Fertilizing a recovering, young B little stars

[KokeshiHappyGreen]

My B little stars is growing several nice fat new roots, which at the rate they are growing will probably enter the Orchiata media in a few days, to week, max. She also has two new growths...and I'm wondering about two growing bumps that look like possible flower spikes. So I want to be preemptive and ask about fertilizing her.

Right now I've just been watering the media, for humidity around base, about twice per week. Letting it dry slightly in between. Also have small humidity tray, which raises humidity around 5+% above baseline; today with rain outside its now around 69%.

Should I wait for the roots to get a good strong hold in the media before even Thinking about fertilizing? (I'm really Leary of fertilizing, as even with very dilute amounts with house plants and aquarium plants, for some reason the plants almost seem Worse. And Other parameters like light and temp and humidity seem More important/Helpful). What do you guys think?

And when I had other rescue orchids that Did have roots, I made a less than 1/4 str version of Jack's Classic orchid fert, watering once a week. But it seemed too strong even at that concentration. I use Distilled water, which is why I picked the Jack's; it has calcium as well as other macro and micro nutrients. (I've heard Mixed results about the MSU formula and, besides, the Jack's was readily available at my local nursery.)

Any info and thoughts as well as how and when to transition to fertilizing is most appreciated.

Thanks 🌞

[estación seca]

First, I see what looks to me like a potentially serious typographical error on your fertilizer label. It tells you to add 1/2 cupful to 1 gallon of water for fertilizing at every watering. I am almost certain this should be 1/2 CAP full, not cup.

Light, temperature, proper watering and humidity are more important to orchids than fertilizer. But your conditions should be fine.

Fertilize Cattleya alliance orchids when they are in growth. For your Brassavola, that means now. They grow fine with no medium at all, so don't worry about an arbitrary root length, nor where the roots are.

The weak fertilizer solutions you mentioned using before should not have bothered your plants at all, so something else was likely the problem.

If you haven't yet, I strongly recommend reading about fertilizing on the First Ray's Web site. Look in the top menu for Free Cultural Information.

I find it far easier to think of fertilizing in terms of parts per million of nitrogen in my solution. There is a fertilizer calculator at Ray's site which figures out how much fertilizer to add to water to get a desired amount of nitrogen.

Many people who fertilize at every watering dilute the fertilizer to get around 20-30 parts per million of nitrogen. People who fertilize less often use proportionally higher concentrations. You can read all about this at Ray's site. It makes fertilizing much simpler to understand.

[Orchid Whisperer]

My personal preference is not to worry about supplying fertilizer when a plant is either recovering from something, or getting established. If you do fertilize, go easy! Very weak fertilizer, applied infrequently.

I once asked one of the best Cattleya growers I know how often he applied fertilizer. He said "never" then said "well, maybe once a year". Point is, they don't need much, and they don't need it often.

[KokeshiHappyGreen]

Originally Posted by estación seca

First, I see what looks to me like a potentially serious typographical error on your fertilizer label. It tells you to add 1/2 cupful to 1 gallon of water for fertilizing at every watering. I am almost certain this should be 1/2 CAP full, not cup.

Light, temperature, proper watering and humidity are more important to orchids than fertilizer. But your conditions should be fine.

Fertilize Cattleya alliance orchids when they are in growth. For your Brassavola, that means now. They grow fine with no medium at all, so don't worry about an arbitrary root length, nor where the roots are.

The weak fertilizer solutions you mentioned using before should not have bothered your plants at all, so something else was likely the problem.

If you haven't yet, I strongly recommend reading about fertilizing on the First Ray's Web site. Look in the top menu for Free Cultural Information.

I find it far easier to think of fertilizing in terms of parts per million of nitrogen in my solution. There is a fertilizer calculator at Ray's site which figures out how much fertilizer to add to water to get a desired amount of nitrogen.

Many people who fertilize at every watering dilute the fertilizer to get around 20-30 parts per million of nitrogen. People who fertilize less often use proportionally higher concentrations. You can read all about this at Ray's site. It makes fertilizing much simpler to understand.

Thanks for the info. I looked at Ray's site before but sometimes hard for me to take in so much info at once. Perhaps just reading through it Several times will help.
I did notice either on his site, or perhaps a reply here on OB, that one could divide the nitrogen% by 10, to figure out teaspoons/gal to add; but in another place it said divide by 2. At any rate if I'm watering every watering I'd want to do the more dilute option anyway...so I'll look at Ray's calculator more closely. Thanks for the reminder he has one👍🏻

And wow! I totally didn't catch the typo on the fert bottle...and I usually catch things like that since I did editing for awhile. 😜

---------- Post added at 12:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Orchid Whisperer

My personal preference is not to worry about supplying fertilizer when a plant is either recovering from something, or getting established. If you do fertilize, go easy! Very weak fertilizer, applied infrequently.

I once asked one of the best Cattleya growers I know how often he applied fertilizer. He said "never" then said "well, maybe once a year". Point is, they don't need much, and they don't need it often.

Good to know. I think I see what confuses us newbies sometimes. Everyone has their own routines and what works for them. I guess Orchid culture will Always involve at least Some experimentation...hopefully without negative results. And it seems, so far, that it's generally better to err on the side of caution and smallest helpful amounts of any parameter...Slowly increasing as needed, as you've mentioned.

Thanks for the info and explanations.

[KokeshiHappyGreen]

EDIT/UPDATE

ES, I just looked at Ray's site again and found the calculator chart. Has that Always been on the site? I don't remember seeing it before. (Actually there were a Number of things I didn't remember from before, re lighting and humidity and some of the other questions I've been asking about). 😂 I think it's just that I needed the explanations you guys have been giving me to even Notice things. But now I can put two and two together better. 😬

Looking at the chart, I see that my confusion about dividing by 10 vs 2 had to do with two Different desired ppm of nitrogen. So no conflict and I finally get it 😊

And a big Shout Out to Ray: Thanks for putting together all that helpful information in one place, and in such an organized fashion, for us! So helpful and clarifies a lot...even if you're someone like me and have to read it over multiple times 😜

[KokeshiHappyGreen]

"First, I see what looks to me like a potentially serious typographical error on your fertilizer label. It tells you to add 1/2 cupful to 1 gallon of water for fertilizing at every watering. I am almost certain this should be 1/2 CAP full, not cup." Per ES

Sure am glad you caught that typo! Even though the 3/4 tsp in parentheses next to Cupful would prob indicate the typo, it's not a Given....esp if someone is briefly scanning the directions. (Though that's not the best plan of action. Hehe)

Anyhoo...I just called J R Peters and the lady I spoke with said she would notify the folks that prepare the labels immediately. She was very thankful it was brought to their attention. So maybe Next time I buy a bottle, the label will be Correct.

Thanks, ES!

EDIT: So apparently I have an Older bottle. I called company back to ask how long solution is good for once made up in water (answer = 4 wks in a covered container). The lady I spoke to said "btw the printing folks said that the typo had been corrected on their last two printings." So no more confusion! But she still says thank you!