Lowering the Lights

This weekend's project was to lower the lights from the lightmover/ceiling to increase the lux/fc value at the orchid canopy. As you can see in the first picture, the lights are pretty close to the ceiling, and actually higher than they were placed last year.


















I installed some chains that allow me to vary the distance each light may hang from its lightmover. The lower the lights hang, less area is illuminated, so I'm trying to find a compromise setting for this season. The maximum length will place the lights directly on top of the Cym canopy. While this achieves over 10,000 lux, the area illuminated is quite small.














At the above length, the lights are about 18 inches closer to the canopy than they were last year. (The calculation/measurement also includes the distance due to raising the plants off the floor with the palettes--another feature I did not have last year.) According to the light meter, the maximum lux per light at canopy level is now about 7,500 lux. Because this is an improvement over last year, I expect that the orchids will be fine. However, with light meter in hand, I must admit that I'm already thinking of improved lighting designs for next year, e.g. putting two lights onto each lightmover (four lights total).

Note: Although the photos indicate that the lights move synchronously, they are, in fact, asynchronous. The light on the left is set to pause at each end of the rail for about 17 seconds. The light on the right is set to pause for about 19 seconds. The lights take about 90 seconds to traverse the rail length.

November NCOS meeting

NCOS held it's monthly meeting yesterday. The guest speaker was Ernie Gemienhart of EnLightened Orchids (AOS Orchids, December issue, pgs 906-909, 2007) who discussed methods of growing orchids under lights indoors, e.g. spare bedroom, basement or garage. This was a timely topic given that I brought my Cyms indoors into my basement space just a few days earlier. Ernie has some nice ideas that I'll keep in mind as I evaluate the working conditions and overall plant health.

Below are some pics from the member's show table.
Lc. Gaskell Pumila 'Azure Star' HCC/AOS














Cyc. Wine's Delight 'J.E.M.'














Cirr. Elizabeth Ann














C. Portia 'Cannizaro' AM/AOS

In for the Winter

I moved my Cymbidiums into the basement tonight for their Winter season. We've had some light rain and/or overcast skies for several days now, with more light rain forecasted for the weekend. After that, the forecast is for below 30F nighttime lows, which combined with the saturated media would not be good for the Cyms.

Over half of the Cyms are in spike, and I am hopeful that the remaining will generate inflorescences in another month or so. I have a number of seedling crosses that are expected (should be mature enough) to bloom this year. Cym. mastersii, Cym. Eastern Bunny 'Oborozuki', and Cym. (lowio-mastersii x Summer Sands) have buds that have just cleared their sheaths. I'll be posting photos as the flowers open up.

I had noticed that some of my Cym. devonianum and devonianum hybrids were potted too low beneath the pot's edge, which will prevent the inflorescences from clearing the pot. So, I raised those plants "needing a lift" out of their pots such that the base of the pseudobulbs is now a half inch or so above the pot's edge. I had seen this "lifting" practiced while visiting Top Hat Orchids in Richmond, CA this last Spring. It was a good thing for me to do because, while doing so, I noticed that both Cym. Langlyense 'Cascades' and Cym. Miss Muffet 'Julie Sato' were developing multiple spikes beneath the media. These plants were on my potential discard list because they haven't flowered for me for a couple of years. But now, I have an explanation why I wasn't seeing any flowers, and I'm hopeful that the little spikes I saw will fully mature.

Basement preparations

The weather turned cooler this Friday, with a steady Fall breeze. The forecast for this next week's nighttime lows will be in the lower 40's and upper 30's.

This weekend's project was to clean up the basement growing area and make some pallets. I used some old wood we harvested from the attic insulation project for the pallets, following the design from www.orquideas.com/growing/benches/benches.html. I bought some cinder blocks to support the pallets. The pallets will help raise the plants higher to the lights. I also have some SunLift suspension system hangers (not yet installed) that should allow me to lower the lights closer to the plants, if necessary.



















The electrician is scheduled to come at the end of the month to install the new circuits for the lights and lightmovers. I expect that the orchids won't need to be moved inside until Nov. 1 anyways. But, with the cooler weather, I'll be taking it one day at a time.

Lights in the Basement

It's getting that time again. The Summer is gone, and we're progressing through Autumn. Soon, the orchids outdoors will need to be moved into the basement to over-Winter.

I have two, 250 Watt SunSystem II lights to maintain the orchids for several months in the basement. Last year, they were static. But presently, I'm in the process of installing mover system, using LightRail 3.5. Once all the equipment arrived, it only took a few hours to screw things together. I've asked a local electrician to install dedicated wires to run the lights and lightmover motors, and user/equipment-friendly outlets that will allow for the lights to move up and down the 6-foot track without becoming unplugged.














With the new light meter, I can now get a better measurement of exposure under these conditions. While I don't expect to fully mimic the sun's intensity, I do expect that I can improve the indoor culture conditions.

As a first exercise, I took some light readings around the backyard shade frame, this last Saturday. It was mid-day, around 1pm, and sunny. The light meter read around 90,000 lux on top of the shadeframe, and around 50,000 lux underneath the shadecloth (advertised as 40% shade). I got too busy with other chores to take measurements once the shadeframe was shaded by the trees...

NCOS Annual Show/Sale

Well, we've just finished with our annual Fall Show/Sale at the Arboretum. It was reasonably well attended over the three days, but the sales were down due to the present economy.

I witnessed one big exception today while staffing the cash register. One person spent $685 on orchids, and then went back in to buy another $150 of orchids!

Below are some pics of a few of the orchid exhibits set up by either vendors or regional orchid societies. I'll admit that few of the plants are in focus. My digital camera is having issues, and is need of replacement. However, I was taking the pictures more for reasons to document exhibition style. Some displays were overcrowded or poorly designed for other reasons. I liked some ideas in these pictures.

Meyer's Conservatory

I recently obtained some Laelia anceps seedlings--directly from flask, from Meyer's Conservatory (http://www.troymeyers.com). This is my second attempt at growing orchids directly from flask. The first cross is L. anceps var. alba 'Drew's Yellow Girl' x self. The second is L. anceps var. veitchiania 'Fort Caroline' x self.

The previously mentioned Cymbidium erythrostylum seedlings (earlier post) died within a week. I mentioned my failure to another orchid grower, and he suggested buying some clear dome/community pot chambers from Tindara (http://www.tindaraorchids.com/index.htm) because he'd been using these for years without problems to successfully acclimatize seedlings directly from flask. So, I followed his recommendations, bought some clear dome compots from Tindara, and transferred the L. anceps seedlings into the chambers.




























The other variable I changed was to grow the seedlings underneath my Agrosun light. According to my light meter, the seedlings (really the exterior of the cleardome compots) are receiving ~4500 lux/~450 footcandles of light, 16 hrs/day (the lights are on timers).

The seedlings from Meyer's Conservatory arrived in excellent(!) health. I need to mention here that over the last year, I had purchased a number of established seedlings of other orchid genera from Meyer's that also arrived in excellent health. With the Laelia anceps seedlings, I didn't have to extract them from the flask, as this task was already completed by the Conservatory. All I needed to do was transplant them into a sphagnum moss-type media. I counted between 31-35 seedlings per flask per cross, which is consistent with the number of plants they try to achieve in re-plate flasks.

So far, the seedlings continue to appear far healthier for the same amount of time in my hands than the Cym. erythrostylum seedlings I tried to grow.