Keith,

My advice is to forget about the 35-10-10 so-called "orchid food." The high
nitrogen content is there based upon some old work (back when fir bark was
the standard medium, and repotting was infrequent) that indicated that the
microorganisms that decompose bark consume a lot of nitrogen as they do, so
the content was increased to compensate. In other media ingredients, and
because modern cultural methods result in us repotting before the medium
gets in THAT bad of a condition, the rate of nitrogen consumption by those
critters is a minor concern at most. Frequent use of the high-nitrogen
fertilizer may give you really lush vegetative growth, but it can actually
reduce- or stop flowering altogether.

The Tomerite is probably OK, but I would be wary of that small amount of Mg
unless there's a fair amount already in your water supply. If there's not,
it's easy to supplement with Epsom Salts.

In reality, if we wanted to be technically correct, each of us would use a
slightly different fertilizer solution, as the base water chemistries that
we have to work with differs. For those of us using pure water to start, it
gets more standardized of course, but I'd bet that there are likely
different needs between individual plants, too. (Let's not go there...)

A few months before the AOS article on the MSU fertilizer was published, I
started having conversations with Bill Argo, the PhD who worked with the MSU
folks, and learned a great deal. I do not consider my knowledge to be
sufficient to become a lecturer on the subject, but if you read the MSU
article (I retyped it and put it on my website), and the five-article series
on general plant nutrition that Bill published in the International
Phalaenopsis Alliance magazine (also on my website - Bill sent me the PDF
files for that purpose), you will come away with a much better
understanding.

http://www.firstrays.com/msu_fertilizer.htm

http://www.firstrays.com/nutrition.htm
--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, and Lots of Free Info!
..
"kenty ;-)" wrote in message
...
I am sure this is a boring subject for most by now but I am interested to
know what you think of this fertilizer ratio & what feeding you guys give
to
your orchids?The fertilizer is Q is called tomerite,its ratio is N 4.0/ P
4.5 /K8.0 & Magnesium 0.03 as you can tell from the name it is a tomato
feed.When I first started growing orchids I used a orchid feed
(35/10/10).When I joined a orchid society a guy I know uses this tomato
feed
all year round ,so I have been using it for a while now too.Know I am more
involved with orchids I am wondering whether this is good for the plants.I
am thinking of using the 35/10/10 feed then switching to the other to
ripen
the new growths.I would prefer to use one feed all year round for ease of
use,any advise is appreciated.
Thanks Keith,England,UK.