S/H with +HIGH+ relative humidity

[Gennaro]

What about S/H with high relative humidity?? Where for high rh I mean an average of 80% with spikes on 90s...

I would like to know your experience with this kind of s/h colture... Mine isn't that good...

Bye..

[Tindomul]

I have no experience with this combination. :scratchchin:
I would assume that the high humidity would nullify the need for S/H or any type of potting (with the exception of terrestrials). Whenever I have the luxury of such high humidity I mount, bare root, no moss, no nothing . I would guess it would be too humid? However, I believe the more important aspect would be proper ventilation. How is that doing for you?

[Ray]

This time of year that's the norm for my greenhouse, so I increase the fan speed to get more turbulence, and I absolutely DO NOT reduce the watering frequency to take advantage of the slower evaporation rate.

Plants that are well-established go nuts.

[Gennaro]

I've had only one experience with this combination, so the results are not very meaningful, anyway this is my experience:

I deflasked three macodes petola. I potted two of them in 50% hydroton - 50% sphagnum peat and the third in hydroton in s/h. I put them in my mini GH where, as I said, there is an average of 80% rh, and 3 pc fan always working. My little GH is: 3ft x 1.66ft x 6.66ft (H). Consider that this mini green house isn't perfectly sealed. The results so far (less than two weeks): the two macodes in 50%-50% are growing quite well, the other in s/h rotted after few days!!

But I'm not able to see if the mistake is mine or s/h isn't the best choice for this specific case.

Ray you said that in your GH you have an average relative humidity like mine. So my question about s/h is: Is there a meaningful difference in growing with or without high RH?

[Ray]

S/H is just a different way to anchor the plant and provide water and nutrients to it.

Concerning whether there is a meaningful difference when having high- or low humidity, I would tend to say "no", but I should qualify that to say no more so (or even less) than with other growing techniques.

Let's go to the opposite extreme as a comparison - mounting on cork bark. In that case, higher humidity causes the plants to dry out a lot slower - giving it more time to absorb water and nutrients - and there is less driving force to extract the moisture from within the plant, so it's a definite "plus".

Moving the plant to a potted environment does nothing to affect the desiccating driving force, so again, higher humidity is a plus, but the humidity becomes far less of an issue when it comes to absorbing moisture and food through the roots. Yeah, it slows the drying rate of the medium, but compared to mounted, the difference in medium drying rate in dry-or humid environments is not significantly different - the plant is probably affected less by a change from a two- to four day drying time than it is from a 15 minutes versus several hours.

Now, if you move to s/h culture, where the medium doesn't ever dry out, where's the impact of humidity?

[Gennaro]

Sharp reasoning Ray, thanks for the reply!

[Ray]

Thanks, Gennaro, but don't automatically think it's "fact".