Feeding Complex Paph to Foster Budset

[Ray]

I would not agree with NYCOM that a year without feeding would result in no difference, but absolutely agree that it might not be overly noticeable.

First is the fact that orchids in general are a LOT slower-growing than many other plants. A corn plant, going from a seed to bearing fruit, might put on 2 kg in 90 days. That may be 10- to 20 years' of mass for a paph and it's offshoots.

95% or more of a plant is made up of ingredients (C, O, H) it gets from air and water.

Potting media retain minerals, and even if it's in very small amounts, some can be extracted by water and used by the plants.

Many nutrient ions are translocatable within the plant - if there is no external source, the plant will shift some of those from older tissues to new growth. There are a handful that are not relocated - notably Ca and B - and as calcium is absolutely essential for the plant, if it isn't getting that, the new growth will die out pretty rapidly.

Fortunately, most water supplies have calcium in them, so even without adding it through fertilizers, the plants have plenty available.

[quiltergal]

I have to agree with Ray & NYC, IMO bloom boosters are a waste of money. It's too much N that inhibits blooming. All you have to do to correct that is dilute your normal fertilizer to a lower N ppm.

I have bloomed everything I own successfully. That includes numerous Paphs from all different sections. Brachys, Parvis, cranky multi-florals, and a bulldog that was a Spot Glen cross. The only one that has not bloomed for me is druryi, but I think it's just not big enough yet.

I also subscribe to the benign neglect theory. I think if I provide the basics the plant will do the rest. Fussing over them does nothing but stress out the grower. 😉

[JMNYC]

Originally Posted by Ray

I would not agree with NYCOM that a year without feeding would result in no difference, but absolutely agree that it might not be overly noticeable.

First is the fact that orchids in general are a LOT slower-growing than many other plants. A corn plant, going from a seed to bearing fruit, might put on 2 kg in 90 days. That may be 10- to 20 years' of mass for a paph and it's offshoots.

95% or more of a plant is made up of ingredients (C, O, H) it gets from air and water.

Potting media retain minerals, and even if it's in very small amounts, some can be extracted by water and used by the plants.

Many nutrient ions are translocatable within the plant - if there is no external source, the plant will shift some of those from older tissues to new growth. There are a handful that are not relocated - notably Ca and B - and as calcium is absolutely essential for the plant, if it isn't getting that, the new growth will die out pretty rapidly.

Fortunately, most water supplies have calcium in them, so even without adding it through fertilizers, the plants have plenty available.

Brilliant! Also, logical! Again, we are all humbled by the astonishing strategies all orchids have evolved over millenia to survive the challenges of hugely diverse environments, but that no way means we should exploit that by not learning and giving them what they need!!!

Course, Creationists.....would take issue with all of the above.

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:12 PM ----------

Originally Posted by quiltergal

I have to agree with Ray & NYC, IMO bloom boosters are a waste of money. It's too much N that inhibits blooming. All you have to do to correct that is dilute your normal fertilizer to a lower N ppm.

I have bloomed everything I own successfully. That includes numerous Paphs from all different sections. Brachys, Parvis, cranky multi-florals, and a bulldog that was a Spot Glen cross. The only one that has not bloomed for me is druryi, but I think it's just not big enough yet.

I also subscribe to the benign neglect theory. I think if I provide the basics the plant will do the rest. Fussing over them does nothing but stress out the grower. 😉

Interesting. Might you pls share the specifics of your growing conditions?

---------- Post added at 03:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 PM ----------

Heads up! Ever since, in this evolving debate, my little brain presented a clear image of vegetable growing as an important, relevant paradigm....given, in order to fruit a plant must first FLOWER.....that image remains.

I just delved and came upon this:

Fertilizing Vegetables
Fertilizer mixes are identified by their formulas -- a three number ratio indicating the percentages of macro nutrients available in the mix. A 12-12-12 fertilizer contains 12 percent nitrogen per pound, 12 percent phosphorous per pound and 12 percent potassium per pound. Fertilizers that are 12-12-12 are high in nitrogen making them well-suited for leafy vegetable fertilization. Unless soil tests results advise differently gardeners usually apply 2 or 3 lbs. of fertilizer per 100-foot row. Another high nitrogen fertilizer mix suited for leafy vegetables is 15-15-15. Root vegetables and vegetables grown for fruit or seed require higher percentages of potassium, for root development, and phosphorous, for flower development. Fertilizers that are 6-24-24, 6-12-18 and 8-16-16 are used for these types of vegetables.


