Water with plain water first before fertilizing?

[Roberta]

The "water first" approach may work OK where there is medium that will stay wet and hold some fertilizer that will remain accessible to the plant after it dries out somewhat by the next watering (sort of a time-release approach)... Plants that need to stay wet, like Bulbophylums will be OK with it.

But, "OK" is not "ideal" ... think of what an epiphytic orchid actually evolved to do in nature for maximum efficiency... when it first starts to rain is when there are the maximum nutrients washing down on the plant, so it has evolved to grab those with the first drops of water... when the roots are dry to start. Of course, that natural "fertlizer" - from rotting plant materials, bird poop, etc - is very dilute. You should be fertilizing with very dilute mix anyway... Ideal is extremely dilute every watering, a compromise with practicaity is a little more (like 1/2 to 1/4 of what is on the bottle) once a week or so. But still, let the plant grab the nutrients first thing, then water as normal. Mother Nature knows best!

[K-Sci]

Originally Posted by Roberta

...
Mother Nature knows best!

Setting aside the question about rates, frequency and dilution, you've hit on one of my pet peeves. Natural conditions are rarely ideal. Mother Nature gives plants what they needed to survive and reproduce. For every plant that survives to reproduce in the natural environment, vastly more die before getting there. Many species are barely surviving even in their pristine natural environment. Billions went extinct because Mother Nature didn't meet even their basic needs.

We cultivate and fertilize lawns, gardens, and crops giving them comparatively huge amounts of nutrients because we need them to grow a lot better than they do nature.

-Keith

[Clawhammer]

Originally Posted by K-Sci

Setting aside the question about rates, frequency and dilution, you've hit on one of my pet peeves. Natural conditions are rarely ideal. Mother Nature gives plants found in nature what they needed to survive and reproduce. For every plant that survives to reproduce in the natural environment, vastly more die before getting there. Many species are barely surviving even in their pristine natural environment. Billions went extinct because Mother Nature didn't meet even their basic needs.

We cultivate and fertilize lawns, gardens, and crops giving them comparatively huge amounts of nutrients because we need them to grow a lot better than than they do nature.

-Keith

The conditions where ever that plant evolved, when it evolved, were ideal because the plant evolved to that environment. Not all places orchids grow naturally are the exact same as the envirmonet they evolved in due to inevitable change over time (climate, human intervention).

We have the ability to create an artificial environment where we can balance the plant's needs and achieve optimal growth, but that rarely means providing an over-abundance, its more about providing the optimal balance.

[K-Sci]

Originally Posted by Clawhammer

The conditions where ever that plant evolved, when it evolved, were ideal because the plant evolved to that environment.

This might have been true if the environment and pressures from competition were not rapidly moving targets on an evolutionary timescale, if conditions in natural ranges were uniform from boundary to boundary, and if species never faced competition from others species that crowd them out of their most favorable niche. The enormous gap between the natural environment and what the organism needed to survive is why mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, dinosaurs, and billions of other species are extinct.

-Keith