phals, artificial light vs professional growers

[Pete]

There a many ways to successfully grow orchids/phals and it sounds like you have the basics pretty well figured out.

I do not have any experience with CHC so I cannot comment on its effectiveness. From my personal experience, I have found that my phals growing in sphagnum moss (NZ AAA or Chilean 5 Star) do best. I always use packing peanuts in the bottom to cut down on the time it takes the moss to dry. Also, in my experience, sphag retains nutrients for the roots to absorb where as regular fir bark retains very minimal nutrient amounts. I too use MSU fert and have had good results. Perhaps your medium is not retaining the nutrients from the fert? With Sphag, depending upon the age of the orchid, I will repot between every 3 months (seedlings) to one year (mature plants).

I have found that humidity levels more toward 60% or 70% tend to promote lush vigorous growth. I cannot maintain these levels growing indoors and have to settle with humidity in the 40 - 60% range.

These are my experiences as a a still learning phal grower. I have not mastered indoor culture like many on this board and the BLO forum have done. I aspire to one day elevate my indoor culture to those levels. Until then, I observe my orchids regularly and adjust my culture to the needs of the orchids. I will also try new techniques/methods - - sometimes they work/ sometimes they don't.

Good luck.

Note - I grow my phals under t-5 lighting and the fcs range from 600 on the ends to 1200/1300 in the middle of the table.