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  #1  
Old 11-23-2023, 01:17 AM
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On a first principles approach to Dendrophylax lindenii Male
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I'm building a new setup for a Dendrophylax lindenii plant. I want to really improve the growth of the plant. I've read a lot about the species and its cultivation over the past several years.

I think it's really challenging to make sense of all the different advice that people write about. For example, some people say stagnant air is the key, others think that's a very weird suggestion. Why the difference?

In all the articles I've read, there is rarely enough focus on the conditions the plant experiences in the wild, particularly in a clear-thinking fashion. Typically, there are recommendations like "humidity has to be really high, above 90%, and hot! ... and then I let it get a little cooler in the winter." There's an attempt to relate to the environment, but it trails off, and it's not totally data-driven.

(Admittedly, a lot of this could be because people are growing this species in room-or-larger scale greenhouses, and the grower needs a climate that satisfies all of the plants they're growing. It seems less common to grow D. lindenii in a small and very controlled environment.)

Instead, I think we should be going back to the basics. The biggest differences plants experience, climatically, are: winter versus summer (or other seasonality depending on locality), and day versus night. It's simple, but it's comprehensive. It's a bottom-up approach.

And, across the vast majority of orchids, we know this: getting lighting, temperature, and humidity correct gets you at least 85% of the way to a very flourishing plant. Orchids have evolved to persist on poor nutrient availability, so the basics are all the more important. Perhaps D. lindenii is less of a peculiarity than we expect, how would we know?

With that in mind, below I've summarized the central tendencies of the climate conditions in the Fakahatchee Strand across these primary axes of variation: summer vs. winter, day vs. night. Note that I brought the summer high down a touch from the weather data, because it seemed a little too hot for any orchid, and there is probably additional cooling in the canopy.

Winter Day
Temperature: ~70 °F
Humidity: 50%

Winter Night
Temperature: ~60 °F
Humidity: 95%

Summer Day
Temperature: ~85 °F
Humidity: 50%

Summer Night
Temperature: ~70 °F
Humidity: 95%

Wind conditions are typically low wind, with a pattern of slight increase during the day and slight decrease at night, based on sea breeze dynamics.

Looking at these data, it's interesting that humidity is so high at night and relatively quite low during the day. That was a big takeaway for me. I was talking to a successful grower recently, and they said that they think one of the keys is to "water" primarily through very high humidity, because that approach doesn't let the central node, or crown, of the plant get wet enough to rot. And I think that is likely especially the case if you are letting the surface of the roots dry almost entirely every single day with low daytime humidity. Then watering overnight. This makes sense additionally if D. lindenii uses CAM photosynthesis, waiting for night to take up water and open stomata. In summary, these data end up making sense, and the result is intuitive.

Further, the pattern is pretty simple. Day versus night humidity is consistent year-round: dry days and wet nights. Temperatures are 10-15 °F warmer during the day than at night, and during summer than during winter. It's easy to remember, and it feels intuitive. The 10-15 °F difference is especially familiar, since a lot of orchids need this exact temperature differential to promote flowering (e.g., Phragmipediums, among many others).

All in all, I think this could be really useful. In a perfect world, we could go to everyone who has ever written about how to grow D. lindenii, and ask them how their conditions compared to what I outlined above. Perhaps some of the extensive variation in success (or lack thereof) and in odd peculiarities they insist upon might be explainable by how they did – or did not – fit the central tendencies of the conditions in the native range of the species.

In particular, there is a ton of focus on if and how to mount this species, and I bet a lot of that comes down to pairing how much local humidity the mounting media emits, especially day versus night, and how much ambient humidity there is. From the data above, we can bet a moisture-retentive mount won't work well if you're not allowing for significant drying during the day. The plant will just stay too wet.

It's totally understandable, but I think everyone has a tendency to "lose their senses" a bit when it comes to something super special, like this species. For example, Phragmipediums are finicky, but we don't jump to hyper-specific solutions for them most of the time -- except with the similarly coveted P. kovachii! I would argue that's not a coincidence. The big purple flower suddenly has us reaching for diatomite even when we have never used it before and it's really hard to find.

Maybe rather than looking for some magic trick, or some secret ingredient, we should instead just focus on getting the basics right. And really, maybe we are not giving the orchid enough credit. Maybe with strict adherence to the above-mentioned conditions these plants would thrive for anyone.

I would absolutely love to hear from other people about this! I think it's a super interesting discussion, not only because it's about an amazing species, but because I think it touches on some generalities about how people interact with these species, and how we are able to understand them and relate to them – or not

P.S.: If I were able to meet these conditions exactly as I described, my intuition is that the plants would grow well enough, but my next biggest concern would be the fungal symbionts. Ecology, and biology in general, still has a lot to learn about microbial community dynamics, and how those communities interact with larger organisms. Yes, there has been some work done on that for D. lindenii by the amazing team at UF (and we thank you!), but the topic as a whole is still quite nascent in ecology and biology, with a lot to be learned in the next 10-15 years. Hopefully as the topic develops, it will help to further reveal the story of the Ghost Orchid.

Last edited by gdupont; 11-23-2023 at 01:36 AM..
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  #2  
Old 11-23-2023, 10:12 AM
nvrbdun nvrbdun is offline
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On a first principles approach to Dendrophylax lindenii
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Check out AOS Orchids magazine 12/2023. Your missing one key factor. These plants are tougher and stronger than you think, once established.