Sorry, guys, this affirms what was evolving in my little brain, and no way do I believe bloom boosters are snake oil....yes, for orchids. After all, they may not produce FRUIT containing seeds, but they do produce POLLEN/INCOMPLETE SEEDS. That, after all is the modus vivendi of their FLOWERING.

Think....VANILLA BEAN!!!!!!

[Ray]

Well, JMNYC, don't get too sucked in by that info, as much of it is wrong,

For example, a 12-12-12 is 12% nitrogen, but it is NOT 12% phosphorus and potassium. It is 12% P2O5 & 12% K2O, which means that it is 5.3% P and 10% K.

And... A 15-15-15 is chemically the same as a 12-12-12, but 25% more concentrated.


Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk

[JMNYC]

Originally Posted by Ray

Well, JMNYC, don't get too sucked in by that info, as much of it is wrong,

For example, a 12-12-12 is 12% nitrogen, but it is NOT 12% phosphorus and potassium. It is 12% P2O5 & 12% K2O, which means that it is 5.3% P and 10% K.

And... A 15-15-15 is chemically the same as a 12-12-12, but 25% more concentrated.


Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk

Ray.....pls exit focusing on arcane individual leaves, step back and experience/see the tree in perspective differentially.

What I am saying and making a case for, is the use of low nitrogen, hi P fertilizer to foster flowering. This is a long established and not arbitrary practice.

[quiltergal]

My conditions are far from ideal. RH on a good day runs around 60%. Most days it's in the 40's. I grow in the house in a SW facing bay window and supplement with T5HO lighting. In the warm growing months I water weekly @ 125 ppm or less MSU. I have K-Lite but have not tried it yet. Trying to use up the MSU first. During the cold winter months when the plants aren't super active I water every 10-12 days, and feed only every 2 weeks.

I am currently growing Phals, Paphs & Phrags. In the past I have had a little of everything. Catts, Dens, Oncs & Bulbos.

I credit successful blooming to 3 things. Adequate light, temps, and the overall health of the plant. If you have good cultural practices your plants will bloom regardless of what you feed them. If your culture sucks a high P fert will not be a magic bullet that makes your plants bloom anyway.

Fertilizing with bloom boosters may well be a long established practice, but that doesn't mean it works the way practitioners think it does. Do it if it makes you feel better. Personally I think my time is better spent practicing good orchid culture.

[JMNYC]

Originally Posted by quiltergal

My conditions are far from ideal. RH on a good day runs around 60%. Most days it's in the 40's. I grow in the house in a SW facing bay window and supplement with T5HO lighting. In the warm growing months I water weekly @ 125 ppm or less MSU. I have K-Lite but have not tried it yet. Trying to use up the MSU first. During the cold winter months when the plants aren't super active I water every 10-12 days, and feed only every 2 weeks.

I am currently growing Phals, Paphs & Phrags. In the past I have had a little of everything. Catts, Dens, Oncs & Bulbos.

I credit successful blooming to 3 things. Adequate light, temps, and the overall health of the plant. If you have good cultural practices your plants will bloom regardless of what you feed them. If your culture sucks a high P fert will not be a magic bullet that makes your plants bloom anyway.

Fertilizing with bloom boosters may well be a long established practice, but that doesn't mean it works the way practitioners think it does. Do it if it makes you feel better. Personally I think my time is better spent practicing good orchid culture.

Hi.

Nobody would would ever gainsay that excellent cultural practices comprise the foundation. Surely....not I!

My collection isn't as huge as once, but it will never be small; I had to give away many of my big divided pots, I simply had no room. Again, I use many kinds of potting media, pots, etc.... each chosen for the individual plant.

So it's hard for me---no, impossible-- to imagine some regime involving more than 3 plants, wherein everything gets watered or fed at the same intervals.

I invented a calendar system way back.....all my plants have numbers on the pots. I wrote about all of it for ORCHIDS, tho that was only one element of many.

Even with my system, there is nothing dogmatic or doctrinaire. Given, depending the weather, humidity and all related things, tending should be in response to each individual plant on a given day.

