Quote:
Originally Posted by kcpi3141
as rainwater has very little dissolved salts
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This is the part that is confusing you about the equation imo.
Rainwater has got little dissolved salts for most plants yes but orchids need 10 times less nutrients than the trees around them so what has very little nutrients for most plants is plenty for orchids.
That is to me the most crucial aspect and I know I can water my orchids with pure rainwater for up to 3 months without them needing any additional feed. I do feed on every watering but I know rainwater provides them with quite a bit already and my fertilizer just tops it up a bit.
Birds poop all over the place and trees grow up to 100 meters tall so any poop on the top branch will get washed down into every corner of the bottom of the tree.
Plenty of nutrients getting washed down constantly without every bird needing to coordinate where to poop next.
That to me is the simple part. Using tap water is where things get complicated and people tend to have problems although this is debatable and might depend on the quality of the tap water.
Mine is very hard, very alkaline and has an imbalance of nutrients. If I were to use tap water to flush my pots over time I would be flushing that imbalance through my pots which would cause more harm than just using rain water and not even worry about fertilizing,
To me causing an imbalance in the orchid pots is far worse than underfeeding them
This is my preference after years of growing experience - I blieve in feeding the right quantity consistently every time, not feeding too much or too little thus eliminating the need for frequent flushing.
Others like to feed hard and flush even harder. To me it's the wrong approach but not everyone does it like me.
Hybrid Mode
