At the Shreveport SWROGA show, Dr. Yin-Tung Wang gave the results of several years of experiments he conducted with his grad students on Phalaenopsis. Here are two points he made that I thought would be of particular interest to home growers.

Fertilizing: Contrary to popular belief, you'll get the longest spikes and largest blooms if you *do not* switch from a regular, balanced fertilizer to a blossom booster type of fertilizer when you see a spike coming on. The lower Nitrogen and higher Phosphorus in blossom boosters don't help Phals bloom better, and actually, the switch will cause you to have shorter spikes and fewer blooms. He also noted that once a Phal spike has exceeded 10 inches in length, no amount of fertilizing will make a difference as to how large or how many flowers will develop. Without going into all the experiment's details, this was the conclusion: keep using your regular, balanced (all the same numbers) fertilizer even when a Phal is in spike, and be sure not to miss any scheduled fertilizing from spike initiation up to at least a ten inch spike length. You can keep fertilizing past the ten inch point to make sure your plant stays healthy, but it won't do anything to increase that spike's blooms.

Using bleach as a fungicide / bactericide / algaecide:
Chlorine is deadly to orchids past certain concentrations. But at low concentrations, bleach is an inexpensive way to help keep diseases from attacking your Phals. Mix no more than 1 teaspoon bleach per gallon of water, and spray your plants' foliage and stems, tops and bottoms, thoroughly. Make sure none of the solution hits any flowers or they'll be ruined. One day later, flush the pot completely with plain water. Don't forget to do this, or the bleach will burn the roots and kill them. Dr. Wang repeated this process once a month, and he found that the instances of disease on his Phals were greatly reduced.

Gilda asked about snow mold, which is a fungus that grows particularly well in decaying media. The bleach treatment would eventually kill it, but it would be better to just repot the plant in fresh media after cleaning the roots.

If there was any more to this thread, I can't remember it; but this, I think, covers the high points.