Water then feed?

[mnguyen110]

Hello everyone,

I'm a little confused with when to feed my orchids. I've read somewhere to...
1. water the feed
2. feed with watering
3. water one day, feed the next.

I'm water weakly weekly so should I be watering before I feed still?

Thanks for any advice.

[Tim C.]

I've fed my plants using many different methods. The one I've settled on is to water first, then feed just after watering. I can't say for sure whether that method makes any difference, honestly - it's just the method I use. I started using it because my mentor did the same thing. His reasoning was that watering first allows the fertilizer/water mix to soak and absorb into the medium more.

-Tim

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[PaxTea]

I am the definition of a newbie (I haven't even had my Phal for a month...) but I was just reading about this today!

You want to water thoroughly immediately before feeding. This will do a few things:

- Flush old salts out of the pot
- Dampen the bark or moss
- Prepare the roots to absorb the fertilizer
- Protect the roots from being burned by the fertilizer
- Cause the fertilizer to be, effectively, slightly more dilute, which is a good thing.
- Help the fertilizer distribute evenly (maybe?)

I get the impression that orchids don't need a whole lot of fertilizer. Their roots aren't adapted to draw nutrients continuously from soil, so they can't use very much. You want to be careful not to let salts build up in the potting medium, because that can hurt the plant.

Like I said, I'm a total noob, but I'm planning on drenching the plant with water, and then a few minutes later, running a dilute (1/4th strength) solution into the soil until a bit comes out the bottom.

I'll do this every other week (7-10 days or as needed), and on the odd weeks I'll just use water.

I think it's a conservative approach, but everything I've read says that less is more, and in fact, you don't need to use fertilizer at all unless your orchid is showing signs of malnourishment.

[jai_star]

I never water then feed but what I do is water orchid with little bit of diluted food in it and fully drench the pot and allow it to drain then let it stand for 5 - 8 mins later while I'm sorting out what's next to be watered or dab a few mealy bugs while waiting I give that orchid a second watering with the same watering can this seems to me the most efficient oh ad of course I do flush them out every so often with just pure water again I use the same method

[isurus79]

Honestly, I've never watered and then fertilized. Seems like a big pain in the butt to me. If you have a few orchids, that could make sense. But when you get above a certain number of orchids, the opposite is true. I've been growing for about 20 years and have never needed to water before I fertilize and my plants bloom pretty nicely!

[Ray]

Originally Posted by PaxTea

You want to water thoroughly immediately before feeding. This will do a few things:

- Flush old salts out of the pot
- Dampen the bark or moss
- Prepare the roots to absorb the fertilizer
- Protect the roots from being burned by the fertilizer
- Cause the fertilizer to be, effectively, slightly more dilute, which is a good thing.
- Help the fertilizer distribute evenly (maybe?)

If you water first, yes you flush the medium, but if you're using a sufficiently dilute fertilizer and irrigating properly, that will do so as well.

If your bark is new and you didn't prepare it properly before use, pre-wetting is needed, but otherwise it isn't.

Wetting the medium and roots (the velamen, actually) saturates them and prevents them from absorbing much more. In essence, wasting what you apply.

If you are feeding a solution strong enough to burn the roots, you are WAY over applying it.

The best way to feed your plants is frequently and with a very dilute solution, shifting to slightly stronger solutions if your frequency is reduced. When you do water, do so very heavily. Personally, I recommend between 50 and 100 ppm N.


Ray Barkalow
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[tucker85]

This is a subject that even the experts can't agree on. I remember last year we had a famous orchid breeder, who has written a couple of books, give a lecture at our orchid society. He said that you should never water before fertilizing. The very next month our speaker was a breeder who has won more AOS culture awards than anyone else in the country. He said that you should never fertilize dry plants. You should always water first. This subject is still widely debated and experts can give you all kinds of reasons why you should or shouldn't water before fertilizing.

For years I didn't water before fertilizing but about 3 years ago I started watering first and that's what I still do. I water my plants really well and then fertilize. To tell you the truth I didn't see any difference either way. I know people that grow award winning orchids using both fertilizing techniques. So my advice would be to use whichever method makes sense to you and fits in with your schedule and culture methods.

[Ray]

Think about a plant in nature: They only get fed when it rains, by "grabbing" nutrients that cascade down on them from the forest canopy above. The first water to reach them is going to be the most highly concentrated with those nutrients, so that's what they'll absorb first. (Of course, it is not "highly" concentrated at all by our standards.)

The key is the concentration being very low.

Back when I started getting involved with orchids 40+ years ago, it was common to feed once a month, and we used VERY strong fertilizer solutions. In retrospect, probably 40-50x what we do now. We DEFINITELY watered first!