Setting up my first tropical room - Temp & RH% advice needed

[Virescence]

Hello Orchid Growers,

I am not an orchid grower. But I'm about to inherit around a dozen orchids.

I have finished up with a room in a facility which I built to house these along with a host of tropical plants and dwarf trees (Dwarf kaffir lime, Meyer lemon/lime, etc).

The room I have is just under 100 square feet and every environmental can be adjusted to any reasonable temperature (45*F --> 100*F), humidity (30% --> 99%) in any preset intervals.

My background includes three decades of intensive hydro/aeroponics with heavy experience in basil, hot peppers micro green production and cannabis, outdoors, under half an acre of glass or indoors.

I have no idea what these orchids are but suspect that some have origins in southern South America.


My questions are what would be best day/night parameters for:

- Photoperiod
- day/night temperatures
- day/night humidity
- VMC (volumetric moisture content at the root level, %, I run live meters)
- Lighting and temp regimens for vegetative vs. flowering and how often they can be flowered.
- nutritional requirements (eC/pH/composition) - I manufacture my own from base salts down to the micros.


Any guidance would be appreciated.
Attached are some pictures of my gardening endeavors so you know I'm not F'ing around and take this very seriously.

The orchids are showing up in 15 days and I want to make sure they grow to their fullest potential.

Thank you so much!

- The Virescence Guy

[DirtyCoconuts]

Where are the orchids coming from and how are you getting them. There are a lot of kinds of orchids with vastly different needs

Your pics are beautiful

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

Have you grown epiphytes before? Most orchids are potted in large particle media like bark or LECA chunks. Soil mixes fine for most herbs suffocate orchid roots. Air at their roots is the most important factor. Soil water meters usually don't work well for epiphytes because of the large air spaces.

As DC mentioned different orchids have widely varying temperature, water and light requirements. Many people growing under lights use 14 hour summer days and 10-12 hour winter days. Different orchids require light from deep shade to bright sun, and varying levels of humidity.

Fertilizer is the least important aspect of orchid growing. They are much slower-growing than many herbaceous plants. Again, different types have different requirements. There is a good discussion of nutrition on the First Rays Web site.

Look through the forums here devoted to growing under lights, growing indoors and growing in terraria. They are accessible through the yellow left menu, Forums.

[camille1585]

What a fantastic set up you have!!! I work at an indoor farming company (but only a couple years experience!), and I love seeing what people manage to do on their own. May I ask what sort of mat you are using? Looks a bit dark to be rockwool.

The fifth photo looks like asian greens, I'm guessing Frizzy Lizzy and Frizzy Joe? And those are impressive roots in the last photo!

Like the others have said before me, you're going to have to wait and see what the orchids are before you can gather information on the growing recipe that will be needed. How are you planning to grow them, sustrate wise?

[Ray]

Adding to the comments above - be careful assuming your current experience level will make orchid-growing easier.

Orchids are "niche plants", each with it's own cultural demands. Your success with the crops you've dealt with are far more flexible.

[Clawhammer]

I've been growing 400+ orchids in my basement for about 4 years. Answers to these questions depend on the type of orchids, but I am going to answer to give you the most flexibility.

- Photoperiod - Match seasonal photoperiod. I do 10 hours mid winter and 14 by mid summer.

- day/night temperatures - minimum 15 degree day/night difference. My max is 85, bottom is 63

- day/night humidity - keep above 60% all times

- VMC (volumetric moisture content at the root level, %, I run live meters) - Know nothing about this. I employ a color dot system with 5 different colors, each representing frequency (every day, every other day, etc). Each tray is group by color and my calendar tell me what colors I water each day.

- Lighting and temp regimens for vegetative vs. flowering and how often they can be flowered.
No difference. Your orchids will all flower at different times.

- nutritional requirements (eC/pH/composition) - I manufacture my own from base salts down to the micros. I water with a very low concentration every watering (target 25ppm nitrogen)