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Dracula vampira

I really like the Pleurothallid/Dracula/Masdevallia orchids and they should all probably grow fine in my highland tank conditions but this one is a lot of cash and so I thought I see if any of you are growing this one and how easy/often it flowers. also how dark should I keep it? I've read these orchids flower intermittently throught the year, is there somekind of trigger? more light, more fertilizer, warm season, drying out, etc? Also this would be my first in the Dracula family (I had a Masd. bella donna which I killed with too much light) is this one a good choice or should I start with an easier/cheaper Dracula?

Thanks for any thoughts!
 
Dracula are very easy to grow. Getting the cool cloudforest ones to flower well is the hard part. If humidity is not high enough or temperature is too high, buds will blast. However, they will flower all year round when happy. The inflorescence will last a long long time putting out one flower at a time. Most dracula need to be in baskets also because of pendant inflorescence.

You may find that the 80% humidity is not high enough to get vampira to flower well.
T
 
80% not high enough? wow! How do you get it even higher-by constant misting or leaving a humidifier run all the time?

One thing I've noticed is the plants beneath the bench in the highland tank usually have wetter leaves (I suppose less airflow and less light = higher humidity) so I was thinking this would be a good position.

One of the main problems for me is all orchid info in the books I have is always measured in footcandles. This doesn't ever seem to translate into wattages of flourescent lighting or even lumens, they do translate FC to Lux which - I never knew how that correlates to wattage either...
sad.gif
 I don't have the type of camera to do the trick they show for measuring light by photographing a white sheet of paper. Does anyone know how to compare wattage to footcandles? I definately know they need darker conditions than the neps as I fried my poor Masd. bella donna with too much light (I never knew a plant could actually get too much flourescent light! )
 
sword, sorry about the double post sent on its own. i saw one of the drac. on tv this weekend. i checked a couple of spots and nothing. can i ask you where you ordered them.
 
HI Sword,
Thanks for the links some of the drac. vamp. are awsome looking. now to save up for some more plants.

George
 
Just remember that these guys MUST have that cool air -they're even touchier than the cool growing Nepenthes. I had a Masdevallia x Bella Donna hybrid in a tank which only got to 70* at night and basically the leaves turned red and melted! Now that I have a cool chamber I'm trying them again. When I get some batteries for my digital camera I'll take some fuzzy pics of them!
 
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