I guess I'll just repeat stuff I have already said.
By "weakly, weekly", and/or "not too strong", people understand what it is meant, so don't say it is meaningless to anyone but me.
See, the person who started this thread said so as well. I doubt we are the only two people, because the phrase is not my invention.
Perhaps it's just meaningless to you.
oke:
but I know it's not. Even you get it. What you meant to say is it is vague.
That's why I said it's a general guide line. Gosh! Please read and get the point, and please be nice.
Fertilizer bottles or bags come with instructions.
By this rough guide line of "weakly", no one in the right mind will overdose.
Hence, at least you are not likely to burn the plant.
Now, if you want to get into the details, I know different people use different dilution. Full strength, half strength, quarter strength, and I've heard even less, and these all seem like a personal choice. All these people grow great plants.
Also, I started a thread about my friend's orchids growing and flowering perfectly fine after not having been fed for about one year.
Of course, fertilization is necessary under cultivation.
Regarding overwatering, I guess you have a different definition of the expression, or else, I see overwatering and underaerating as the same thing. At least, in certain settings where soil or dirt is used for potting medium, they are the same but said differently because after watering, air pockets in the potting mix will be saturated with water initially. Then, as the water drains, is taken up by plants, and dries out, the air pockets will increase, or should I say restore?
With open mix like bark, I don't know how overwatering ( since there are still plenty of "air room") kills roots, but it seems to happen unless it is an act of pathogenic organisms that attack roots.
I believe you on your experiment on S/H, and many other people have successful results, but not every plant adapts well to S/H.
Also, your comparison of two watering groups, it only makes sense since plants are mostly made of water.
You see basically the same results in orchids in bark mix. The one that are well watered grow to their full potential, and the ones that are underwatered will not grow as large or even get crinkled due to lack of water while in active growth.
Now, how about this one, I know people who grows cattleyas among other things, in water. Not S/H, but in water. So, there is very very poor aeration, but no root death.
Your explanation is not all that there is not completely correct.
So please don't say "it's meaningless to anyone but you" kind of stuff here.
That's precisely my point. "Not too strong" is equally meaningless to anyone but you. Not everyone defines it the same way. If folks want to give good advice about feeding, then the formula, concentration, and feeding frequency ALL need to be considered and specified.
Concerning your watering comment, I disagree with that, as well. About 20 years ago, I split 300 seedlings of a phalaenopsis hybrid and an oncidium hybrid into two, approximately equal groups, and got them all established and growing in S/H culture, where they have a constant water supply. Half were watered about once every 4-5 days, the other half were watered every day. At the end of 6 months of that treatment, none of them lost roots and died, and the ones I watered daily were larger than the "control" group.
"Overwatering" does not cause root loss. "Underaerating" due to the use of a suffocating medium is what does it, and you may compensate for that by reducing your watering.
