Growth and Flowering of Oncidium Sweet Ears in an Artificial Textile Fiber Substrate

Abstract

The artificial textile fiber, a waste product of the textile industry, is clean and neutral. It could be a promising alternative medium for orchid cultivation. Vegetatively propagated young plants of Oncidium Sweet Ears ‘Pacific Gold’, each with a newly matured second-generation pseudobulb, were planted in artificial textile fiber or a substrate consisting of 90% fine grade California fir bark and 10% long-fiber sphagnum peat by volume. Plants were irrigated with 0.67 g/L 15N-5P2O5-15K2O Ca-Mg soluble fertilizer, alternating with clear water, when the substrate became dry. After one year, plants grown in the artificial textile fiber substrate flowered 2 weeks earlier than those in the bark mix. Plants grown in the artificial textile fiber had more spikes with higher degrees of branching and greater flower count than those grown in the bark mix. Growing substrate had no effect on flower size and pseudobulb width.