June has been exceptionally warm and dry. This drought and warmth has given our sympodial orchids a running start free of pressure from disease on their newly developing shoots. It should be a banner year for cattleyas.

The dry weather has also staunched the abundance of snails generated [...]]]> Progress of the Season: June
By Martin Motes (with permission)

June has been exceptionally warm and dry. This drought and warmth has given our sympodial orchids a running start free of pressure from disease on their newly developing shoots. It should be a banner year for cattleyas.

The dry weather has also staunched the abundance of snails generated by the heavy spring rains but beware they will be back! A patch of several contiguous rains in July will call for snail control whether by hand with a night patrol or chemically with bait (always thinly applied).

The same heat that has protected our cattleyas has rendered our Phalaenopsis more vulnerable to bacterial disease. Be sure to provide sufficient cooling with good air circulation or fans. Also the preventative spray program outlined in Fla. Orchid Growing pg.29-30 is particularly important this year.

Be careful with watering and build on the excellent start to the summer.

July in Your Orchid Collection

July Climate Data
Average high: 90.9
Average low: 76.5
Average mean: 83.7
Average rainfall: 5.79″

Although it mostly passes unnoticed to millions locked in their air-conditioned bubbles, July in South Florida is quite different from June. While the pattern of afternoon showers built from the moisture of the morning’s sea breeze persists in July, the thunder-storms are sharper and shorter. The clouds linger less and the foliage dries more quickly. Less quantity of rain falls in July than in June and periods of several days typically pass without a drop. This is good news for orchid growers. July (and August) allows orchidists to focus on the first essential of orchid growing, drying the plant out.

Frequently, neophyte growers ask “What if I go away for several weeks in the summer and there is no one to water the plants?” The response is “That’s wonderful”. Experienced growers use the break in the rainfall during July and August to dry their plants “hard”. Depriving orchids of water for several days until they and the media or baskets they grow in are bone dry is essential to good orchid culture. By drying the plants hard, one deals a severe blow to orchid’s natural enemy, fungus. Orchids have evolved to withstand drought because fungus can not. During severe drought fungus’ only defense is to cease all growth and retreat into a spore stage. Hopefully (and with good cultural management) these pathogens will not be aroused from this slumber until the first drizzle of September sets in, allowing our plants two months to mature and harden their growth making them less vulnerable to the September conditions which give some advantage again to the fungi.

Careful watering and judicious drying will do more than any other practice to ensure healthy plants. Drought is the orchid plants armor against disease. Be sure that your plants dry as completely as the weather of July permits. Nonetheless, as our plants are in full growth they need adequate water in July therefore after a hard drying, orchid plants need a thorough re-hydration. If the next rain fall is insufficient to saturate pot, roots and media, the grower should add to the natural moisture until he is sure both roots and media are saturated, using two or three applications of water spaced a few minutes apart. When the plants stop dripping is the time to apply the next dose of water. Don’t stop watering until the “heft” of the pot tells you that it is holding as much water as it can. More typically in July, orchidists should use these opportunities when more moisture is required to substitute fertilizer for water and saturate the roots and the media in the same thorough manner. In July typically think of fertilizing rather than watering. Weekly applications of a commonly available balanced fertilizer (20-20-20 or 18-18-18) at two teaspoons per gal. will supply the nutrients that our plants require in this period of lush growth. This balanced formula should be alternated every other week with potassium nitrate and Epsom salts (one tablespoon each) to supply the extra magnesium and potassium we now know are plants need on a regular basis. Even better (although not so readily available) lower phosphorus fertilizers containing extra magnesium and calcium with a formula like Peter’s Excel (15-5-15) have been shown to be the precise fertilizer our plants need. This formula is recommended year round. Hopefully such orchid specific fertilizers will become more widely available. Lowering the phosphorus intake of our plants is particularly important in South Florida because of our alkaline water. Always apply fertilizer in the same way as water, in two to three doses spaced a few minutes apart. Apply the fertilizer to the point of “run off”, IE. when the solution starts to fall off the plants; stop and move on to the next plant. Repeat the application a few minutes later when the plants stop dripping. In July more than ever, never, never follow the frequently heard and disastrously bad advice of watering before fertilizing. Always substitute fertilizer for water: now and at every season. Roots saturated with water cannot absorb fertilizer but the prolonged wetness can rot your plants. Don’t give fungus the upper hand by wetting the plant’s foliage and roots more often or longer than necessary. Careful watering is especially important throughout the rainy season.

