Greenhouse growers H20 watering habits

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Over the years I've learned that just because it's written in a book or article and that other people are doing it doesn't always make it the gospel truth. One thing that springs to mind is that "you must having moving air or the orchids won't be happy" I'm growing mostly phals out of flasks and a few paphs out of flask in a clear container without any air circulation. They stay wet for weeks at a time and have been in there for over a year, and doing great.

Now on to my question. How do greenhouse growers water? I was taught to water less often with coupes amounts of water. I'm starting to think that maybe I should consider watering more often with a very light watering. I say this because a number of plants over the years die and I can't believe it's from overwatering. Just for information, I also have 4 fans always on in the greenhouse. On older gentleman that is no longer with us always got up at our orchid society meetings with wonderful plants and said, I water this one every two days or I water this one every three days. I'm just wondering who may be right. Naturally, I know everyone's conditions are different and what works for one may not work for another.

It's hard to do a test on this in a limited greenhouse with plants we treasure. So what are your thoughts?

 

[gonewild]

Water as much as the media will allow.

I like to use coarse media and I water several times per day, I like to water and the plants love it.

Sometimes I put a bench on a mist system with an intermittent timer and the plants get watered all day long....like 20 seconds every hour until a time in the afternoon that allows the plants to dry off before dark.

Orchids love lots of water.

 

[Stone]

I agree with Lance here. Now that its hot, I splash around water all over the place several times a day. If I know the night will be warm ( 20C or more ), I will give them an evening shower as well. But the fans (including the evap cooler) are going non stop.
In winter I need to be much more careful. Watering once per week but mist well whenever the sun is out.

 

[Bjorn]

Guess my plants are never dry. Except for the mounted of course. I am probably overdoing it but, I enjoy watering and so do the plants......almost no rot, knock on wood

 

[Ray]

Following up on Lance's comment, I try to pot stuff up specifically to allow me to water very frequently. This time of year, when it's cloudy, I'm limited to every 3-, or 4 days, someone's less frequently, but in summer it might be daily.

I like to water by hand, but I also have ceiling-level sprinklers so it can "rain" if I don't have time.


Ray Barkalow
firstrays.com

 

[gonewild]

I agree with Lance here. Now that its hot, I splash around water all over the place several times a day. If I know the night will be warm ( 20C or more ), I will give them an evening shower as well. But the fans (including the evap cooler) are going non stop.
In winter I need to be much more careful. Watering once per week but mist well whenever the sun is out.

Mike do you also water Phals at night? I've always tried to keep Phals dry at night. I sure like to find out with warm temps it's not really necessary, we rarely get below 24c at night here and usually it's warmer. Back in California our nights were rarely above 18c.

 

[paphioboy]

In the wild, do you think the rain falls at exactly every 2 days, 3 days or whatever frequency?

Mike do you also water Phals at night?

Phals do get soaked by heavy rains at night (during the monsoon season, rain is continuous even for days) in their natural environment.

 

[Stone]

Mike do you also water Phals at night? I've always tried to keep Phals dry at night. I sure like to find out with warm temps it's not really necessary, we rarely get below 24c at night here and usually it's warmer. Back in California our nights were rarely above 18c.

I have them in a warm chamber which I keep around 20C min. They are on mounts with the leaves hanging so no water remains in the crown. They also have a fan blowing directly on them in there. So I can water them at night but they don't stay wet very long. If you are growing them outside you should have no problems especially with 24C and natural air.

 

[gonewild]

In the wild, do you think the rain falls at exactly every 2 days, 3 days or whatever frequency?

Phals do get soaked by heavy rains at night (during the monsoon season, rain is continuous even for days) in their natural environment.

Yes I understand this. But I'm growing standard hybrids in pots. In the wild the crowns of species would tend to drain better.... I assume.

 

[gonewild]

I have them in a warm chamber which I keep around 20C min. They are on mounts with the leaves hanging so no water remains in the crown. They also have a fan blowing directly on them in there. So I can water them at night but they don't stay wet very long. If you are growing them outside you should have no problems especially with 24C and natural air.

We have one cold room where we induce spikes and the night temp stays about 18c but everything else is much warmer.
Most of my Phals are standard hybrids in pots so the crowns will collect water. Some are out side under solid roof, some are in an inclosed green house. And the confusing part is two plants that I discarded because they did get rot and lost all the upper leaves and the stem was rotting. After i threw them in the compost a couple days later I saq them and took pitty on them. I mounted them on a treefern log in our outdoor cloud forest garden. The get water mist for one minute every hour and rain/mist every 3 hours 24 hours per day. These two plants stopped rotting and grew roots attaching to the fern and now one has grown a new crown that faces up and catches water. They should have rotted really fast.
I won't go into the reason why I think they survived.

In any case I'm interested to here about watering Phals at night.
All our Peruvian species get watered day or night without a problem, I'm just not sure what hybridization has done to Phal endurance.

 

[bigleaf]

I water my phalaenopsis before noon to allow water to dry off their leaves. Most of my phals are in moss that holds a lot of water. Wet roots and cold don't mix well for tropical plants that are used to warmer climate.

Unlike an air conditioning room with humidity in the 40-50%,
greenhouse environment night time humidity is higher at 80-90% that excessive water will not dry off quickly.

Standard complex hybrid do tolerate wet root and cold better than species and novelty (i.e Phal gigantea, Phal bellina).

It's not the water nor wet root that kill the phals. It's the combination of wet root and cold that weaken these plants. I use different growing practices since not every phalaenopsis is the same.

Generally speaking, in the summer (when night time temperature here in North Texas is in the upper 70sF) I can water late in the afternoon without problem.

In my air conditioning room where night time temperature is 67F and humidity is 50-60%, I can water standard complex phals 4 hours before the light goes off without problem. Excessive water in the crown or leaves usually dry off next day.

But I would not put my Phal gigantea in a cool room. I also don't want a higher utility bill to heat my greenhouse to 70F a night. So I'm using propagating heating mat in the greenhouse for small seedlings and novelty. With bottom heat, I can water these plants late and observe the water dry off leaves quickly without rot.