OK to move orchids back and forth between natural and artificial environments?

[dshallpost]

I have a "sunroom" living space with east and south windows, but because of the never-ending cloud cover in winter there is barely enough light to sometimes bloom phals, and occasionally miltoniopsis. I am now setting up a room with LED lamps -- this will be a totally enclosed environment, no natural light.

Would like to use the LED room to grow/bloom catts, vandaceous, i.e orchids that would never bloom in my sunroom. But also boost some of the laggard phals, phrags, paphs.

Two questions: (1) will it harm orchids to take them out of the LED room and bring them to the relatively lower light sunroom when they are in bloom? (then return them to the grow room after blooms are gone)? (2) Does it harm orchids to keep them in natural light most of the time, but put them into the higher light LED grow space for an occasional boost of more light? I am thinking that some of the lower light types will be content at the window and perhaps stimulated to bloom by some interludes under higher light. But spending 100% of their life in the LED room might be too much for them. Will an LED interval strategy work, or will this just make them crazy and sad?

Would welcome guidance . . . .

[estación seca]

A lot of people bring blooming plants into darker parts of the house. It rarely harms them.

I don't know what to say about light vacations. How long a period of time are you talking about? Some orchids prefer higher light during active growth, and some (deciduous Dendrobiums among them) prefer higher light during cool dormancy.

[isurus79]

Moving orchids as little as possible is always best. I move mine from artificial light to outdoors twice a year (spring and fall) and definitely notice a negative effect.

Moving an orchid for a week or two to enjoy the blooms shouldn't be a problem.

[Optimist]

I've never thought about it. We had a severe thunderstorm announcement yesterday and I moved all 50 orchids a few at a time back inside. Better than getting pummeled by golf-ball sized hail. If I have a nice blooming one, I bring it into another room as well. It is my understanding that light is cumulative, which is how they can survive long stretches of overcast, and nights. This is also how people can say that under lights you can get more light by lighting longer in the evening. I read it in one of those AOS pdf's online but I can't find the source.

I can see it as a "toxic dose" argument. Say that between noon to 3 pm is the highest dosage of sunlight per day, with all hours of sunlight either leading to, or moving away from the apex of that curve. But if you kept it at that noontime high through artificial light, it might take less lighting, instead of 12 hours, say 10 hours (this is not scientifically done), or reverse, to get more light with artificial lights, you might light for 2 more hours in the evening if your light set was sub-optimal.

Lighting is not the only factor, but keeping the factors fairly (reasonably) equal, the effect is not more or less than the clouds going in front of the sun (an eclipse or sudden thunderstorm), or the wind picking up or stopping. Each of these things, in the long run, has an effect. More breeze and the orchid can take more heat and light, less wind and the orchid might burn under the same light and heat.

Walking from inside to outside, or from one room to another really should not have any real consequence unless that room is in some way a "death trap" for the orchid, for instance, natural gas in the kitchen, or it goes from a heated place to a refrigerated place quickly.

When the AOS or other orgs give recommendations for care, I feel they give "averages" for types and not generally totally specific. As someone (another site?) was pointing out Paph Druryi can actually take much lower temps than most paphs for longer periods of time before enduring cellular death (lysing of cell walls caused by freezing). Druryi is a tough old plant.