# Seedlings experiment - your bets please



## Ricky (Apr 9, 2011)

2 weeks ago I bought a flask with 12 seedlings of P. thaianum.
With these I wanted to test some mineral substrates. I chose lava, pumice, perlite (sponge rock ?) and, as a control, living sphagnum (peat moss).

Here are the seedlings (sizes are in cm):






After deflasking, roots look very well:





After potting (sphagnum, pumice, perlite, lava):




Because the lava seems very coarse I covered it with sphagnum for the beginning.

Now I want your bets: which substrate will be the best, which one will fail?

Greetings ... Ricky


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## Paphman910 (Apr 9, 2011)

Perlite

Paphman910


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## Hien (Apr 9, 2011)

1) sphagnum
2) Pumice
3) lava
4) perlite (perhaps you are subconsciously wanting to kill a few of them, yes?)


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## Rick (Apr 9, 2011)

I think it depends on the nature of your irrigation water.

I'm betting moss unless you have a very soft water.


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## Marc (Apr 9, 2011)

My guess is that live spagnum will give the best result. Perlite and pumice will be competing for 2nd and 3d and lava rock will end up last.


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## Ricky (Apr 9, 2011)

Rick said:


> I think it depends on the nature of your irrigation water.



I use osmosis water with complete fertilizer (incl. Ca + Mg) at 600 µS/cm.


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## Rick (Apr 9, 2011)

Ricky said:


> I use osmosis water with complete fertilizer (incl. Ca + Mg) at 600 µS/cm.



Do you fertilize with every watering? Do you know the pH?


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## Ricky (Apr 9, 2011)

Rick said:


> Do you fertilize with every watering? Do you know the pH?



3 times with fertilizer, 1 time without it.

The pH is unknown, but since I changed to that fertilizer, my orchids (incl. Paphs) grow much better.


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## biothanasis (Apr 9, 2011)

I think it depends on the water conditions too! If you can balance watering to each case, then all of them will survive...


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## Ricky (Apr 9, 2011)

biothanasis said:


> If you can balance watering to each case, then all of them will survive...



This could be difficult: sphagnum is always wet, perlite and pumice look the same being dry or wet, only lava changes his color when getting dry.

I will keep all 4 substrates wet to see if the air between the substrates will save the roots from rotting.


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## biothanasis (Apr 9, 2011)

Hmmm... I see...!!!

Good luck and let us know


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## cnycharles (Apr 9, 2011)

from what I've read from a few people that are growing thaianum, they said that their media have brick chips sand and other coarse things in the pot. so, whatever drains the best if you have good humidity


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## e-spice (Apr 9, 2011)

1. Those are cute seedlings!
2. Live sphagnum, pumice, lava rock, and perlite in that order.


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## eOrchids (Apr 9, 2011)

Spaghnum.


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## SlipperFan (Apr 9, 2011)

So much depends on how often you water, and how wet the medium stays. Too wet and they will all rot. Barely moist is what I'd aim for, which might mean different watering schedules for different media.


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## Rick (Apr 9, 2011)

I think sphagnum moss has magic juices that promote awesome plant growth. It also seems that no matter what species of Paph and where the adults roots end up, there always seems to be some moss nearby.

How many habitat descriptions start out with "moss covered bolders", "cracks in wet, moss covered cliffs", the base of "moss covered trees"????

Growing in completely inorganic material is pretty much just semi hydro or full hydroponic. I've seen it work too (for adult plants), but haven't seen many try seedlings in it. Maybe Ray will check in on this.


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## Ernie (Apr 9, 2011)

Hmmm, I'll go with live sphag as the winner too. 

The compots I've had grow up the fastest were honestly in red lava pebbles in semi-hydro though. I have zero experience with thaianum.


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## s1214215 (Apr 10, 2011)

Be careful as I find this species does not like to be wet. In nature its growing in rock rubble and not in the ground at all. I grow mine in broken brick, broken stone, pebbles and coarse sand, with very little organics. I often let them dry out a lot between waterings. 

It takes humidity well though as it grows in an area that also has Corybas, and Spathoglottis hardingiana and not often over 26c I was told. 

Mind you, I never have deflasked this species before.

Brett


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## NYEric (Apr 10, 2011)

Oh I have!


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## s1214215 (Apr 10, 2011)

Yes you have Eric oke: Thanks for your help by the way.

Brett


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## TyroneGenade (Apr 12, 2011)

I have a fat pod on my tiny thaianum (thanks to a certain someone) so I am very eager to know how this thread ends...

