Day vs Nighttime Humidity
Around the start of this year I got back into orchid growing, but this time I wanted to be able to grow a bit more of the more finicky plants that I could never get to do well as a windowsill grower in the Pennsylvania. In order to do this, I decided to build my own terrarium for my orchids. I wanted to have it look nice as well as have it dialed in foor growing mini to medium size orchids. I also wanted it fairly automated, with timers and all that. I setup and adjusted the led lights (dimmable) to get the right light levels (in approximate foot-candles / par) from top to bottom, added fans for circulation, added a heater into the gravel on the bottom, and added a framed plexiglass top to keep in the humidity.
Regarding the humidity, it's not completely sealed and there are gaps at a bunch of different places, but even with that - by proxy of having so many plants in there - the humidity levels can easily get into the 85-90% range. To offset that, I added venting fans that pull out the humid air when it hits 85% and drops it 80%, they run for a minute or so every half hour, give or take. The thing is, I've heard that for orchids, higher humidity is more of a need at night.
That got me thinking, and here's my question:
Is there any value in having the ability to have a day / night humidity variance?
The only immediate thing I can think of is that if higher humidity at night is of more value, I could keep the day humidity levels lower - and have even less issues with fungal / bacterial diseases. Also, I'm not sure, but I think the plants may grow even better if the humidity is say 75% during the day and 88% at night - or something like that... I'd assume that that might closer replicate what they encounter in nature if I'm not wrong.
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