to you earlier. If you can ignore the BS and just keep getting advice, GREAT!

Roberta · #28 07-24-2020, 06:00 PM

Oh, the link anytime the word "mist" is used is automatic... a product of the owner of the forum. Just a slightly annoying little "feature", a bit of advertising for a person who supports this whole operation... small compensation.

avian · #29 07-24-2020, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WaterWitchin

Avian, you unfortunately started a thread that’s become a target that has not much to do with your questions. Thus, my apology to you earlier. If you can ignore the BS and just keep getting advice, GREAT!

I'm generally good at filtering information.

Didn't think that humidity trays were controversial.
Wish I had an extra room that I could dedicate to the orchids. Then I'd set up a humidifier.

MJG · #30 07-24-2020, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by avian

I didn't want to try the rocks and tray because that would be a pain to clean here. That's why I thought I would try the tray with a grid on top. I've been moving the orchids to the sink and watering them there and then letting them dry out a bit before putting them back. Right now, since I don't have 100s, that works for me. I can't imagine moving trays with rocks and water in them.

Avian, I haven't had to clean the rocks and trays yet. I water each orchid while holding it over a bucket instead of on the humidity tray. I think that helps keep organic matter that would decay out of the trays. I also add physan to the tray water. These practices have done a good job of keeping the water in the trays clean and clear.

I don't know if this would work or even be desireable for you, but it's one way of dealing with the rocks.