Help! More light, smaller leaves?
 

Hi. Some of my Phals were growing smaller leaves than I liked. I grow under fluorescents with some natural light so I figured I would move them closer to the lights. Now the new leaves are even smaller. To much light? Any ideas would help. Thankyou.

Hmmm. Sounds odd. Have you checked the health of your roots lately? Sometimes root rot will result in dwarfed leaves. My phals receive quite a bit of sunlight (more than you'd think was safe) and they're leaves are large and healthy. Please note: my phals were gradually transitioned to brighter sunlit conditions.

Thanks for the reply. The roots are doing fine, recently repotted and growing well. I did put them from about 10in. to 3in. under the lights without a gradual transition. Wonder if that could be the problem? Would they be shocked by the sudden increase in fluorescent light?

I suppose there could be some logic there - stronger light exposure might suggest the plant would need less chlorophyll to produce sufficient energy, and I know it is possible to grow them too bright, causing them to do poorly, but I've not seen smaller leaves.

On the other hand, I have seen such resulting from nutrition issues n

I know this happens with my Masdies and one of the nurseries confirmed they believe higher light can produce smaller leaves in Masdies (in fact I didn't even need to say I suspected the light, I just said they were growing more compact leaves then the ones when I bought them and the guy said "High Light" straight away).

I'm not talking about Phals, I know. But I think the principle could be the same. As Ray says, I believe they are getting enough energy from the smaller leaves so don't growth them any bigger.

However it could also be roots/nutrition so I would definitely check the roots. My Masdies are growing masses and masses of leaves and flowering well so I don't think that is a problem in my case, but definitely worth checking in yours.

Moving the plants towards the light surely will have changed the humidity an the temps. The tree factors together give smaller leaver, usually stronger and thicker.

Fer

I don't grow orchids under lights There are experts, here). I do grow gesneriads and begonias. When I went to high output. They seemed to have dried out overnight. I added domes to everything. It took them about a week or so to adjust to the higher light. The added humidity helped.

Thankyou all for the comments.