Last edited by nvrbdun; 11-23-2023 at 01:04 PM..
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  #3  
Old 11-23-2023, 11:50 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nvrbdun View Post
Check out AOS Orchids magazine 12/2023. Your missing one key factor. These plants are tougher and stronger than you, think once established.
Not sure what article you're referring to, it's not 12/2023 (December 2023) yet, and the most recent AOS magazine issue looks to be 11/2023.

Are you referring to Jeff Hale's well-known "Ghostly Success" article? It's from 07/2009. If so, yes, I know it: he argues that "firm adherence to a suitable bark mount" is the key.

I understand that sentiment, and I'm sure there's some truth to it. But I think the climate conditions he creates might be the true key to his success. There are plenty of photos of this species blooming in cultivation on bark as equally as on plastic grids, which are quite different.

Just this past summer, Kew bloomed the species for the first time, and their experts have it growing on a plastic grid, opposite of Hale's recommendation. And similarly, the UF team would grow them on burlap. Neither of those leading examples involve the plant's roots really digging into the substrate.

I think the variation in mounting technique leading to similar success really speaks to the importance of climate conditions. Certainly, though, there needs to be a deliberate pairing of mountain substrate choice with climate conditions. But, fundamentally, strict adherence to climate conditions is the most important aspect.
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Old 11-23-2023, 12:55 PM
nvrbdun nvrbdun is offline
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First "Just this past summer, Kew bloomed the species for the first time". It was flown in from the states for the Chelsea Flower Show, It was not grown over there. They will grow mounted or not. they just grow better mounted new growth down. I know 12/2023 is not out yet. Wait a week or so. Ghost Orchids:Probably the most Famous Flower in Florida.

Last edited by nvrbdun; 11-23-2023 at 01:00 PM..
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Old 11-23-2023, 01:21 PM
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On a first principles approach to Dendrophylax lindenii Male
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nvrbdun View Post
First "Just this past summer, Kew bloomed the species for the first time". It was flown in from the states for the Chelsea Flower Show, It was not grown over there. They will grow mounted or not. they just grow better mounted new growth down. I know 12/2023 is not out yet. Wait a week or so. Ghost Orchids:Probably the most Famous Flower in Florida.
Ok, well, looking forward to seeing it.
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Old 06-23-2024, 03:04 PM
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Jeff Hale, who wrote a very well known article for AOS online years ago, posted in the AOS Facebook group today about another huge Dendrophylax lindenii that just put out a flower.

Jeff shows a screenshot from his climate monitoring meter, and writes: "humidity drops to around 40% during the hottest hours of the day. In the evenings and overnight, as well as early morning, the humidity hoovers around 75%."

He mentions nothing about having the growing end of the node facing toward the mounting substrate or anything like that. He mentioned in the AOS article years ago that he had particularly luck with one type of wood, but didn't mention that again, and has since changed a couple other details of his growing.

I take this as further evidence that the daily humidity cycle is super important for this species. It is just one individual, but it's a huge individual and the climate pattern matches extremely closely to what I outlined in this thread originally.

Definitely worth having a look!
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Old 06-24-2024, 12:48 AM
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I wonder how leafless orchids do CAM photosynthesis? Are there the same kind of pores on roots? Or on stems? Do we know if they use CAM or not? All orchids? Sorry these are asides but i dont know much about the Ghosts.
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Old 06-24-2024, 01:55 AM
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Many orchids have root stomata, usually with green roots. Phalaenopsis are the best known. Many epiphytes are CAM plants but I don't know whether Dendrophylax is. I would suspect it is, given the normal humidity swing in its habitat. Most evergreen epiphytic orchids from areas with distinct dry seasons are CAM plants.
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Old 06-24-2024, 07:18 AM
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I went back and reread the original post, and while I like the approach, I do have a couple of basic disagreements.

1) Why downplay the daily high temp? Data is data, "it seemed too hot for any orchid" is guesswork. The better path is to work with the data, and then, if something doesn't look right, you can challenge it.

2) I find it hard to believe any epiphyte is able to get sufficient water from humidity. Condensed humidity (liquid), yes. Vapor, not so much. My take is that humidity helps moderate the transpirational loss of liquid water the plant has absorbed, rather than being a source of it.

The "data" you proposed to work with indicated that the water available as vapor ranges from just under 9.3 to 17.7 grams/cubic meter. Liquid water is 1,000,000 g/cubic meter. The Fakahatchee Strand is in the far southwestern part of Florida. For much of the year, it is common for there to be midday showers.

A little contect: accounting for transpirational losses, a plant must absorb about 1.1 gallons of water to add 1 gram of mass.

3) Data is difficult to analyze without context, which I equate with observation. I cannot claim to be well versed in the culture of this genus or species, but I have seen two things that make me question some of the comments.

One was at a now defunct commercial orchid range in Illinois - they were successfully growing and flowering Dlax. lindenii in fish tanks (no air movement) with standing water at the bottom, which was based upon the observations of an early "discoverer" of the population in the wild.

Another was a grower in Tennessee who found it did better on hardware cloth than on a traditional cork bark mount, which suggests that rapid drying may be important.

4) I disagree with the characterization of orchid growers "losing their mind" over something new - "The big purple flower suddenly has us reaching for diatomite even when we have never used it before and it's really hard to find." Really? As an experienced grower, I learn about what the plant may need and assess the likelihood I can somehow replicate that, and I certainly don't equate a potting medium/component in a vacuum with success or failure. Sure, we may get excited by new discoveries, but "losing ones mind" is for beginners.
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  #10  
Old 06-26-2024, 11:19 AM
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I also grew and flowered this in a fishtank like set up.In a large glass cookie jar with a sealing lid. It was mounted on a piece of white oak. A thin layer of Sphagnum on the bottom.
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