The wise orchidist will have long since finished all of his potting of sympodials and the top working of his vandas but for the rest of us this is the eleventh hour. Autumn is closer than we think and vandas will need at least three months to settle in to their new baskets or pots before the first chill of October tickles their root tips. Unless you can protect them thoroughly from cold, Vanda top cuttings and keikies should not be made after the end of July. If you do take cuttings remember the “3 root rule”. Count down from the crown and make the cutting beneath the third or fourth root. Keep as many leaves as possible on the stump and you will be rewarded with a greater abundance of offshoots. Always slip the sterile knife or shears down between the stem and the leaves and then cut transversely to save as many leaves as possible. Be sure to anchor the cutting firmly in its new lodging. Tie them up and tie them down! There is no time for mistakes in July.

Thrips are much less of a problem in July as the rain tends to wash them away and doubtless there is an abundance of other lush fodder for them elsewhere in our yards. They can reappear in a prolonged patch of dryness, so if you need to think of watering in July it may be dry enough to worry about Thrips. A prophylactic spraying for Thrips in July will also put a damper on scale crawlers. If a second spraying with soap follows the first by seven to 10 days, the population of mites will be scotched as well.

You can subscribe to Dr. Motes’s newsletter at http://www.orchidworks.com/redland/motes.html and get these updates in a more timely fashion

You can learn more about the park at http://www.floridastateparks.org/fakahatcheestrand/

Before listening to Mike or visiting the Fakahatchee you might want to brush up on Florida native orchids at [...]]]> Our guest on Monday, Sept. 13, 2010 will be Mike Owen, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park Biologist. We are planning a visit to the park in October.

You can learn more about the park at http://www.floridastateparks.org/fakahatcheestrand/

Before listening to Mike or visiting the Fakahatchee you might want to brush up on Florida native orchids at http://www.flnativeorchids.com

There are no quizzes involved in these activities

Click here for meeting location and driving directions.

Four Fantastic Speakers:

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden In the [...]]]> Sunday, August 1, 2010 from 8 am to 4 pm

Four Fantastic Speakers:

• Linda Wilhelm,Woodland Orchids, AOS Judge – The Wonderful World of Oncidiums
• Paul Storm,MekeAloha Orchids -
  Schombo Love – Schombolaelias and Myrmecophila
• Tom Mirenda,Smithsonian Institute, AOS Judge -
  Species Orchids,Their Pollinators & Symbionts:
  A Conservationist’s Approach
• Lynn O’Shaughnessy – AOS Judge -
  Those Strange Pleurothallid Species

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden
In the Garden Room
10901 Old Cutler Road
Coral Gables,FL

Orchid sales will be available during the day, as well as AOS judging.

Tickets:
$45.00 for COS members
$50.00 for non-COS members

Price includes lectures, raffles, continental breakfast, and buffet lunch.

Contact Erna Maxwell at 305-382-3055 or emaxwell6635@bellsouth.net to reserve your space now!

May has proved to be drier and a little cooler than typical. The swings of day to night temperature have been ideal for [...]]]> Progress of the Season: June
By Martin Motes (with permission)

May has proved to be drier and a little cooler than typical. The swings of day to night temperature have been ideal for rooting most genera but vandaceous in particular have been exuberant. Without the typical heavy rains to wash them away and refresh alternate food sources in our yards, Thrips have also taken altogether too much pleasure in the moderate and dry conditions. If a week passes without rain apply the recommendations in Florida Orchid Growing to control Thrips.

The unexpectedly wet conditions of April have left an unusually legacy this year: an abundance of half grown Cuban garden snails. Remember, snail bait is very effective if applied properly. It is bait!  One small pellet per 2-3 square feet will do the job and pose no threat to domestic animals. Repeat in 7-10 days as bait breaks down and newly hatched or newly arrived snails will always show up. See Florida Orchid Growing pp. 178-180.

A dear friend and very experienced grower surprised me with the news that she had destroyed her entire Vanda collection because she could not control the “Thai Disease” Phyllosticata capitata. When she replaced the plants to her chagrin the disease returned. A better understanding of this disease and its control needs to be more widespread. The disease affects the vascular tissue of individual leaves and spreads upward in the plant by infecting new leaves as they emerge. It is not systemic but problematically can not be detected until the characteristic rough diamond shaped sporing bodies appear. Because of this life cycle infected plants can go undetected until the fruiting bodies emerge after the plant has been stressed by the cold of a Florida winter.

My friend’s reaction is extreme but understandable because of the elusive nature of this disease. It can be controlled and eliminated by the methods advocated in Fla. Vanda Growing Month by Month. Not buying plants that have been imported from Thailand is also too extreme; however the wise orchidist should ask: Has this plant come from Thailand? Has it been grown over a Florida winter? If so the buyer can be confident that the plant is free of this otherwise invisible disease.

[Note: this is an excerpt from Martin's monthly newsletter. Subscribe at http://www.orchidworks.com/redland/motes.html The "dear friend" mentioned above is our own Dot Henley.]