And, I am pained you conclude my working to arrive at the viability of using hi bloom---this is an important journey---my still believing it IS viable, is something to disdain/assault and owes to some capricious emotional indulgence bypassing intelligence.

I promise you, it does not. And, where in this thread, or my life so fa in any endeavor have I ever chased some magic bullet quick fix anything? (That.....was rhetorical.)

Being fully open and focused each moment with all antena operational, never forming simplistic, cavalier conclusions.... is never a waste of time.

Finally, if you read what I came to postulate re the paradigm of growing fruits and vegetables, then delved and put up a link to follow up....would you then broad brush what growers of veggies and fruits do re high bloom as also being cavalier and the stuff of ignorance/emotional indulgence?

And, by definition, with the premise that orchids have nothing in common with the plants in question?

Hummmmmmmmm?
____________________________
Edit: if you subscribe to and keep issues of ORCHIDs (as many do), or your local society does, see the Feb 01 issue. I would even be happy to send a scanned and zipped copy of the feature in question via email attachment.

They had hired Charles Marden Fitch to come down and do the pics; he got quite ill; they then managed to convinced me I should and could do it; they made me shoot a gazillion over two weeks, but they ended up getting what they wanted, and it all grew me.

---------- Post added at 07:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:37 PM ----------

Update:

(It’s always a journey, with its own timetable, and therein are the goodies.)

What just presented/emerged clearly within, re my individual situation in THIS journey:

Given, my main food is high N non urea, what I should do, is not switch at a given juncture to high P-K…..but rather, combine my non urea hi N with bloom booster at the right dilution ongoing, sticking to my feed every other drenching strategy…..for consistent infusion.

Net result: far more balanced without capitulating to urea derived nitrogen….and mitigating the downside of too much nitrogen, which I remain convinced, can preclude/hobble bud set/flowering.

[JMNYC]

Addenda:

In post #16 in this thread, I offered this in response to a fellow member saying he went for a year without feeding.

A YEAR? THAT....would make me way too anxious! Unless I found a way of replicating natural conditions in my apartment, i.e, bird droppings, the mineral rich elements just the humidity in the forest brings, and so forth.

Guys.....we grow orchids in CULTIVATION: by definition, in artificial conditions.

The reality of how they grow in the wild, again, is what we must remain connected to and HONOR and try to emulate to the extent we are able.

Does any part of this elude? I mentioned this as a kind of given in the feature I did which I find myself referring to too much and unexpectedly.

Plants need NUTRITION as do all living beings. And in their native environments they GET IT. Any premise that that is moot or can be ignored, ESPECIALLY when plants are grown in cultivation.....is counter intuitive and illogical, and just plain wrong.

I just delved quickly and right off came upon below....which speaks what I pasted above from post #16.

From here: Epiphyte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An epiphyte is a plant that grows non-parasitically upon another plant (such as a tree), and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and sometimes from debris accumulating around it instead of the structure it is fastened to.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by JMNYC

What I am saying and making a case for, is the use of low nitrogen, hi P fertilizer to foster flowering. This is a long established and not arbitrary practice.

And what I am saying is that it might be the "low nitrogen" part of that, and not the "hi P", that is good for blooming.

I will add that "long established" does not mean correct.

Lastly - as I believe you commented earlier - we're talking orchids here, not food crops, for which the vast majority of nutritional experimentation has been done. And for those latter ones, you have the added dynamic of soil chemistry, which may supplement or antagonize the use of externally-applied nutrients, necessitating changing chemistry very specifically.

The simple fact is this: despite all of the studies done, nobody really knows what's going on inside of a plant from a nutritional standpoint. Even the "big guys" like Monsanto, who have billions of dollars invested in this arena, work by trial and error - observe and adjust.

[quiltergal]

The CEO of DynaGro shared on a different forum that the only reason they make Bloom Booster is because people requested it, not because it is effective.

As for my "regime". I have neither the time nor the inclination to create a separate watering/feeding schedule for each individual plant. I do have a life with other demands outside of cultivating orchids. I had to come up with some sort of schedule that would make most of the plants happy most of the time, and not have the hobby become a big time suck on my life. It's not perfect, but it works for me and my plants.

If you are willing to believe in high P as effective in setting blooms based on anecdotal "data" that's fine. There is no empirical data that supports this theory. My antenna, as you call them, are tuned to what can be proven scientifically. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the bloom booster point.