Cool growing indoors
 

Hello! I want to grow Disa orchids indoors under lights but I am having difficulties coming up with a good way to do so. To my understanding, these orchids need 70-85 degrees in the summer and a 10-15 degree temperature drop at night while in the winter they need to get very cool, down to 40/50 degrees, to grow properly. Are these low temperatures in the winter necessary? I would grow them outside but my climate gets to about 20 degrees in the winter which would kill them. Does anyone have a clever way of providing these temperatures indoors without a fridge or some other expensive way? I would love to grow these beauties :_(

:bump:

I've not grown them under lights, but have grown them in a cold greenhouse with my cymbidiums. I've not grown any of the hybrids, but the species do need to be kept cool at the root zone while in active growth and cool and much drier while resting (though my uniflora didn't die back, rather it just sort of sat...) I don't know of a work around; I'd suggest using a 1/3hp aquarium chiller with an ebb-flow set up if you're growing under lights--I used an automated water timer in conjunction with the greenhouse water system (my well water was seldom above 45-48°)
Good luck, sorry I can't be of more help.


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Winter lows during dormancy for plants like this are generally even more important than growing season temperatures. If you can't chill them in the winter, I wouldn't try growing them. Maybe people have put them in the refrigerator vegetable crisper to deal with this, as I have read is done with Pleione. I would do some searching and reading.

For a poor person's chiller, you can use a small aquarium or fountain pump to pump water through a serpentine array of drip irrigation or other tubing on the bottom of a terrarium. The water source and effluent receiver is a plastic container filled with water and ice.

In your winters you could leave water bottles outside overnight to freeze, and use a trash barrel for the water reservoir. Put the frozen water bottles in the barrel each morning, and put them outside each night. Some aquarists use large beverage coolers for this, drilled to accomodate the tubing, but that is a lot more work.

A lot of trouble, but, after all, we are talking about Disas.

I'm willing to do the work if it is possible. How would putting it in the unheated garage at night work during winter times? It would likely get to around 40 on cold nights but not much cooler. If not, I might end up going the poor-man's chiller because I am on a budget. Thank you for all the wonderful responses.
P.s.
I'm considering rather than using lights to just grow it outside in the summer as the person I want to order from suggested. They said it should grow well in my environment outdoors for many months until it gets colder.

I haven't been to Disa habitat, but I've been to similar summer habitats in North America (the blueberry zone of northern Wisconsin) and similar winter habitats in South America (the western foothills of the Andes in Peru.) I was wondering why you weren't considering growing outside for the summer. Portland cools down considerably on summer nights, so it should do fine.

Purpoh, where are you located in the country? I should have asked this initially... Estacion's comment regarding Portland is spot on. Regarding your comment about your garage getting down to the 40s, if it stays above freezing outdoors year round, I'd definitely give them a go outside--with a modified flow system and possibly something to supplement airflow.


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I live about 20 minutes away from Portland but because of the Columbia River it is slightly cooler over here in Vancouver. My nights can get to 27 or even lower so I can't put them out year round. Do you think I can just bring them in during the coldest days and put them in the garage overnight?

Portland here; I think just bringing them in would be reasonable--I looked at the climate notes for South Africa, and lows into the low 30s are the norm...though it's up into the 50s during the day...


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I have thought about growing in my Garage for the cool growing plants. you could set up a little grow space in a cool garage.