I have been adding horse manure to my orchids for almost 30 years. I use pure fresh chunks of manure straight up with all my phragmapidiums. They get watered daily. I live in zone 9a where the orchids are grown in a greenhouse.
I top dress all the others with a well composted mix of manure...including the paphs. and some miniature types like pleurothallids, miniature catts. etc. I don't use gloves, I wash with antibacterial soup after potting...but I have never gotten any type of infection from doing this nor are my plants prone to rots etc. anymore than orchids not so treated. I have great growth and flowering with this method, and my phrags have multiple spikes and blooms year around...one plant right now has about 30 some flower on it. It is a bessie hybrid. Horse manure is free here, this is a great thing when you are repotting some 7,000 orchids every two years or so. Anyone want to help? I use a mix of coir, lava rock, charcoal, perlite and manure. No burning noticed . J. Hirt _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
