Those of you who have known me for a while are aware of my interest in constantly experimenting with stuff to improve my orchid growing, and to try to figure out why things work or don't.
After all of the discussions we have had here and at other forums, about 5-6 years ago or so, I settled on a regimen of:
- Use a potting medium and container that allows frequent watering without suffocating the roots.
- Use as pure of a water source as possible – collected rainwater, distilled, or reverse osmosis being best. Here in coastal NC, my tap water is great, as-is.
- Water frequently – the more, the better.
- Thoroughly flood the pot at every watering.
- Use K-Lite, (12-1-1-10Ca-3Mg) @ 25 ppm N (about 1/6 teaspoon/gallon) at every watering.
- Add KelpMax @ 1:250 (approximately 1 tablespoon/gallon) once per month.
- Add Inocucor Garden Solution @ 1:100 once per month (approximately 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon/gallon – I just use 3 tablespoons for simplicity).
Since doing that in my greenhouse back in Pennsylvania, I started seeing much faster growth, healthier plants with no rot issues, with better flowering and far more branching of growths than I've ever seen. About a year and a half ago, my plants were relocated and relegated to winter windowsills and summer on the deck, but I am continuing to see similar performance.
Others who follow that regimen are getting similar results, but you know me, I "have to" see if I can deduce some logical reason for that, tying it back to plants in nature. Here's what I've come up with so far:
The first four items combine to prove a moist, airy environment for the root system that remains clean of mineral buildup and plant wastes, much as tropical forest rainfall tends to be torrential, thoroughly flushing and aerating the detritus that collects around the roots of epiphytes and "semi-terrestrials" like paphs and phrags.
K-Lite’s formula mimics the nutrient mix provided by host plant exudates and accumulated airborne particulates that are flushed down from the forest canopy whenever it rains in tropical rainforests. It is also a complete formula, containing important minor, and trace elements. The low dosing provides plenty of nutrition for these slow-growing plants, while avoiding root damage or the buildup of mineral residues and wastes.
KelpMax certainly stimulates the plants into faster growth, but maybe equally importantly, it also provides a wide array of vitamins and amino acids that fertilizers do not. In nature, these are provided by indigenous bacteria and fungi which, unfortunately, are typically not compatible with our pot-culture techniques.
The Inocucor product serves several purposes: the live microorganisms populate the potting media and the plants themselves, stimulating growth, absorbing and converting otherwise unavailable nutrients into usable compounds, and transferring them directly into the plants, supplementing the low application of fertilizer. Their metabolic byproducts also include sugars, proteins and amino acids that would naturally come from native microflora and -fauna in the wild. They also “beef up” the plants’ natural defensive capabilities as well as predating pathogens directly, resulting in plants that are relatively unstressed by diseases.
Ray 
Optimizing Culture
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