Project 2017: Rupicolous Laelias

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I didn't realize how many old projects are sticky threaded at the top of the Member Projects forum. They're easy to find without being sticky threaded - go to Forums in the left menu, then scroll down to the Member Projects forum.

[tellmewhy]

Originally Posted by rbarata

Laelia milleri

Light: 2500-4000 fc. Bright light required. Avoid direct, midday sun. Continuous strong air movement should be provided at all times.

Temps: Summer days avg 74-76F (25-25ºC), and nights avg 59-60F (15-16ºC WITH A DIURNAL RANGE OF 15-16F (9ºC).

HR: Near 75% in summer and autumn, dropping to near 70% in winter and spring.

Watering: Rainfall is moderate to heavy from spring to midautumn. Declines rapidly in autumn and remains low during late autumn and winter dry season (lasts for 3-4 onths. Water relatively often while growing but they need to dry somewhat between waterings. Reduce gradually in late autumn.

Fertilizer: 1/4-1/2 recommended strength, applied every 1-2 weeks.

Rest: Winter days avg 71-73F (22-23ºC), and nights avg 47-50F (8-10ºC), with a diurnal range of 23-24F (13ºC). Don't let them completely dry for extended periods. Reduce or eliminate fertilizer until resume watering in the growing season.

Medium: same as other rupiculous catts/laelias.

This is the advices from Chaz ( the person I got my laelia )
For the milleri, water more heavily in the late winter to encourage blooms. It will grow sheaths, but never spike with out lots of water.

Last year I forgot his advice and only got sheaths but no spike.

[orion141]

Originally Posted by tellmewhy

This is the advices from Chaz ( the person I got my laelia )
For the milleri, water more heavily in the late winter to encourage blooms. It will grow sheaths, but never spike with out lots of water.

Last year I forgot his advice and only got sheaths but no spike.

Good info thanks!

Is it necessary to get a temp drop in the winter to flower??

[rbarata]

Is it necessary to get a temp drop in the winter to flower??

It is a stage of its habitat, not sure if it will influenciate blooming but probably yes.
Orchidwiz refers a "trick" to initiate blooms: "The adition of some rusty nails to the pot, thereby increasing the available iron, will frequently initiate blooms within a short time."
It also says that, as other rupiculous Laelias, milleri is a difficult orchid to grow (usually grows well but blooms poorly).

[Ray]

I am neither a grower of rupicolous laelias nor a participant in this project, but I thought I'd throw out a little tid-bit that might be of value, that was shared with me by Alan Koch, of Gold Country Orchids:

Many of these species originate where the soil is very high in iron. The host trees absorb that iron, and it is going to be higher in its leaf exudates. That suggests that the orchids have evolved needing more iron.

If you look at the plants growing on gravelly outcroppings, their roots are in the cracks with the accumulated humus, so their exposure is likely higher as well.

He suggested adding a tiny bit of iron sulfate to the fertilizer every now and then. "Tiny bit" is important, as excessive iron can be detrimental. When I have done that, I used the equivalent of 1/40 tsp/gal (1/4 tsp per 10 gallons water), month, during active growth.

[Selmo]

Happy to see this project getting off the ground, thanks to orion141 and everyone who decided to try rupicolous laelias. We where doubtful this would happen with the inability to make a decision and agreement on what the project would be (hybrids, no hybrids). Thinking that this would project would fizzle, we went and got a couple of these back in April and would try our hand at growing these anyway. So I am happy to see this project starting.
We started by looking up Hoffmannseggella, a genus that they tried to give rock growing laelias based on what they grew on, but later decided against it and now have put laelias in cattleya based on taxonomy. There 40 laelias that are considered rupicolous, some of these maybe synonymous or repetitive. Most of these seem to grow in the Minas Gerais state of southeast Brazil, but not all. This area is a iron ore mining region, with rolling hills, some as high as 5100ft (1700m) not really hills, mountains. They grow on the exposed rock outcropping, in the Ozarks we call them glades, where they get full sun with a little shade from surrounding vegetation. We looked through the list of Hoffmannseggella and IOSPE and found ones that where within our growing conditions, warm-intermediate-cool, no cold-cool ones leaning toward the warm-intermediate ones or ones growing at lower elevations. We found 5-6 based on growing conditions, flower color, time, size, and size of plant, and availablity. We where surprised when we emailed Andy's with our list, that he had everyone available on our list. We picked two, Laelia flava (which is now L. crispata) and Laelia gloedeniana

Our growing conditions are:
Summer (April- October)
Outdoors high 100f
low 40f
Humidity 25%-85%
Water 3-4X week
Light bright light w/3-4 hours of full sun

Winter (October- April)
Greenhouse high 80f
low 45f
Humidity 50%-100%
Water 1X week, letting it dry
Light Bright light, full sun light ( 65% of summer, low angle)


The first photo is Laelia flava (L. crispata), and the second photo is Laelia gloedeniana. Andy has such good quality plants. Both plants have new growths now.

[orion141]

Thanks Selmo, I am happy that we were able to get things up and running (and that you have joined as well).

I have actually purchased both of my rupicolous laelies (I bought the milleri for the project and afterwards bought a bradei as well haha) from Andy's and yes I agree his plants are very healthy!

With regards to the cooling at night being required to bloom, interestingly this month the AOS Orchids magazine has a section on Cattleyas and includes is laelia milleri and laelia/cattleya longpipes/lucasiana (both are rupis). They note that in order to get the best blooming the night time cooling is important. Good thing her in CT I can open the window at night to my growing room to get the nightly cool off most nights of the year (other than late June-early September).

[SaraJean]

Never did get around to posting my growing conditions and how I am growing my species and hybrid so here they are. Both are being grown outdoors in my courtyard.
Summer, May-Early October
Temps: between 85-105 degrees F, typically a 10 degree difference between day and night
humidity: days 65%-85%, nights 80%- 95%.
Rain: a lot, lol
Light: I have been gradually moving them into more light. I now have them in full sun between 10:30-3:30, with no signs of burning (yet). I am going to keep a close eye on them as the temps get warmer, I'll probably have to back off on the light once we start getting close to 100 degrees.

My dilemma: the l. gloedeniana seems to be handeling the rain well. It is in a small 2" clay pot and the fine, sandy media seems to be drying out rapidly, that's a good thing in my climate. The l. Ipanema Beach is in 4" plastic pot with a medium bark mix. I'm worried this is too water retentive for my climate and how I'm growing it. I hate moving my orchids around when we get a few solid weeks of daily rain, so the majority of my potted ones are in mostly lava rock or leca. So right now I'm trying to figure out if I should just wait and see, or move it under the balcony so I can control its water but it will receive much less sun, or just throw caution to the wind and carefully repot it now in some leca. All of the new growth on the L. Ipanema Beach is fairly mature so repoting may not be the best option, but more than a few orchids that were in bark have rotted in my rain

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L. Ipanema Beach grows almost constantly when it's warm, so you should be able to repot soon.

[Cheddarbob14]

SaraJean, I found myself with a similar issue, as far as being afraid something was retaining too much moisture. Fwiw, I just carefully slid the orchid out of the pot, and drilled a bunch of extra holes in the plastic one. I temped the orchid in a cup that was a similar size, just to minimize disturbing the roots. Cattleya didn't skip a beat through the process, recovered just fine