I've heard several theories. The only one that made any sense at all to me,
I heard from Martin Motes, and it applies mostly to orchids with big fat
roots (lots of velamen). When the velamen covering the roots is dry, it
tends to shed water until enough gets through to switch it over to the
soaking-up mode. So if you spray fertilizer solution on these dry roots,
there's more waste, and more fert. falling on the floor to help your algae
grow. Not a real issue in small to medium hobby collections, but worth at
least thinking about in a large shadehouse.
--
Kenni Judd
Juno Beach Orchids
http://www.jborchids.com.


"blass" wrote in message
...

What the point of watering the orchids before applying fertilizers (half
the strength recommended). What's the logic in this. I've been
directly applying fertilizers on the orchids for three months now and
they're all doing very well.


--
blass