Well, I decided to go in deep in all the threads before ask something, …but the temptation to know is so strong…that I am already here.
First of all, sorry for my bad English, you know, for a lot of Italian people this is really a hurdle.
I’ve always had problems with orchids roots, probably due to the indoor environment, and the only orchids that give me a lot of satisfactions are phals. One year ago I tried S/H colture starting from a lttle and poorly pseudobulbe of cambria. It produced a lot of new roots and now there is a new pseudo bulbe that seems near to give flowers. So, before try again with other orchids, I would like to have some information on this (for me) new technique. The Ray website contains a lot of good indications, but here in Italy it is difficult to find the right materials. Therefore, for example, PrimeAgra probably is the best, but we don’t have it, and following Ray’s test explanations I tried some LECA and other materials, and at the end I realised that the better substrate I can use, is volcanic rock (granules of about 10 mm). The capillarity of this material permits to have at least 13 wet cm over the water line.
But now comes my questions about fertilizer.
1) With bark I generally use 20-20-20 and in this period 30-10-10. I never asked my self the right formula of these fertilizers, but I think that before to use them for s/h, I have to know if with S/H technique NO3 is better than NO2 or ammonia… or viceversa! How can I choose the right formula?
2) Which concentration (g/L) I have to use?
3) And what about micro-elements?
…is it too much?
Thank you,
Pierangelo