A precocious walkeriana

[Katahdin]

I might need to stop messing with my lights. tokyo#1 x goias

 

[Paphman910]

Very nice collection! Flower is beautiful!

 

[My Green Pets]

Beautiful! Can you comment on how much time between the last growth completing and the flower spike starting? Thank you

 

[Katahdin]

Beautiful! Can you comment on how much time between the last growth completing and the flower spike starting? Thank you

It is a single bulb (unless you count that old flower stalk) division that I bought 6 months ago. I adjusted my light timer down an hour and it threw the spike. I knew that walkers and many other species are photoperiod bloomers, but not that they were this sensitive. I think I may have also induced a two inch pot seedling walker to bloom as well...

This is an very nice clone, and the plant is capable of a better bloom size, shape, and number. It tried for 3 blossoms but had to drop two. I would have probably preferred it grow a bit more before blooming.

 

[DrLeslieEe]

'It does what it want to' lol.

It looks like you have many robust walkies in the background. What culture you have for them?

 

[NYEric]

Nice, must smell great.

 

[Katahdin]

'It does what it want to' lol.

It looks like you have many robust walkies in the background. What culture you have for them?

Thanks. They live in a grow box in my basement with most of my other cattleyas. The temperature is very bouncy with 15-20f differential when the lights go on and off. Lights at the current height produce about 300 ppfd - should have gone lower output but too late. The good thing about the basement is the total night darkness means they bloom frequently. Nobilior seedlings are growing quite rapidly under these conditions too. I fog them on a timer so I can ignore them for long stretches of time.

 

[DrLeslieEe]

The fogger is on only in morning or all day? The high humidity doesn’t bother them in terms of fungal?

 

[Katahdin]

The fogger is on only in morning or all day? The high humidity doesn’t bother them in terms of fungal?

Its on a 7 day programmable timer. For a while now I have been running it for 6 hours during the day twice a week to wet everything and also for 15 min increments several times a day for humidity. The lights are fairly drying so it gets the roots looking green-wet for a few hours and then dries up. No fungal issues...yet

 

[DrLeslieEe]

It’s in balance! Fantastic…

 

[NYEric]

I have killed many orchids (Pleuros) with a fogger!!

 

[JustinR]

Thanks. They live in a grow box in my basement with most of my other cattleyas. The temperature is very bouncy with 15-20f differential when the lights go on and off. Lights at the current height produce about 300 ppfd - should have gone lower output but too late. The good thing about the basement is the total night darkness means they bloom frequently. Nobilior seedlings are growing quite rapidly under these conditions too. I fog them on a timer so I can ignore them for long stretches of time.

Cool fog chamber! Why should you have gone lower output? Walkeriana should be ok with that I guess? It seems to like it

 

[Katahdin]

Cool fog chamber! Why should you have gone lower output? Walkeriana should be ok with that I guess? It seems to like it

Walkers and nobilior love the light at 250-300ppfd. However as you can see in the picture the lights are about 2' high which is not ideal in terms of wasted light. I could lower them without burning the plants, but the center area under the footprint of the light would hit about 400-500 ppfd which causes them stress. I grow mostly species cattleya-alliance in here, and other species, even some that are described as "high light" are far more sensitive to ppfd overload. These lights about 15'' turned a b. nodasa and b. perrinii completely magenta.

Here is an excellent article I should have read before buying my current set of lights (mars ts-1000): Target PPFD for Orchids and Tropical Plants

Essentially weed lights are super cheap and offer a ton of light but the huge intensity over a small area is not appropriate for most orchids. Still a goodish option if you want to grow a bunch of walkers, nobilior, purpurata, etc. I am considering buying more digital timers to toggle individual lights on and off during the day - in other words fake clouds - to lower the total electric consumption and reduce the amount of light.

 

[Katahdin]

I have killed many orchids (Pleuros) with a fogger!!

How did that happen? I thought they love humidity and fog.

 

[Paphman910]

Those must be waterproof LED that you are using!

 

[My Green Pets]

Love the setup and the foggers. I have yet to venture into the realm of automatic watering but I would love to get there. Great job achieving the 'balance' ... I'm still working on that.