Bloom formula, or growth formula?

[Raqsharqi]

I have been feeding my orchids weakly weekly with the MSU formula...which I'm running low on. I don't know if I should be adding a bloom formula to their diet, and if so, how do I juggle that in? I water 2x a week in the summer.
Ray, I'd like your input here as I have my finger hovering over the "add to cart" button as we speak!

[Ray]

There is no such thing as a "bloom-boosting" fertilizer; it's marketing hype. Give the plant the ideal culture, and it will grow & bloom to its genetic maximum. There is nothing you can do to improve on that, but there are any number of things that can detract from it. There are products out there that can compensate for less-that-ideal culture, like KelpMax and Inocucor Garden Solution, but fertilizers cannot.

Think about plants in nature - what variations do they get in their diet? Almost none.

Of all of the factors that go into growing a plant well, feeding is actually pretty low on plants' priority list. I'm not saying it's unimportant, but I firmly believe that we do quite a bit of harm by overfeeding, and that the particular formula is not critical, as long as the plants' nutrition is complete.

If you've been happy with the MSU stuff, you are unlikely to see any improvements by switching formulas. Depending upon how much you mix, you might see improvement by decreasing the dosage.

Shifting gears for a moment, if you look at what epiphytes get in nature, it's 1) VERY meager (no more that 15-25 ppm TDS), and 2) almost all nitrogen, but there are minuscule amounts of other nutrient ions, as well. That's the basis of K-Lite, which is a 12-1-1-10Ca-3Mg derivative of the MSU formula that's 13-5-19-8Ca-2Mg (both have a complete array of trace minerals).

There have been some theories bandied about concerning "K-toxicity" or interference with the uptake of other nutrients, and while both may very well be factual, they likely don't rear their ugly heads unless we're overfeeding.

I use the K-Lite in an attempt to mimic nature, and to keep the phosphorus level down, as it's a serious pollutant that helps algae to grow.

[Raqsharqi]

Thanks, Ray. Since you sell DynaGro, I thought there might be a reason to use the bloom formula. If I go with the K-Lite, do you have a summer/fall dosage per gallon if I'm going to stick with weakly weekly?

[Ray]

I use the same dosage at every watering, and let the weather conditions dictate the "fertigation" frequency.

Let's not forget that we're dealing with a mass of nutrients delivered, not a concentration. Each watering is a "meal" of a certain level of "calories". During good weather with active growth, the plants eat a lot; when the weather doesn't favor that, and they slow down, the meals are farther between.

I could probably use to apply that philosophy to myself....