I think sphagnum will give the best results initially, but if enough humidity is maintained for the pumice and lava rock I think they will be the winners in the end as they have a higher nutrient content than the moss---and it is very difficult fertilizing plants in moss and the moss tends to melt in response to fertilizers.

tt4n


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## etex (Apr 12, 2011)

Very cool experiment!! You'll have to keep us updated on the progress.


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## hardy (Apr 12, 2011)

Hi Ricky, those are very healthy-looking seedlings! Congratulations on your purchase 

My experience with thaianum seedlings in live sphagnum is that they grew well initially with 100% survival rate, but after a while the growth stalls (I did not fertilize them at all). 

I'd like to share my experience about fertilizing plants grown in live sphagnum moss. Fertilizer cant be applied by drenching, since the moss will die quickly. I find that even drenching the moss with very dilute fert (0.15 g/L) will cause them to turn white in just a few days. 

But following Mrs. Paph's suggestion, I tried applying foliar fert on my sphagnum-grown plants with great results. I spray my plants (nepenthes in this case ) with 0.3 g/L fert, twice a week. The moss just gets lightly sprayed with fertilizer, and is not harmed at all. Never tried that with my paphs grown in live-sphagnum though....


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## Ricky (Apr 12, 2011)

TyroneGenade said:


> ...and it is very difficult fertilizing plants in moss and the moss tends to melt in response to fertilizers.



I cannot confim that sphagnum has problems with fertilizer. I have some sphagnum that grows on the bottom of my terrarium, the water there has about 2000µS/cm. The sphganum and other mosses there grows very well. Some Phal roots also has contact with this water - no problem for them.

But I know that mosses don´t like tap water, maybe because of the CaC03 and chloride in there?


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## s1214215 (Apr 12, 2011)

Hi

If you start them in spagh or other moss I would be careful just not to rot the roots. 

Mature plants I have in rock, broken brick to emulate what they grow in in nature. They do get lots of moisture, but drain fast. 

My plants did well in the rocky mix I watered once a week, and sometimes if I was lazy two weeks, but in 90% humidity, misted indirectly 7 times a day, at 80F, they thrived. 

Now for seedlings I cant say, but I had a few very small plants and they seemed even less tolerant of wetness. I lost a few that were flaskling size.

I guess thats what I am saying, I think dont keep them too damp. I think it could be a killer.

I am happy if proven wrong on this, but I had 25 plants to observe and under what I am told is natural conditions. Mind you, if your conditions are dryer and hotter, maybe thats another thing too.

Jason, if you are watching this (Aquagem), can you give your opinion.. You have thaianum in Singapore and a number of them. You grow them outdoors?

Good luck on that pod Tyrone.. Hope you get a good lot of seedlings out of that one. 

Brett


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## TyroneGenade (Apr 12, 2011)

Ricky said:


> I cannot confim that sphagnum has problems with fertilizer. I have some sphagnum that grows on the bottom of my terrarium, the water there has about 2000µS/cm.



My only experience is with the sphagnum moss from Table Mountain where it lives off mist run-off and rain water. The water is very soft and it doesn't like fertilizer in any form at all. I have no problem with tap water (which is also soft).

I suppose it all depends on the source of the moss.

Hardy, what foliar feed are you using?


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## Ray (Apr 13, 2011)

I always assumed the "moss-covered" cracks were preferred because that's where the moisture was, not the moss, specifically.

As to the hydroponics question, I have been quite successful planting the entire block of agar in LECA in semi-hydro pots.

I pot it up so that the medium is to the same level as the top of the agar. As I water, and some of the agar dissolves/washes away, I fill-in the voids with more LECA pebbles. Eventually, the plant are fully-established and growing nicely, and can be split up. Not too surprisingly, it is a particularly good method for phrags.


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## eggshells (Jun 11, 2012)

Any update on this? I am thinking of getting a flask of thaianum and wanting to know the optimum substrate. I see people growing brachies in pure rocks so I'm thinking 1:1 fine bark and perlite or even 40% bark and 60% perlite.


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## Ricky (Jun 15, 2012)

@Eggshells

No good new from here.

Sphagnum: all seedling survived but growing is very slow
Pumice: only one seedling survived
Lava rock and Perlite: 2 seedlings are still alive

One seedlin in lava is growing very well.

Maybe the conditions did not fit ... who knows?


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## eggshells (Jun 18, 2012)

Sorry to hear Ricky. Maybe I will go with the traditional approach.


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## Rick (Jun 18, 2012)

Ricky said:


> @Eggshells
> 
> No good new from here.
> 
> ...



Is the sphagnum still alive? Is it getting covered up in bluegreen algae slime?

Since reducing the K in fertilizer and overall feeding N at less than 50ppm been getting much better seedling results and better growth of moss and ferns.


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