Request: Sanity check my fertilizing regimen please!
Hi folks,
I would like to ask a favor and have the experts here review my current feeding regimen and let me know if it looks good. In general I get fantastic growth both roots and leaves with "okay" blooming frequency. My phals in particular tend to grow well but bloom rarely. I am also getting a mix of blooms and blind sheaths on my Catts. I also find that the plants grow like weeds under the lights but when I move phals and paphs from the LED lights to windows for a bit it often triggers a spike in plant that grow for years under the LED lights without blooming.
My growing conditions:
- I grow indoors under bright lights
- Platinum LED 300 watt lights 4 ft away (phals)
- Platinum LED 600 watt lights 4 ft away (catts, etc.)
- I run a hudimidifier any times the lights are on. I also run a fan 24X7.
- Temperature is a steady 84 degrees during the day and 70 degrees at night.
- 80% of my collection of 50 or so orchids are in SH (LECA) with the rest in a mixture of Bark or moss.
- Lights are on for 14 hours / day
My current watering / fertilzing regimen is the following:
Water is reverse osmosis. All of the below is per 5 gallon bucket.
- 1 Tablespoon of K-lite for RO
- 2 Teaspoons of Cal-Mag
- 1 TSP of Physan-20 (preventative - mostly for algae in the SH)
I water / fertilize weekly by drenching the orchid in the above mixture in a sink. Fill it to the top of the pot and let it drain down to the SH drain holes. The only other watering I do is a mid-week top off of the SH plants and/or dry non-SH plants with just straight RO water.
So my question is basically does the Nitrogen feeding rate, Cal-Mag, etc. look right? And is there anything that might be hurting the blooming on the phals, catts, etc.? Open to any advice on fertilizing or other cultural angles. Thank you!
- Phillip
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