Perreiraara Sunshine Padriew Not Blooming

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Is it getting any magnesium?

[Shadeflower]

mop, there are different consensuses on how much to feed.

I feed my Vanda's weaker than you are at the moment.

Others might be feeding more. Don't just change your techniques overnight based on a theory.

Ok lets put it like this, ask who here thinks you need to feed more than the 1 tablespoon per gallon you are currently feeding. Once you have 3 opinions then make up your mind.

Burning roots is a real issue with Vanda's and once a root is damaged the damage is irreversible and will stay with the plant for the next 5 years. So it's easy to make a mistake and regret it. If you feed too little it might develop a little bit of a deficiency which can easily be fixed.
If you feed too much it cannot be fixed. It might be able to handle more, just be careful and only do it if you have confirmation from other Vanda growers that you definetely need more.

The roots are good but also not very plentiful. If you were to weigh the leaf mass on top and way the root mass below I woud estimate currently it is 3 to 1 weight wise.

I would estimate the root mass should be at least 2/3 of the weight of the leaves above.

So once the Vase is filled with some more roots.

This will take a year. But it does look in good shape. It might even be able to flower this year but if I had to guess I'd say it would be ready by next year.

I'd use that time to monitor if it needs more fertilizer or not. Based on the good root growth I'd say this one is doing great.

Feed it more and you might cause browning.

As long as the leaves are showing no deficiency (I cannot detect any) then fertilizing more will not promote flowering in any way. The act of flowering will be initiated from other triggers and the fertilizer might play a role in how many flowers will be produced which will give you a refernce point to judge with.

If you just go full strenth fertilzer now you will not be able to monitor any results, unless it happens to be the perfect conditions it needs...

I would have said it can actually handle more light... That is something I would be trying in your shoes right now. Leaves will always redden a bit after moving and adjusting to a new light but that reddenning has already faded imo. Reddening is a good thing to have on the leaves to get it to flower. Initially leaves can turn red from stress too, I've even had some develop red leaves from thrip damage (stress response). I think this one can get more light. If the leaves turn too red you can always back it off again. There is no harm finding the right light level based on the reddening of the leaves. MAke sure it wasn't just stress cauing them to turn red but definetely the upper limiit of light that it can handle.

[mopwr]

Thanks for the replies. I do know that the roots are not nearly as big as I've seen on some plants, but it's just what I got from Motes - figuring it was enough to support blooming since it was sold as "blooming size", but that may not be a fair assumption. Regarding the reddening, I'm sure it's in response to light - where two leaves would overlap, the one on the bottom had a "tan line" basically, where there was no red.

As far as the Calcium and Magnesium, this vanda is on k-lite - like all of my orchids at this point. I had started out with Max-Sea balanced fertilizer and liked it well enough, but at higher dosages (like I'd do for vandas and catasetums) that was a recipe for slimy green algae all over everything it touched, plants grew fine, but they grow the same on k-lite without nearly as much algae and salt build-up... Anectodal evidence IMO to support that plants don't use all of those higher P and K values, but algae does and what it doesn't use just sits in the pot unused, but that's a whole other topic.

Regarding the not blooming, based on what I'm reading here and an honest look back at the plant, I do agree it probably just needs more time to develop a more full root system. Luckily, it looks like it's working hard on that as we speak and it's pushing a new monster root, almost the thickness of my pinky, straight from the main stem.

[Shadeflower]

I'd be very happy if I had bought that one.
Blooming size rarely means it will bloom straight away. It's certainly a decent sized healthy vanda.

I see your theory on removing K and I will counter it by saying maybe the algae is not growing because all plants need K to grow. Algae needs K, potatoes need K, orchids need K. Leave out the K and no more algae grows... Right?...

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Vanda root diameter is related to ambient humidity. Larger with good humidity. Plants with Neo/Vanda falcata ancestry have smaller roots.

Root growth is fast in good conditions.

Leaves should grow fast enough there is a 1cm zone of pale green new growth at the base of newest leaves. This means 3-5 new leaves per year. If temperatures are proper (high enough) leaf growth is directly proportional to fertilizer dose.

Get Mote's book.

[WaterWitchin]

You gettin' commission off Motes' book ES?

[Shadeflower]

WW, your comment made me finally check out what Motes goes on about.

Note: he starts talking in spanish within the first 5 minutes. No clue what he says but would convert me instantly if I was a spanish speaker.

Interestingly I have disagreed with lots ES has mentioned motes suggests - I have never actually read his book!

But today I had enough and I wanted to check it out so I put myself through watching one of his 35 minute care videos. He has several..

Ok so it starts off talking about the universal motes watering methid,
cohesiveness of water, how to be a zen grower, the penetration power of water.

It all made me yawn a bit but then it actually starts to get interesting at about the 15 minute mark!

Ok that is if you can listen to him talking over what sounds like a jet engine taking off in the background.

