Quote:
Originally Posted by Dusty Ol' Man
The bottom of my tent s open to the room. The a/c is on so the humidity in the house is low to begin with. I only have four (soon to be five) plants in it, though I may change that next week. I wonder if I move the fan up and change its direction if the humidity will increase? When I first set it up as it is, but without the fan, the humidity got up to 90%
And during the fall and winter the humidity down here can get very low. As in the mid 30%s.
|
Sounds like a pretty good set up! I didn't realize the humidity get so low this time of year!
---------- Post added at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadeflower
since you bring up the nobilior. Does the rest mean the plant does no growing in this time? And then as soon as you see a new pseudobulb forming you start watering more again?
|
This species is an odd one. It grows in possibly the most extreme environment of the Cattleyas, with close to half the year lacking rainfall. The spikes can start as early as November (my tipo should open blooms in a week or two, albeit VERY early!) but typically start in January and open from February through March.
In previous years I wouldn't water from November through April, which resulted in blooms. However, a Brazilian friend of mine who lived in nobilior habitat told me that such extremes should be relegated to nature and that the species gets regular fog during the dry season. Growers who watered less frequently, but somewhat regularly get better blooms. Now I water them (and the walkerianas, which are in similarly xeric, though less extreme environments) once every few weeks. I get MUCH better blooms with this method. I also don't see any bulb shriveling, which means I'm walking the line of giving a drier winter rest to trigger blooming but I'm not crushing the plant's stockpiles of stored energy. I feel like it's a fine line to walk, but certainly worth the effort.
I don't think that any other Cattleya is this extreme in it's growth cycle, but nobilior might be a good example of how a dry winter rest can be beneficial. I'm taking the warscewiczii plant to an extreme place (I've only watered once in 5 weeks or so), but it gives me a baseline where to start. By figuring out how dry a plant can go without dying, I can better understand a difficult plant's needs.
Of course, I'm using a 'Bedford' cross where my flowers look nearly identical to 'Bedford' which might not be the representative of the whole species. C. warsc. has several regional variants and 'Bedford' is kind of an oddball. Either way, I have a bunch of coerulea seedlings coming of age, so I might get a better understanding of the species with those plant. It's fun to figure out the cultural details of each species! Some are easy and some are tricky.
Threaded Mode
