Maintaining Humidity under Wonderlight
Greetings all!!
Hoping for some tips on how to increase humidity under lights? I'm currently growing under a 160w Wonderlight placed 30" from the top of the humidity tray (still fiddling with this distance since I've only had the light 7 weeks). I have mostly phals and oncidium which are looking great, but also a miltoniopsis, a vuylstekeara, and what I think is a burregeara (all of which are pleating). Before I got the new light I was having a lot of problems with pleated leaves but was unable to increase watering much because of cooler temps during the winter which led to a mildew problem (lost a milt). Since then I've increased the lighting which has increased the temp, enabling me to water more (every 3ish days depending) but I'm still having pleating issues. I've added a fan about 5 feet from the growing area to increase air flow and also repotted many of the plants that are pleating just to check whether roots were rotted (which didn't seem to be the case). They're in clear plastic pots now (which so far I love!) At this point I'm seeing lots of new growth due to the increase in lighting and would really like to get the leaf thing sorted out so the new growth looks nice!
As far as I can tell the options are....
Mist through-out the day (something I've never done because of the potential for rot)
Leave the humidity tray full of water (which I tried once and was a bit worried about the scumminess)
Buy some kind of humidifier/fogger (potentially cost prohibitive since I just spent $$ on the light)
A moisture meter (does anyone use these/like them?? I thinking Momet?)
Sooooo......whatcha think? Anything I haven't thought of?? Suggestions?? Need more information?? I'd love a recommendation for a good humidity/temp meter so that I can monitor things better. Also.... on a somewhat unrelated topic... during the winter I was fertilizing 1/2 strength, biweekly with Grow More green (20,10,20)... should I be switching to a different formula to initiate flowering?? I've successfully reflowered all my phals and two of my oncidiums (twinkle, which I've heard are easy). Recently bought a Sharry Baby out of spike and would love to see it flower, the Milt and the Vuyl are new and the Burr I've had for over a year without it reflowering ( which I'm hoping may be a light issue). New to the forums so still working on adding all my info so y'all can see pics but heres one of the growing area....
Thanks!!
BTW... what's the easiest way to do pics... attach em to the thread or link to your profile??
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