What he says about fertilizing is either the opposite of what his book mentions or he has since changed his methods.

What he says about fertilizing I completely agree with in his video.

So what is going on?

He says never to use more than half strength MSU formula.

He explains how his imported Vanda's from Thailand all suffer from a Magnesium deficiency throughout the first year he grows them on and it takes a year for the deficient symptoms to disappear.

This I found very good info, so although he was fertilizing them correctly the plants would show reddening leaves for an entire year because they had been grown deficiently in Thailand all along and the deficiency never showed because in Thailand it never got cold enough.

Anyway a very good video and I will no longer question Motes again since he recommends everything I recommend...

It just seems over the years what he really says got lost in translation or his book is outdated.

He does say in this video he used to do things differently.

It's worth going with his latest beliefs, not what he was doing when he first started growing.

*rough cut* Florida Orchid Growing Part 2: Florida Vanda Growing - YouTube

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Originally Posted by WaterWitchin

You gettin' commission off Motes' book ES?

No. I do my best to read, and learn from, writings by people with much more knowledge and experience than I have. Motes does not mention how he mixes fertilizer in that video. Following his fertilizer recommendation of 1 Tablespoon/15 ml per gallon / 3.8 liters of water at every 5th watering leads to Vandas growing quite rapidly.

[Shadeflower]

ES he says in his video you have to use the water to administer fertilizers.

Water he says is the transport vessel to deliver fertilizer.

You should never wet the roots with plain water before fertilizing.

And you should fertilize on every watering.

Then every 5th to 6th watering you feed plain water but he does emphasise it should not be tap water as that is loaded with salts too so flushing with tap water he says is detrimental.

WAtching that video from the 15 minute mark to the 20 minute mark has been the best advice I have seen all year.

He mentions my nemesis the thrip and how a collegue of his had had thrips in his collection for 60 years without realizing!

So that is why I said something has gone lost in tranlation..

It is true he doesn't specify exactly how much MSU to feed after rewatching that bit, all he says is never to feed more than half the recommended dose of a 20-20-20 fertilizer.

Lets say the full dose of a 20-20-20 fertilizer was 1000ppm which is what he used to feed, in this video he says never to feed more than half of that or 500ppm max.

So can we agree now that Vanda's should not be fed more than 500ppm?

---------- Post added at 09:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 AM ----------

update:

I tried to determine what strength 1 teapsoon of MSU per gallon works out as.

From my initial research which might be wrong it seems the ppm of such a fertilizer concentration comes out at ~900ppm

From another post posted by Ray a couple years ago, hope I can post this quote to illustrate feeding more is not necessarily better:

Originally Posted by Ray

Tony, you jumped into an 8-year old thread here, and my recommendations have changed significantly since then!

After several years of frequent application of the MSU RO formula @ 125 ppm N, I noticed that while my plants grew very well, I just wasn't getting the blooming I should. In discussions with folks well-educated in the field, it was suggested I was overdoing the nitrogen. (In retrospect, if you look at what orchids see in nature, it's VERY frequent watering with very pure water containing almost nothing [analyses have demonstrated a max of 15-20 ppm TDS, almost all of it nitrogen], so it make a lot of sense).

After doing some more research on epiphytic plant biology (and plants in general), I decided to modify my feeding regimen, reducing the nitrogen loading to about 20% of the former, to 25 ppm N. I have been feeding at that concentration, using K-Lite (12-1-1-10Ca-3Mg) for 6 or 7 years now, and after about a year or so of that - watering 3-4 times a week in summer, maybe half that in winter in PA - I saw the blooming significantly improve.

Over the next couple of years, I incorporated monthly doses of KelpMax and Concentric Ag Garden Solution into that, and am constantly amazed how well my collection grows, blooms, and multiplies.

[mopwr]

Thanks for all the replies, it has made me give a second thought to how I'm growing this plant, and, in particular the note about how (per the video with Dr. Motes) imports are often nutrient deficient on arrival. I had heard about how Vandas were notoriously hard to grow and bloom (at least up in northern climates) and never assumed that seemingly large / healthy plants could have come over to me starting at a disadvantage. It makes a lot of sense, especially if you think about how most vandas you see are likely to be imports, at least in my area. I even recall my plant being listed on the Motes website as an import. Well, I have it on k-lite which supplies Ca & Mg, so that is likely helping, but it probably wouldn't hurt to give it a monthly boost for a little while with a little Cal-Mag.

With regards to dosages on fertilizer, I already do 25ppm N dosing for most of my plants that get watered 3 times a week (I target 75ppm N a week in active growth) - my vandas I was giving a bit more because I heard they were heavy feeders. My catasetums get like 300ppm N a week or more at the height of their growth, but that's a whole other story.

I guess I could treat the vandas like my other plants, not so sure now...

In any event, a tangent... Look at this root! It's almost as thick as the stem it's growing from, and now it's pushing two more from the other side. At least the plant is happy enough to grow for me.