good fertilizer and other stuff

[butterfly79]

How often do you fertilize?

What fertilizer do you use?

is there any product on the market to prevent disease that can be used regularly?

I have orchid food Shultz Powder 19-13-17 any have any luck with this stuff?

[Rosiefuture]

Hi butterfly, I am fertiilizing weakly, weekly at the moment, a lot of my orchids are showing active growth and quite a few spike popping out on my Phals.

I'm in Western Australia and I use Manutec Orchid Bloom Booster and they seem to be happy with it. Plenty of leaf and root growth going on too..

Marion

[butterfly79]

Sounds good. It seems to be hard to locate products here in Canada. I am having a heck of a time finding products.
Physon 20 & 27 I just read are not approved products in Canada.

[Orchid126]

If you can't get some products in Canada, perhaps you can get liquid seaweed, which contains a lot of micronutrients. That, combined with a fertilizer with nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, would be a good mix. Once a month add a tablespoon of epsom salts to a gallon of water and the orchids would be on a good program.

[Ray]

With the exception of avoiding super-high nitrogen stuff, most fertilizers are quite usable for orchids.

I recommend 125 ppm N at 3 out of 4 waterings (divide 13 by the %N on the label to determine ml/L to use). In the case of your Schultz stuff, about 0.7 ml/L would be great.

Physan can be mail ordered from the US - I ship it into Canada all the time., but I'll tell you now that the best way to prevent diseases is to grow your plants very well. For the most part, they only succumb to ailments when they are weakened due to poor culture.

[CTB]

weekly weakly, I'm using orchid plus 20-14-13 one week and the next week bloom buster 11-35-15. Since I'm a newbie, everything looks good and is putting out good roots and leaves. I think these will work out good, but I do want to try that liquid seaweed stuff.

[butterfly79]

i should have paid more attention in science class.lol.
Do you actually water a certain amount per week?

My shultz food says 1/2 scoop per 2.5 L of water. That's alot of water?

i am going to have to place an order with repotme because I can't get physon, i can't get clear pots, etc.

When you purchase an orchid what is your prep for it? Do you normally spray to rid of possible disease or pests?

[butterfly79]

liquid seaweed, I know I could probably buy that from a aquarium place.

What do epsom salts do for the orchid? Any other natural things that can help.

[jeffg]

At this point in the learning curve, since there are so many options for fertilizers, I rely on Applied Kinesiology and let the plants tell me what they want. I use AK in many applications, and it is a great way to tap the source rather than "understand" via logic. Most often, this turns out to be weakly weekly with MSU. Sometimes they want a drop or 2 of superthrive, and sometimes Epsom. My understanding (I will defer to Ray) is that Epsom adds sulfur.

I used to get frustrated when veteran growers would always say "It depends on your conditions and what works for you" when I was trying to "systematize" things. Alas, now I get it - indeed the plant will tell you should you figure out how to listen.

[peeweelovesbooks]

I use worm tea and soluble seaweed. I also use STEM once in a while. I'm thinking of adding hydrolized fish emulsion to see how that goes.

I've stopped using superthrive, Kln and similar products--with the seaweed, I see very good root development as it is.