Trouble with Phal spikes

[FourN6]

Hi everyone! I am new here and joined so I could pick your brains for solutions to my phalaenopsis troubles. I have a Phal that began growing a spike in late January/early February which I thought was late but-it's a spike. The spike came from the same side as last year's but lower. So low it's coming out of the media. I thought that was strange. The spike grew to maybe 3 inches tall and stopped with a single bud that has curled under. Not very impressive compared to last year's spike that was a foot tall with 6-8 buds.

The Phal is in a 5 inch pot with healthy leaves and roots. I grow under lights and I'm concerned my lighting isn't sufficient. I have 2 T5 fluorescents on for ~12 hours in a plant "cabana" but I don't believe they are high output fluorescents. Temps inside the cabana are about 80 degrees most days and dropped to about 60 degrees at night during the winter. Now that the weather is improving, temps at night are a bit higher.

I have included a picture of my sad little spike that I hope comes through. I am open to suggestions as to how I can improve my growing habits to produce more spectacular blooms.

[PaphLover]

Lots of healthy aerial roots, green leaves, plump bud. All looks good...though I was all twisted up with my head cocked sideways .

Do you have photos of your phal in bloom last time? Is is a NOID or does it have a name? Do you fertilize?

If you bought it with multiple spikes, don't forget that growers/ nurseries have perfect orchid conditions: light, temp, humidity. Trying to get the same out of your orchid at home can be difficult. Not impossible, but challenging. I've bought many a phal with two spikes that only produced one for me the next blooming. Don't fret. It's an accomplishment to get it to rebloom!

[estación seca]

Welcome!

That's better than nothing!

Your growing conditions are probably not as good as at the commercial grower. They have to get the best looking plants out the door as fast as possible, because zeit ist geld, so they aim to provide the very best lighting, heat, watering and fertilizing. We hobbyists do the best we can. Once we learn more about our plants, they look better and better all the time.

[FourN6]

Here is a partial picture from last year. Sorry, I'm afraid it's going to be sideways again. I haven't figured out how to rotate them yet. The tag says Phalaenopsis Sogo Grape Fireball.

[PaphLover]

Oh, it's lovely!!! I'd be pretty happy to have one bloom of that! Nice choice!

[ccrow]

Very pretty! (And if you figure out how to make your pictures right side up, please tell me how to do it, lol!)

[bil]

Originally Posted by ccrow

Very pretty! (And if you figure out how to make your pictures right side up, please tell me how to do it, lol!)

I use Imgur to hold mine, and there are controls in there to rotate the image. If you look thru the controls for your site if you can, there may be similar ones there.

[ccrow]

Originally Posted by bil

I use Imgur to hold mine, and there are controls in there to rotate the image. If you look thru the controls for your site if you can, there may be similar ones there.

I've been taking the pictures with my phone, then emailing them to myself; then I upload them from my desktop. The thing is, I've tried rotating it first, but it still showed up wrong in the post.

[PaphLover]

This also happened to me when using pictures from my phone. I asked about it way back when and got some answers. If I remember correctly seems a pretty standard problem.

---------- Post added at 09:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:41 AM ----------

Here. I found this:

Originally Posted by RosieC

Sideways photos can be down to the make of camera/phone they were taken on.

When a photo is taken a marker is written to it as to which way round it should be shown (portrait or landscape) however the marker in the file is not completely standard between different camera manufacturers. Most notably iPhone/iPad seems to use a different system to others.

Operating systems like Windows 8 can recognise most of the markers (Windows 7 still showed some iPhone photos my sister sent me sideways, but the same photos show fine in Windows 8). However the forum does not recognize some of them, and that's the most likely reason for sideways pictures.

In the software you use to edit/manage your photos try rotating it, saving it, then rotating it back. If that's done on a PC it usually means when you load it to the forum it will be the right way round.

[ccrow]

Ok... I'll have to give that a try! It is an iphone so hopefully that will work.

Just opened one, and lo and behold, it was sideways in Microsoft Office picture manager... I guess the iPhone is to blame, lol! Here's a test pic of one of my favorite NoID Phals: