Ohh, I like that a lot!!
Great Parentage!

Well I had Judging today up in Okemos at 7 in the evening. We had to move it due to a large 3 day cactus and succulent show at the Botanic garden.
There is one orchid that I wanted to post and talk about. It is Brassocattleya Glorious May which is C. Gene May X Bc. Morning Glory.





The first image is one I posted last March. It was taken at the Englewood Orchid Society Show. I believe that several people really enjoyed this hybrid.
The second image is of one we awarded this evening. It received an HCC of 78 points!
Here are the differences aside from the flower count. Today's flowers were a good 3/4" wider. These today had more fine spots all over the sepals and petals. The yellow disc was deeper in color. Underlying color was white with a good deal of rich pink blush. Front half of lip was rich amethyst with a very dark amethyst column. There were only three flowers so I scored it down a point or two but the flowers were bigger. The first plant from Englewood was much taller like 16" bulbs, this guy today was very compact with more slender 5" bulbs with 3 1/2-4" leaves. I nominated it and I think that this is a very pretty flower!

I had to switch from one to the other a couple times, I see what you are saying! Very pretty indeed!

Well at 10:30 at night I may not always be as lucid as I need to be.
The previous Glorious May was on a large plant, kind of like a Cattleya amethystoglossa kind of plant. It had tall pseudobulbs and large leathery leaves, 2-3 per growth!
And yet look at the size of this plant from yesterday, you can see the plant to the right and behind the flowers! Compact versus huge! But the littler one produced flowers every bit as good, or superior in some ways to the big plant. Plus I would assume this is a mericlone. I can't say for sure however. I just hope it stays small because it could be more manageable as a windowsill or underlights grower!

I managed to put the first plant cart together this past weekend. Here are a few pictures.




Right now it is on a timer for 8 hours, from 10pm until 8 am. I have ordered a light meter that reads in footcandles and will adjust the light times as needed.
The first tray is about 3/4 full but I realize that with 2 carts and 6 shelves, I will have enough room to house my orchids from October until May.
Lights are high intensity T-5's, two per shelf.the light meter will help me get light intensity under the tubes to better place the plants. Highest light is dead center at three inches below tubes. It gets less as you go below the source and less as you go towards the edge of a shelf.
They were not cheap but I am extremely pleased with the quality!!

Bill, I like that a lot! Looks like you are settling in really well!

Yes indeed!
I haven't had anything underlights for 43 years. I am anxiously waiting for the meter to arrive but with rain and the upper 40's forecasted for lows the weekend of September 30th, I have a "date certain"
More images when everyone is "home".

Oh, I have to say that bowling with my son on Monday picked up our spirits. We did it for 11 years from the time he was 14. After a 9 year break he remarked "it was like we hadn't hadn't stopped at all.
BTW, we kicked a little keister on Manday!!

I don't think I heard that expression before....

Manday=when father and son spend quality time. In this case it is also a Monday.
Mocking Keister is always fun when it is young stuff on the other end.

That looks like a great set up Bill. I have to re-do my indoor are this year. Bought more plants that are cold sensitive. Now I know what to get.

Woke up to 46 degrees this morning! Have not seen that since very early May. Can Winter be far behind. Checked out Cape Coral forecast and 90-92 and 74-75 for the next week. Man that is so warm for late September.
Just as an update: 65% of my plants are in and they easily fit on one cart! There is room to spare. Mostly mounted plants remain. I am trying to figure out how best to put them underlights but I will also try to convert many of them back to pots since pots work much better then mounts underlights.
The next week looks warmer then 46 but the cold is coming. Oh yes, Paphiopedilums are starting to spike! Cool.

46 degr F! You are a bit ahead of NJ, we are seeing the fifties F now and daytime in the sixties to seventies this week. I am about 99% done bringing the Orchids inside and now have to tackle Passifloras, Epiphyllums, stuff like that.

We haven't dropped a single degree yet and I hold out little hope until mid-October.

Jim

Two shelves are now loaded with orchids as you can see from one of my images. Roughly 40 plants are there in total.
The second image is of an inexpensive light meter I found on the Internet recently for $18.50! It came today so I was checking the levels of footcandles under the T-5 tubes.
Center of fixture, 4" below tubes, 6,000 foot candles!
End of fixture, 4" below tubes, 2,700 footcandles. Same area, 6" below tubes, 2,200 foot candles.
Center of fixture, 6" below tubes about 3,500 foot candles.

As an example a standard Cattleya requires approximately 30,000 foot candles of light per day in order to flower properly. In my set up, center of fixture, that plant would need to have the lights on for about five hours. 30,000/6,000ft. Candles= 5 hours. So if there were Cattleyas under the lights they would do best under the center of the tubes.
If I take the same plant but put it at the end of the tubes, 30,000/2,700= 10 hours. That plant would need ten hours with the lights on to flower at the end of the fixture.

A few words about the light meter. It turns on with a switch on the front and it has three levels to properly evaluate light intensity.
Straight, 10X and 100x. When I took a reading under the center of the tubes, the needle slammed to the right side of the scale when set on straight. When set on 10X, it recalibrated the
Light and read 6,000 foot candles. This sliding scale capability allows the user to get some kind of measurement as to the light intensity under fairly low light levels, bright light levels and incredibly high light levels. This three scale feature makes this a very handy tool for only 18 bucks.
The next meter in terms of price was at $85 and it was a photography light meter more then three times the size. This little bugger is so simple to use. I have had people tree mail me regarding light meter recommendations so here is one choice.

Your setup looks great!

I myself have never used a light meter, your lesson should come in handy for those growing under lights.

Thanks Ursula! It is too early to see just how they are responding to the lights but I will keep updating in order to inform both older and newer members to the forums.
At this point in time, the lights go on by timer @ 7:00pm. They go off @ 6:00am. in the morning.

Plants might need to be relocated under the lights according to their needs.