Journal March 21, 2017 - Spring will be a little late this year.

The calendar says it is spring, however, Mother Nature played a nasty trick last week and dropped more than two feet of snow on our area  Tomorrow the temperature is forecasted to be a balmy 26 degrees F, but hold off on the Bermuda shorts for a while yet.

At this point, I am anxious to get the olive trees out of the basement and into the greenhouse, as I want to change one of the tents over for growing orchids. 

Right now the orchids I have are on the grow table in the basement where the conditions are ideal for them in terms of temperature and humidity.

I am mainly interested in what effect the light will have on them.  In searching the web I have found very little on growing orchids under the type of lights I will be using.  The intensity is not as important as the spectrum, and these lights are designed with the spectrum optimized for plant growth, be it vegetative or flowering.  1500 to 2000 footcandles does not seem like a lot, but the plants are shade loving and have not been exposed to the specific spectrum these lights will be giving them.  The conditions may not be totally ideal, but I intend to play with the photoperiod, intensity, and spectrum and see how they react.  If anything, over the eons plants, have learned to adapt, so let them adapt and let's see what happens.