On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:47:31 -0500, "Ray"
wrote:

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.

For a gh grower I would say the balance is easy. You have the
light you can feed better. But many windowsill or underlight
growers need to be careful of too much fertilizer. I am still
one that suggests the balance is more important than the timing.
The balance between light and food. So I would think you might
have had a limited light problem and the plants grew to the food
rather than balancing their growth and bloom. When they no
longer had excess food they settled into a more normal pattern of
growth and bloom. This is generally just a case of too much
nitrogen. Before - were you getting very dark green lush
growths? This is also a sign of too much nitrogen. A little
less food or a little more light, probably either would have
produced the blooms.

We too fertilize year around. The only plants I withhold
anything on is the ones that rot if wet in the winter. And I am
not always successful in drying them... ya, some die, then I
don't have to worry about next year. Some just don't bloom as
they should because they do not get dry enough.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php