Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Sci
I can't address the S/H aspect, but I doubt it is different from non-S/H. My C. dowiana 4N seedlings (qty 64) have been growing continuously in bark without a rest for the last 2 years.
Edit: First year was indoors under lights with indoor conditions people find comfortable. This winter they are in my greenhouse with 75F days, 60F nights. Fertilizer year one was 1/4 tsp/gal Miracid 15-10-10 1 x month. This year it is 1/8 tsp/gal MSU at every watering.
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Thanks for this, that's really interesting being as most of the material out there speaks of no rest (or improper rest) as basically a death sentence.
The only thing I've noticed with all of my orchids is that I basically try to read them in terms of what they are "telling me" so to speak... Very scientific, I know, but basically, if they are starting to grow, I slowly increase fertilizer, as they begin growing faster, increase a little more, as they slow down, decrease, etc., etc. If they stop growing altogether, then I go to the minimum fertilizer (something around 1/8 tsp per gallon sounds about right from what I do) with pure water interspersed - simply because sometimes I don't feel like mixing up more since most plants need less anyways.
An example of where I've seen that work well, is with Maxillaria Tenuifolia. Even though they are super easy to grow, I feel like they follow that example to a "T". For most of the year, they don't seem to like much fertilizer, and I've burned their roots by accident when I was still learning even though I was using fairly dilute amounts... Once they start bulbing up though, they can tolerate - even love - almost double what I give them when they're just starting out and a lot more when they are just sitting there seemingly doing nothing. Following this setup I've seen the bulbs get massive comparatively to what they had done before - this year especially, I'll know come spring if the larger / plumper bulbs correspond to more flowers, but I'm assuming so.
You raise an interesting point with just going slow and steady all the time, though. Assuming that it's dillute enough, the plant will use what it can, and there shouldn't be enough build up to cause any sort of root burn, but while it's growing less, some could possibly accumulate in the medium and sit there available for use when it starts pushing out new growths, etc. It's something interesting to think about though.
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