Seeking Advice - Improving My Flower Spikes

[Your27B_6]

Hi all!

I'm noticing a consistent issue with my cattleyas. Although they seem healthy, growing and blooming consistently, they frequently seem to have mediocre flower spikes / stems. The flowers are sometimes crowded in the foliage, the flowers sharing a spike crowd one another, or both.

Here is some general information about how I'm growing them currently. If anyone sees anything here that could be improved, please share your thoughts. Thank you so much for your help!

LIGHT: I'm growing the cattleya collection under a full-spectrum Mars Hydro LED grow light. Based on testing done by a respected YouTuber, my light puts out an average of 854 mmols at full power at 12 inches above the plant canopy, and I'm running my light at roughly 35% power roughly 12 inches above the catts, so hopefully that's hitting roughly 300 mmols. I'm running the lights twelve hours per day.

TEMPERATURE / HUMIDITY: normal home temperatures, so probably a max of 80 degrees F and a low of 65 degrees F, but generally the temps that humans like. The humidity would vary a fair amount, I'm not currently monitoring it, and I'm not making any special effort to raise it.

WATER / FERTILIZER: I think I've dialed in my watering frequency pretty well, based on the health of the root systems that I've grown / generally plump pseudobulbs / few issues with root rot / no murdered plants thus far. Some plants are in bark mixes, some are in sphagnum moss. I used distilled water and my fertilizer is the K-lite formulation, which is an NPK 12-1-1 and should have the necessary micronutrients. I aim for 75ppm N when I make each gallon of solution. Once a month I flush the pots with tap water, and on the next watering after that I water with fertilizer plus Kelpak solution mixed according to the directions.

Please let me know your thoughts, thanks in advance!