low flower count

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berrywoodson

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I am not pleased with the flower count in my multifloral Paphs. I have been told by well known Paph. "experts" that this is the result of growing too dry,not using enough fertilizer, and giving them too much light.

I water evry two to three days in the summer and less often in the winter. I feed 125ppm(nitrogen) of CalMag every other watering in the growing season and less often in the winter. I grow with 73% shade cloth on the roof and west side of the greenhouse and 63% shade cloth on the East side of the greenhouse.

Any suggestions?

Berry
 
I am not pleased with the flower count in my multifloral Paphs. I have been told by well known Paph. "experts" that this is the result of growing too dry,not using enough fertilizer, and giving them too much light.

I water evry two to three days in the summer and less often in the winter. I feed 125ppm(nitrogen) of CalMag every other watering in the growing season and less often in the winter. I grow with 73% shade cloth on the roof and west side of the greenhouse and 63% shade cloth on the East side of the greenhouse.

Any suggestions?

Berry

How are the roots of the plants?
 
The plants have roots to the bottom of the pot and the leaves are a slighly yellowish green.The plants are doing quite well.
 
I have never head that too much light will cause a multi-floral to flower poorly. Is there a lot of truth to this? Are we talking about the plant being stressed from too much light?

A loaded question.... what is too much light?

Christian
 
What kind of multis do you have, and how old (how many growths) do they have?

Some species just don't have lots of flowers like wilhelmineae and dianthum, and it may take a roth quite a few growths before it is old enough to have a big flower count.

Many of my multis seem to like high like conditions that will support Catts and Vandas, so depending on the species/hybrid you may not have enough light. I use a 50% cloth on the top center of my GH to knock down noon day sun.

Too dry can be based on air humidity rather than how often you water, and I have seen big improvements in the growth rate of all my multis by increasing the base air humidity level to 70 to 80% in the GH. These big floppy leaved species really loose allot of water through their leaves, and its a big stress on the plant to constantly have to pull water up from the roots to keep the leaves active if the air is dry.
 
Most multis come from areas that get an abundance of rainfall. I water mine every other day, if it's been overcast then 3 days.How much water your mix retains would change that & your temps. Off the top of my head, lowii is the only multi that is lower light.
 
I would say as well that the pictures of roths with 4-5+flowers are usually of selected plants from selected parents.

In the Rex x Mt Millais, there has been 5 and 6 blooms recorded, but most of the "normal" plants never produce more than 2-3 in that very same cross. Several people screened even the seedlings for that.

I have seen a bench of them in bloom in Taiwan, same cross Dou Fong x Big Garden, same greenhouse, and whilst some plants had 4-5 blooms on a first flowering, many had 1 bloom.

Apart from that, the same grower had many roths, clumps established for many years, various ones and the plants had 2-3 blooms per stem. He had a Dou Fong division with 6 flowers on a stem, 1 blooming growth and 1 new growth. He is an amazing grower ( who actually grew the famous sanderianum Shin Yi !).

There is about 75% genetics, and 25% culture.

For dianthum, there are dianthum with 4-5 flowers per stem, and they are special colonies from China ( Vietnamese and Laotian strain can make amazing clumps that never produce more than 2-3 flowers per stem). There was a very beautifully grown plant pictured on this forum, clumpy, of the Chinese strain. The plants are not always larger than the 2-flowered ones ( which in turn can have 50 cm leaves!!!).

Same for sanderianum, where many plants genetically cannot pass past 3 flower per stem. I have seen many sanderianum collected in Sarawak, and if they were the proper "strain", even a weak borderline dying plant would have 4-5 flowers per stem ( and die subsequently). For sands, I would say that the plants with long petals and/or more than 3 flowers per stem ( there are single flowered colonies as well, never more than 1 or 2 flowers, but gorgeous leaves!) are extremely rare, but extremely beautiful, that's why we see so many pictures of them. Most of the blooming size sanderianum I have seen for sale in the USA are of the 2-3 flowers per stem strain, even the so-called "select divisions". Many flasks are of that type of sand as well.

The more choicy sands are usually kept for breeding or unavailable, because the Japanese and Taiwanese are crazy about them.

Same for St Swithin, I know many huge clumps that make 2-3 flowers per stem ( especially with Charles E in the background), and first bloom with 4-5 flowers per stem, same greenhouse in the Netherlands.

Too much light can actually stunt the plant, but before reaching this point, the leaves would be much shorter and quite yellowish.

I forgot, some people "cheat" a little bit with the multis, and get an additionnal flower on the count by cutting the flower stem every other flowering. It can help a roth with 4 flowers to have 5 or 6.
 
There are two principal reasons orchids do not bloom. Either they don't get enough light, or they do not get a sufficient temperature differential at nighttime, from summer to winter.

Most orchids need a 20° differential, for 6 - 8 weeks, from summer nighttime low temps to winter nighttime lows. They also need a rest from watering during winter.

More light induces more flowers; more nitrogen induces less.
 

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