Phalaenopsis corningiana specific care

[Shadeflower]

Originally Posted by tmoney

that observation is that after i soap wash foliage on my plants, after a week they seem to have a little jumpstart in growth.

Every orchid I have washed has had this little jumpstart but I was soaking this roots in soapy water (regular dishwashing liquid, fairy to be exact)
and then spraying the leaves with insecticide.

I was worried I would set my orchids back but surprisingly I observed what you are saying.
It's most likely just because I killed the thrips.

Some orchids I have had to wash up to 5 times again and again and again.

This corningiana is doing great after just one wash. I haven't spotted any more and the leaf is growing well.

[tmoney]

Originally Posted by YetAnotherOrchidNut

What type of soap do you use? I have seen various recommendations but never from someone who grows orchids.

ha, whatever dish soap i have on hand! this time i mixed up the super precise measurement of a solid squeeze into the small squirt bottle and a good shake before spraying the crap out of everything.

[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

Interesting. I have seen it argued that cleaning a plant can improve photosynthesis. But why would the effect fade after a short period? Anyway, I try to routinely spray my plants down somehow (like every 6 weeks or so), but i never use soap. Ill try it next time. Thanks a lot for the info.

update: rereading i think maybe I misunderstood you. did you mean "that about a week later you notice the plant gets happier", or did you mean "for about a week after the plant gets happier". Rereading I think you mean the former right? Makes more sense to me anyway.

I have been dealing with some minor insect issues recently, I have some plants isolated for treatment and I'm thinking maybe I will try this this weekend on the rest. The soap will help clean down the shower after I use the insecticide at least...

[tmoney]

Originally Posted by YetAnotherOrchidNut

Interesting. I have seen it argued that cleaning a plant can improve photosynthesis. But why would the effect fade after a short period? Anyway, I try to routinely spray my plants down somehow (like every 6 weeks or so), but i never use soap. Ill try it next time. Thanks a lot for the info.

update: rereading i think maybe I misunderstood you. did you mean "that about a week later you notice the plant gets happier", or did you mean "for about a week after the plant gets happier". Rereading I think you mean the former right? Makes more sense to me anyway.

I have been dealing with some minor insect issues recently, I have some plants isolated for treatment and I'm thinking maybe I will try this this weekend on the rest. The soap will help clean down the shower after I use the insecticide at least...

yeah give it a try and let us know what you see. but also yes, it seems to take a week before i see signs of recovery or new growth. then things keep chugging along until i realize it’s been a year without a wash. ill also mention that i do routinely wash plants in the shower with water only, but that doesn’t seem to have the same jumpstart effect as when i use soap, so there is definitely something to the soap bath. just my opinion tho

[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

Interesting. It seems obvious that soap would clean the leaves better than just water. I sometimes use wet-wipes from Albert Heijn (grocery store) to wipe down the leaves of my plants. Especially if there is any suspected insect action. But I haven't noticed any post cleaning bounce back. It might be interested to do a test with different cleaning methods and see if there is a a real observable difference between the plants. Ideally on clones. I know I feel like the plants are happier, but I can not say either way if they really change growth pattern, it could just as easily be a visual trick. I think it is a really interesting question if there is a real effect here. It feels plausible to me.

One could clean with a rag and soapy water to eliminate the "soap in the media" possibility I guess.

I like questions like this. Lots of times in history institutional scientists have failed to observe little things like this that practitioners had known for years. Not a criticism of institutional scientists mind you, just an observation that this idea is not preposterous to me. I can imagine that folks are hardly rushing to issue research grants on the effect of dish soap on houseplant growth. :-) [Also it could be hard to test, maybe the dust from certain types of living spaces is more problematic than the dust in a greenhouse, or whatever, so you could run tests with the wrong dust and never see the effect.]

In a few years I should have 3 clones of Phal meriae that could be used to test this. Right now they are too small. :-)

[tmoney]

sounds like a perfect excuse to buy some more plants

but yes, to really be scientific one would need to collect baseline data for awhile before testing and clearly establish controls. that is a tricky thing for non scientists. for those tested plants one would need to know what is normal for leaf production and how long from the end of one leaf growing to the start of another new leaf starting. the two phals that grew new leaves after the wash had each grew one leaf this summer, but then stopped and weren’t growing new leaves or spikes or roots, just totally stalled. then both started growing the new leaf almost on the exact same day, which is the observation that really stuck out to me this time.