finally P tigrinum

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Love the dorsal on this one, Rick. Plus, I'm envious of all those growths. Nice clumping! I "think" my plant will begin clumping now that I'm paying a lot of attention to not letting it stay damp all the time. Very careful watering in a clear pot and now, growing it in a net pot help to give it a wet/dry cycle that seems to suit this species. Have you tried giving it a bit more calcium (Calcium nitrate), once you see the bud coming up. The blasting problem strikes me as a deficiency and my first thought is too little calcium causing weak-walled cells in the tender and rapidly growing flower stems/buds.

Thanks John

Well this plant has been in range of the fogger for the last few years, and stays damp most of the time. Especially when its warm in the GH. It also grew fine semi hydro for a few years with constant water at the roots.

As per calcium nitrate, the basic answer is yes since K lite is predominantly calcium nitrate. Also my fogger is exuding well water that is very high in soluble calcium salts. This plant has been getting lots of calcium for the last 14 years, but only for the last 2 or so years has been getting very low potassium (which competes with calcium uptake). I agree that a lot of poor growth in paphs is due to low Ca content, but my experience is that if you don't drastically reduce K you can't get it into the plant no matter how much you bury the plant in Ca.
 
Need tigrinum pollen

BTW I'm going to breed this plant and would prefer unrelated pollen if some body has tigrinum pollen to donate:wink:
 
Love the dorsal on this one, Rick. Plus, I'm envious of all those growths. Nice clumping! I "think" my plant will begin clumping now that I'm paying a lot of attention to not letting it stay damp all the time. Very careful watering in a clear pot and now, growing it in a net pot help to give it a wet/dry cycle that seems to suit this species. Have you tried giving it a bit more calcium (Calcium nitrate), once you see the bud coming up. The blasting problem strikes me as a deficiency and my first thought is too little calcium causing weak-walled cells in the tender and rapidly growing flower stems/buds.

Nice one Rick!
John, the blasting is caused by warmth and wetness at the wrong time. (from before the bud shows until the flower opens) It needs to be cold during dormancy. Mine is outside under cover and gets about 5C every night. Sometimes 2C! Nice and dry too. You should only start free water after the flower is gone in my experience. I don't think it's a deficiency (especially Ca) All your other orchids flower well!
 
Nice one Rick!
John, the blasting is caused by warmth and wetness at the wrong time. (from before the bud shows until the flower opens) It needs to be cold during dormancy. Mine is outside under cover and gets about 5C every night. Sometimes 2C! Nice and dry too. You should only start free water after the flower is gone in my experience. I don't think it's a deficiency (especially Ca) All your other orchids flower well!

I've never let them get into the 40's (intentionally), and the last few winters they've barely been below 60 (15C). Certainly for their early years when they were blasting (2007-2009) they were kept a lot dryer than today.

It may also be weird that my plants have produced sheaths in every month of the year (despite now being the normal blooming season). But I've also looked through the ST postings and noted successful Northern Hemisphere blooming in winter as well as summer. Not sure how many are indoors under lights versus GH culture, but it's really hard to pull any hard and fast rules for environmental triggers to get these guys to bloom right.
 
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