Use of a Garden Fan

[lamwn]

Hello,

until recently, I had always under rated the importance of air circulation in growing neps. I always thought it was a 'it will settle itself' type of problem which only occured if one was growing neps in a 2ft glass terrarium.
I started hanging neps, spacing out the growing area better, and all these helped.

But as i start paying more attention to this, I realized that my growing area actuall experiences very little wind throughout the day, and nearly none at night - the air is just dead still...
Although my growing area is not an enclosed space - such as a greenhouse, I thought installing a fan greenhouse-style would still be a good solution to the problem, and would probably have the added advantage of cooling the plants down at night also, when coupled with the sprinkler +drip system I already have.

Was hoping I could get some advice on these:
(0) is the idea good?
(1) how to go about installing a water-and natural-element-proof fan,
(2) how can i go about mounting it (mounted? on the floor blowing upwards? on a pedestal, oscillating? or what? )
(3) (i know its very hard estimating) how strong should this be? - my humidity is still ok, atleast for night times (80-100%). SHould it be blowing directly on to the leaves? or should it be just causing a gentle breeze? Since the environment isnt an enclosed one, its hard creating a uniform gentle breeze throughout the whole growing area without having to use several fan units....so i am really not sure about this one.

I will try to upload a pic of my growing area, if that would be of help.

thanks so much, and sorry for the long questions
Lam

[rainforest]

Lamwn,
The idea of a fan is not a bad idea. But perhaps you could also modify your area to make it more open. And while you may not have a breezy kind of wind, there is still air circulation around you. Previously when I first started growing nepenthes, I had always read that they like a very humid and moist condition. My best plants are grown to the most exposure of wind and sun I can provide. Imagine that N. northiana growing on a vertical wall, hanging by its thread-like roots getting blasts of wind, sunlight heating the dark rocks below it coupled with all the elements found in nature. For such shitty conditions, they still manage to produce huge colorful pitchers and have done so for centuries.
If I recall some of your growing area, I recall seeing gingers, perhaps heliconias, and some bushes. My first inclination would be to cull through some of these stems and perhaps trim the shrubbery nearby. Opening your growing area up a bit can make a huge difference in how the plants grow. My neighbor had a huge tree along side a wall that its shade nor overhang affected my neps. But one day he decided to cut it down. In the following months, those plants growing near or on that wall grew faster, and got very huge. There was the same amount of light, and got all the exposure before it was cut down. Just something in the "air" had made that much of a difference for me. I was watering, fertilizing, and all that as usual, but after the removal of the tree, the surrounding plants just grew exponentially. I owe this to perhaps an unobstructed wind experience. It did appear breezier in that area and the plants looked healthier overall.
A fan would work, I believe Ludwig had installed a fan in his greenhouse and the plants closest to the fan grew the best. So a fan would help the air circulation situation.

Michael

[wijaya]

Hi Lam,

Just sharing information, I am using one 16" fan blowing for 24 hours, put it on the ground with position slightly slented, so as to have more air circulation in my growing area. The fan is blowing air up from the bottom. My neps seems to like it.

As for covered I just made up one wooden frame and top the roof with an acrylic to protect from rain and my misting water.

Ed

[lamwn]

Hi Michael,
you have good memory! I do have rather tall heliconias in the garden, but they arent very close to the nep growing area. (the nep growing area is under the trellis, to the left of the pic below)



The structures which seem to be blocking good air flow in around my growing area seems to be (when looking from outside in) on the left - the 2nd storey study room, on the right - my neighbour's house (which is on slightly higher ground), both of which I cant do anythign about.
I could cut down the passion fruit vine, but my mom would be very mad about that...




this is it seen from the inside out.


The growing area is actually very crammed and quite small, so the stagnant air flow is also in part due to my greed of trying to grow so many plants in so small an area. I am not even sure if one oscillating fan can provide the air circulation for everything in there.



I am now considering:
1. set up a normal household type fan and mount on the ceiling (the white area at the top of the 'inside out' pic) to blow from inside out
2. continue looking for a water proof fan
3. build a 'shelter' for the a normal fan, as per wijaya's suggestion (thanks for your input!)

options 2 and 3 would probably involve the fan blowing air from outside inwards

another question: would I need to worry about blowing directly onto the foliage of the plants? for plants very close to the fan, would the constant strong wind cause excessive loss of water?

just another pic for fun - this raff produced very large uppers when it vined out and above all the other plants - maybe it likes the better air circulation up there.


thanks

[rainforest]

Without changing to many things around. I would say that the area where the heliconias are growing would be an excellent area for some larger potted nepenthes. I would use round cement stepping stones in between stalks where previous old cut caned heli's were growing and place potted specimens on it. You may also use hollow tile cement blocks or mason's cement blocks, whichever is cost effective.
The fence area bordering you and your neighbor's is also an excellent area where if your neighbor doesn't mind, you can hang some wire pot attachments to it and also place potted specimens near the fence to use it as a support. The area where you are growing bonsai's are an excellent area for some nepenthes (potted) and if kept off the ground, they could also hang pitchers as well.
Your hanging basket area seems to be doing fine, your best looking plants appear to be those growing in baskets and perhaps this venue of growing them would be more used. Are there any other areas (back of house, opposite side, etc.) to use, even a narrow strip of sunny area would work fine.
Try placing more plants closer to the lighted area just under the passion vine and move back the foliage calatheas, marantas and aroids back towards the stagnant zones.

Try this before investing in a fan.

M

[boris]

Apr 21, 2008 2:52:45 GMT -10 lamwn said:

(3) (i know its very hard estimating) how strong should this be? - my humidity is still ok, atleast for night times (80-100%). SHould it be blowing directly on to the leaves? or should it be just causing a gentle breeze? Since the environment isnt an enclosed one, its hard creating a uniform gentle breeze throughout the whole growing area without having to use several fan units....so i am really not sure about this one.
Lam

Many orchid growers recommend oscilating ventilators. It does much better simulating natural wind. There's mostly no place where the wind is such steadily blowing in consistence strength on the same spot. Another advantage of an oscilating ventilator is that the area is bigger which is breezed. My aristolochioidis and inermis are doing very well directly in front of the fan where they get every 3 or 4 sec hitted by a strong breeze. Computerfans just do only blusting at one spot so I guess that they aren't the best solution. Maybe one can modify it by hanging some plasticstripes in front of the computerfan breeze.