The Orchid Garden

Fertilizer strength

Question:

I was reading Graham and Sue Guest’s book ‘Cymbidiums:  a rewarding pasttime’.  They discuss issues surrounding fertilizing cymbidiums.

Hi Irene,    While fertilizing is important in promoting good growth and flowering of cyms, did you also note the Guest’s comment about, quote, "Fertilizers are less important than good growing conditions".        You mention you are using Miracle Grow fertilizers, have you had good spiking and flower production using it?   Miracle Grow fertilizers contain quite a bit of "urea" nitrogen which is not readily available and taken up by orchids.   You might look around for fertilizers containing nitrogen in nitrate form, nitrate nitrogen is immediately available to the orchid.      By the way, do you know that the Guest’s have 2 more books out, book #2 is titled "More Cymbidiums" and book #3 is a listing of all registered cyms and parentage to Dec. 1996.   For most hobbyists growing cyms, books # 1 and 2 are probably enough to have in their orchid book library.      Good luck and good growing.  

Response:

Hi, I was reading Graham and Sue Guest’s book ‘Cymbidiums:  a rewarding pasttime’.  They discuss issues surrounding fertilizing cymbidiums.  At one point they recommend feeding your plants about 200 ppm of nitrogen. They don’t explain how you determine this number. For example, if a fertilizer is 20-20-20 and it recommend using a 1/4 tsp of the fertilizer every time you fertilize, how many ppm is that? Is there any way to determine this?  I use miracle grow fertilizers of various types on my orchids. Any advice would be appreciated. Irene Timossi

Response:

Irene, Using 20-20-20 water soluble fertilizer, adding 1/4 tsp to a quart of water would result in 236 ppm N but added to one gallon of water would result in 59 ppm of N. So to keep it simple in terms of a gallon of water, o   add 1 tsp of 20-20-20 and you will get 236 ppm N. o   add 1 tsp of 10-10-10 and you will get 118 ppm N o   add 1 tsp of 30-10-10 and you will get 354 ppm N Hope this helps…Limited Edition Orchids – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi, I was reading Graham and Sue Guest’s book ‘Cymbidiums:  a rewarding pasttime’.  They discuss issues surrounding fertilizing cymbidiums.  At one point they recommend feeding your plants about 200 ppm of nitrogen. They don’t explain how you determine this number. For example, if a fertilizer is 20-20-20 and it recommend using a 1/4 tsp of the fertilizer every time you fertilize, how many ppm is that? Is there any way to determine this?  I use miracle grow fertilizers of various types on my orchids. Any advice would be appreciated. Irene Timossi

Response:

Filed under: Orchid Flower

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