Rolling back fertilizer
 

I’m testing out a hypothesis on dialing back fertilizer on the Ctsm. Doris’s Choice that I’ve posted about in the past. A brief recap: it’s mounted bare root in a mango tree and gets watered at least 4 times a day (most times it’s 5) with a 100PPM nitrate(not urea, not ammoniacal) solution in conjunction with consistent rainfall—it was getting 200PPM nitrate for about a month back in August after I heard Fred Clarke mention it in a chat he had with Stephen(that extra food probably got eaten up by the seed pods that I fumbled).

Now that conversations have turned toward rolling back fertilizer for the remainder of the year, I wanted to submit my plans for Doris for review by orchid peers. Here it goes:

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume I water with 100PPM nitrate 4 times a day. I plan to sub out one of those waterings with the 25PPM nitrate I use for everything else(3 waterings@100PPM,1 watering@25PPM). As more time passes, it’ll then be getting the 25PPM 2 times a day(2 waterings @100PPM,2 waterings @25PPM), then eventually 25PPM 3 times a day (1 watering at 100PPM, 3 waterings at 25PPM)until it eventually is only getting the 25PPM solution 4 times a day. From that point I’d planned to just cut the amount of watering: something like twice a day every two days, once a day every other day, or something else that’s inconsistent. The gaps between watering would grow from days to weeks until it’s asleep.

I’m kind of confused because I’d gotten feedback on another thread saying I may be able to keep going with fertilizer because I have a longer, warmer growing season, yet here I am asking about dialing back because other sources have me second guessing.

What say you?

All opinions are welcome and thanks for reading!
https://i.postimg.cc/8s143sC7/IMG-1539.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/945tBQSF/IMG-1540.jpg

Here's a video I just made on the topic! https://youtu.be/p1vkUemnvt4?si=Ovax2NdoKW-t1C0t

You're far overthinking this. Water and fertilize plants like crazy when in active growth to get them as big as possible. When it's time to go dormant, stop.

wow, that's a lot of numbers :evil:

honestly, what i am most curious about is how you have an outdoor grown catasetum with literally perfect leaves....

care to give some input on that?! thanks!!

It was probably dumb luck that they came out good looking…not the case anymore.

https://i.postimg.cc/w7YYFtCh/IMG-1555.jpg

Almost as if that was tailor-made for me :biggrin:

---------- Post added at 08:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:59 PM ----------

Where’s your sense of adventure? :rofl:

Timing... They are starting to think "dormancy". Time for ratty-looking leaves. Soon those leaves will be gone. The lovely thing about Catasetinae, they "reinvent" themselves every year, they get a fresh set of leaves, on the new growth.

That’s why I don’t feel so bad. The plants that were more protected from the salt spray and wind fared far better than Doris did strapped to the mast, but it’s only a matter of time before everyone is going to be bare!