Looking for a good fertilizer

[Gazpacho]

I installed a worm farm about 6 months ago. I feed them vegetable scraps and every now and again throw some water on them to keep things moist and cool. This water makes its way through the worm castings to a bin below the worm farm. I put a bit of that juice in a bucket, top it up with water and dunk my orchid pots into it.

[Ferns Daddy]

I've been using Rapid gro 19-24-18 for my orchids, but was told to use only half the amount called and water with it every week, I'm not sure if I should keep using it. It has help my Phals grow better but I still don't get any flowers on them
FD

[tucker85]

I've had good luck with both MSU and balanced fertilizers. Right now I'm using Southern Ag 16-3-16 6CA 3MG from Broward Orchid Supply. I think you should also consider the MSU fertilizer from First Ray's. He's very knowledgeable when it comes to fertilizer. I also like Norman's fertilizer from Orchids.com.

[Orquiadicto]

Originally Posted by RosieC

I would recommend MSU. I recently started using the European version of it and I love it.

What is the European version of it? If available in Spain, I might switch to it.

[lepetitmartien]

it's called Rain Mix, made by Akerne in Belgium. There's a distributor in Portugal but not in Spain but I'm sure you can get it by parcel mail.

see : Akerne Orchids: Akerne's RAIN MIX ®

[RosieC]

Sorry, late coming back to this. But yes it's Akerne's Rain Mix that I use.

Masdyman here on OB is the UK distributor but the one in Portugal might be better for you.

[Tatika]

Originally Posted by gardengirl13

I used one that was an orchid food, but had urea in it so I stopped using it. Luckily I rarely used it as I didn't notice it helping.

Recently I bought Better-Gro bloom booster. I know bloom boosters don't really work, but I've had issues with higher nitrogen ferts with beautiful green leaves and no flowers (for orchids and none orchids) this one is 11-35-15. Since using it I've noticed more root growth and two phals may have spikes as of this weekend!! I use it very weakly with almost every time I water. Some days when things seem dry I just use plain water. But it says a teaspoon per gal I probably use 1/4 or less of a teaspoon.

I may have what sounds like a silly question, (I'm a new orchid mommy)- but would it have an adverse effect on the orchid if you were to give it at full strength? I'm looking into orchid fertilizer but i dont want to harm my baby

[cbuchman]

The risk in using the fert full strength is that you could "burn" the roots. Full strength will also result in fert salt build up which can eventually be toxic too. So best to use the diluted amount. If you have used full strength, just be sure to flush with plain water to flush out any accumulated salts.

[naoki]

Carrie is right, just a bit of details. I think "root buring" is basically caused by the dehydration of root cells. Do you remember "osmosis"? Across a semi-permeable membrane (root cell membrane), water moves toward the region with higher salt concentration. So if the solute concentration outside of the root is higher than inside of the root cells, roots lose water instead of absorb water. Water is "passively" absorbed and transported to the leaves due to the "pull" from transpiration (tension-cohesion theory). Some plants have special mechanism to grow in salty soils, but most orchids are not good at dealing with this.

[mattryan]

I use the same as white rabbit. Better gro all of my orchids that I wanted to spike have this year. Some more than once. I use 20-14-13 formula urea free.

Cheryl