Quote:
Originally Posted by karrolhk
Btw, I am curious if Ray invented S/H for growing orchids only and then other people applied the same technique in growing other houseplants?
Sorry for so many questions..
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Semi-hydro is not used outside of orchid growing. I only use it to raise smaller plants. I don't think it has much use outside the small hobbyist growers. It's great for growing plants that don't have many roots to get new roots established.
Not sure what semi-water culture is
Full water culture as mentioned doesn't get used much and is more of a fun experiment. The reason I don't think it's any good because it does exactly the opposite of what good orchid growing is all about. For me it's making sure the roots can breathe and they cannot breathe in water.
Also another reason why you cannot grow orchids in soil like other house plants - they need more access to air to do gas exchanges and they like to dry periodically. So soil and water are no good long term as they suffocate the gas exchanges causing the roots to die and rot.
Once I realized that orchids need more access to air my orchids started growing better (and ferns too actually - just mentioning it because I've always struggled with ferns till I also let their roots breathe more)
The only main problem that arises as you let roots breathe more is that in order to do so you have to use airier substrate that dries faster so the roots need to be watered more to stop them drying out. It's a bit of a compromise that has to be found between keeping the roots hydrated enough to keep the plant watered and making sure they don't get too waterlogged which reduces their air exchange.
This is one big reason why semi-hydroponics is popular - it provides very airy substrate like lecca. But lecca dries ridiculously fast and nobody wants to keep rewetting the lecca every day..... so it doesn't require much to figure out to just keep a little layer of water in the bottom of the pot to keep the lecca wet. That is all I do. I don't bother drilling no holes or anything I just use clear pots, fill the bottom with water and let the lecca wick the water up and keep the orchid hydrated while very airy at the same time without requiring much watering.
I would also suggest you look into self watering pots for orchids as they are the next step up once your plant has grown a bit bigger, has roots growing down into the reservoir which as I discussed blocks gas exchanges in the roots and once it starts to drink more. People have often found that once a plant outgrows semi-hydro it needs to be watered a lot again so you could stick with semi-hydro I suppose and just keep using bigger pots or switch to self watering pots.
Both use hydroponics in the same way so are equally difficult or easy however you look at it.
I should point out that any hydroponic system is inherently harder for a beginner than a more traditional method like growing in bark.
If you don't know about water ph, what nutrients are in your water supply, what nutrients and in what quantities your orchids needs then you might find hydroponics whether semi hydro, self watering or full water culture harder.
Bark is far more forgiving in that regard, will buffer excess nutrients thus protecting from overfertilization more, will buffer the ph so less attention needs to be given to the exact ph too and some people swear bark has a beneficial effect on root growth.
Far more people will succeed with bark on pure luck than with hydroponic systems.
Hydroponics in my opinion can achieve better results than bark but not everyone will be able to and if you don't get it right in hydroponics than you will end up with worse results than growing in bark. I think that is a very important point to make and I'm not making it to exaggerate or make hydroponics seem hard. But there is a very fine balance betwen getting it right and getting it wrong.
Just like someone playing the violin, if you can play it well it will sounds angelic but only a handful can and the rest sound like screetching noise.
Another point to mention is that a lot of times plants will "sulk" initially getting transplanted from bark or moss to hydroponics. So even if you do know exactly what to do to keep your plants happy they might still go through a long transiton period (I mention long because in plant terms orchids are slower than most other plants) and for most this might not even be worth it.
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Full vs Semi water culture vs Semi-hydroponics: which is best?
I would like to follow up on 2 points:
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