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 wrote:

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.


Actually, that's what they were recommending in books I was reading 25
years ago. I think that idea has pretty much died out. Today, I think
it's more common to use a more dilute fertilizer (without pre watering)
and use it every time, flushing with lots of plain water once in a
while. How often to use the plain water depends on your water quality.
In my case, they get flushed repeatedly by rain in the summer and maybe
once by me in the winter, if I get around to it. If there are many
minerals in your water, you should think more like once a month. (how
did I manage to change the subject again?)
Oh, one more thing. If I manage to neglect the plants and let them get
too dry, I'll often water with no fertilizer, just to rehydrate them. I
go back to the fertilizer the next watering. I'm not sure that is needed
but it's what I do.

Steve

"Steve" wrote in message
...
blass wrote:

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.


Actually, that's what they were recommending in books I was reading 25
years ago. I think that idea has pretty much died out. Today, I think
it's more common to use a more dilute fertilizer (without pre watering)
and use it every time, flushing with lots of plain water once in a
while. How often to use the plain water depends on your water quality.
In my case, they get flushed repeatedly by rain in the summer and maybe
once by me in the winter, if I get around to it. If there are many
minerals in your water, you should think more like once a month. (how
did I manage to change the subject again?)
Oh, one more thing. If I manage to neglect the plants and let them get
too dry, I'll often water with no fertilizer, just to rehydrate them. I
go back to the fertilizer the next watering. I'm not sure that is needed
but it's what I do.

Steve

The only reason I can think of is to make the potting mix more absorbable so
it takes in more fertilizer instead of flushing straight through the pot.But
how much fertilizer does a orchid take from the potting mix?I don't
know.Like Steve says about when the mix gets too dry ,sometimes dunking the
whole pot is necessary.
Thanks Keith

Watering first reduces the uptake of nutrients.

Back in the days when little science was applied to plant nutrition,
fertilization was usually done heavily and infrequently. As a result, if
you fed first, you often burned the roots with excessive salts.

On a positive note, watering first does increase liquid uptake by the
medium, so it will retain more for future use by the plants between
waterings. Unfortunately, it also leads to more-rapid salt buildup.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"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

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

Interesting thoughts. Kenni, Motes, that does seem sound. But in their
monthly newsletter they repeatedly point to the "water first, fert second"
as being incorrect. Having said that, some of our larger Vandas have such
thick roots that feeding with a wand would take forever if they were not
watered first. So we let the watering system go on in the AM as usual and
fertilize a little later in the morning. They seem to like it.

Diana

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
...
Interesting thoughts. Kenni, Motes, that does seem sound. But in their
monthly newsletter they repeatedly point to the "water first, fert second"
as being incorrect. Having said that, some of our larger Vandas have such
thick roots that feeding with a wand would take forever if they were not
watered first. So we let the watering system go on in the AM as usual and
fertilize a little later in the morning. They seem to like it.

Diana

So is the reason for fertilize without watering first to reduce salt buildup
in the potting media? Or am i missing something?
Cheers Keith

If your goal is reducing salt buildup, feed frequently and dilutely, and
flush in between.

My comment about watering first favoring salt buildup was related to the
fact that dry bark does not absorb well, so it's a fairly common practice to
water first to "open" the pores up, then water again to let it absorb more.
So, if you feed with one shot, the bark will not absorb as much as with a
water-then-feed scenario.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"keith ;-)" wrote in message
...

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
...
Interesting thoughts. Kenni, Motes, that does seem sound. But in
their
monthly newsletter they repeatedly point to the "water first, fert
second"
as being incorrect. Having said that, some of our larger Vandas have such
thick roots that feeding with a wand would take forever if they were not
watered first. So we let the watering system go on in the AM as usual and
fertilize a little later in the morning. They seem to like it.

Diana

So is the reason for fertilize without watering first to reduce salt
buildup
in the potting media? Or am i missing something?
Cheers Keith

Hi, Diana: Well, we all change our minds as we try new things through the
years G. Or maybe the newsletter advice is targeted to the bigger
market -- there aren't all that many hobbyists with more than a couple
hundred orchids, and with less, as I mentioned before, it's really a
non-issue -- unless it's misapplied, such as doing a full watering and then
feeding immediately, while the roots are still too saturated to soak up
anymore ... It's very easy for advice to "mutate" or be misunderstood or
misapplied -- e.g., I have abandoned the phrase "evenly moist" for Phals,
because too many people seem to interpret it as "sopping wet all the time."
Most of my customers do better when I tell them to water "just before it
gets bone-dry."

Ideally, I like to run our water in two short cycles, rather than one long
one. We have 6 watering zones, so the plants in Zone 1 are just about done
dripping from the first round and ready for more when the second round
starts. On feeding day, the fert. goes in the second round. But time
doesn't always permit, and it doesn't seem to make a big difference either
way.

Kenni

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
...
Interesting thoughts. Kenni, Motes, that does seem sound. But in their
monthly newsletter they repeatedly point to the "water first, fert second"
as being incorrect. Having said that, some of our larger Vandas have such
thick roots that feeding with a wand would take forever if they were not
watered first. So we let the watering system go on in the AM as usual and
fertilize a little later in the morning. They seem to like it.

Diana

thanks for all your great inputs, guys. I attended a seminar here and they told me the reason why you need to water before applying the fertilizer was watering first makes the roots "spongy" so as to take in the nutrients it needs upon fertilizing minutes later. Oh well....,

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:38:38 +0000 in blass wrote:

thanks for all your great inputs, guys. I attended a seminar here and
they told me the reason why you need to water before applying the
fertilizer was watering first makes the roots "spongy" so as to take in
the nutrients it needs upon fertilizing minutes later. Oh well....,

You know, this strikes me as a series of good research projects for
a university's horticulture department/college, and possibly psychology
department.
1) A study on what the most effective techniques are for commercial production.
2) A study as to which techniques when applied to the home/hobbyist environment
are most likely to be done.
3) A study as to which plants thrive and which die given the results
of the previous.

And #2 could even drive a design project for the electrical engineering/
computer engineering folks (How to monitor how people take care of an
orchid without invading privacy and without alerting the people they
are being monitored).

Take with a grain of sand, I'm not sure if I'm trolling or not.

--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil