My own experience says that most orchids do not need to have nutrition
withheld in order to induce blooming, but for those that do, I resume
feeding as soon as I see the emergence of an inflorescence.

Some plants, phals for example, respond instead to a sharp day-night
temperature drop, while some catts look for changes in day length.
Others seem to respond better to constant feeding. My vandaceous
plants (mostly ascocendas) used to bloom once or twice a year, but
since switching to a year-round application of a stronger fertilizer
dose at every watering, they tend to do so more often, sometimes
growing a new spike as the old one fades.

I don't know if anyone has compiled a reference about those factors,
but it's an interesting idea.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, and Lots of Free Info!
..
"salgud" wrote in message
oups.com...
Now that my paph is blooming, I need some advice. One of my orchid
books says they should be fed from Feb through Oct. This makes some
sense to me because up until this past fall, I fed and watered them
year round. I had read that one way to get orchids to bloom was to
stop
feeding them, so I stopped feeding the 3 healthiest looking ones,
including the paph, a few months ago.
But what should I do with the spiking paph? Should I start to feed
it
now, since it's spiking, or wait until Feb? Or until it's done
flowering? The book says to feed it while it's flowering, but not
between the end of Oct and the beginning of Feb? So what am I
supposed
to do?
In this general vein, does anyone know of a table, or at least some
good reference, listing when to feed and water the different major
categories of orchids, and when not to? Now that stopping watering
and
feeding has worked with one, I want to try it with the others to see
if
I can get more to flower. Geez, at this rate, I'm quickly moving
toward
being one of those old orchid people, like the cat people who own 43
cats. At least the orchids will smell better! But it seems my life
is
becoming more and more centered around my orchids!