For my part, I would rather give you the address of good mail order houses and on line sources of good fertilizer. I dont believe your are so far out in the sticks that you cant receive shipments or have to pipe in sunlight. If I had to use what might be laying around I would use cow manure tea.

Believe me, I have absolutely no need for mail order shopping as i regularly use NPK 21.21.21.... I use the fish pond water as an extra during the week to reuse it rather than putting it down the drain. In fact i'm living and working right in the middle of the city.

Wheather or not to use urea based fertilizers(on Orchids) is a debate I have heard often am not convinced either way. My understanding is that Urea has to be further broken down by bacteria and the rate of breakdown depends on temperature. My conclusion has always been that Nitrates and ammonia fertilizers can be directly used by orchids and require no further breakdown - therefore may be better but only because of the rate fertilizers are flushed out of pots by watering. Urea may not do as much good because it may not stay around long enought to be broken down. Thats my two cents worth.

deleted wrong posting

Hi,

I can empathise with your sentiments about the state of orchid growing in Singapore. I grow mainly fragrant vandas of tessellata X insignis lineage, cymbidium dayanum, finlaysonianum and heat tolerant cymbidiums from pakkret floriculture, and some warm loving phalaenopsis like cornu cervi and amboinensis and lueddemannia hybrids. And of course I have the Chinese new year phalaenopsis that my family bought.

How I wish that more Singaporean orchid growers have a better awareness of the climate and grow indigenous plants rather than imported temperate ones. Just because the imports are novel and a "challenge" to make them flourish and bloom.

Braveall

I've been doing some research on this, and it seems that everything is a matter of degree.

Urea can be absorbed directly through the roots, but only at a very low rate. It is pretty good as a foliar feed however, as it moves through the ectodesmata pretty readily. Once it decomposes, the urea breakdown products (mostly ammonia) can be absorbed by the roots. The argument seems to be simply whether that happens sufficiently in an orchid-pot environment.

Nitrates and ammonium compounds are poor for foliar feeding, but are readily absorbed by the roots. Nitrates are known to give more compact plants, for some reason I haven't found yet.

I think I read someplace -- maybe Howard Garrett in Dallas -- that ammonia causes the plants to take up more water while elongating; ammonia = floppy (I think) while the nitrate doesn't do that.

In malaysia orchid growers tend to use overnight tea to water the orchids.
I personally drink tea every day,so i just use the tea that i can't finish to water the orchids the next day.Using tea to water the orchids will help in flowering because of the tannic acid in the tea,it is also good for killing bugs in the orchid mix.
Hope this helps

Egg shells and used tea remains are the best costless homemade fertilizers.

home made
 

1. Raw rice washing water. (daily )
2.. sprats washing water.
3. cow dung liquidized.
flowers get bigger.