# Barbata Paphs



## Stone (Nov 26, 2013)

Who has trouble with barbata types. Me for one I thought the brachys would be the most touchy but for me its your suks, callosum, masters, acmodontom etc that seem to go off their roots the the fastest. What am I doing wrong? Haven't lost any yet but they seem to grow well then stop. Not enough water?? They don't seem to be too fond of bark but that could be my watering. Feeding is very low. Will they do better in a Sphag mix? Why does callosum grow like a weed on the back porch for some people?


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 26, 2013)

I have found sukhakulii the easiest barbata to grow long term. The others, even when they do well, seem to go into a decline and die after only a few years. Some faster than others. While mastersianum is difficult, it dies slowly...so I can get a few unproductive years out of it. I find barbatum to consistently die after 2 years, although it may grow well and bloom in those years. But the end tends to come suddenly and quickly. On the other hand, barbata hybrids are among the hardier paphs.


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## abax (Nov 26, 2013)

Stone, have you tried Orchiata with maybe some sponge rock or hydroton
in clay pots? I can't grow any Paphs. in sphag. The medium stays far
too wet too long and then looks dried out when it isn't.

I had trouble when using regular bark mixes, but the Orchiata seems to have at
least leveled the playing field for me with Barbata Paphs.


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## emydura (Nov 27, 2013)

I think them and the Brachy's are the toughest group to grow. You need really high humidity. I wouldn't call any of the species easy to grow. For me tonsum grows quite well and I have a nice callosum clone that is proving to be quite hardy and reliable. None of the Barbata species seem to form clumps readily for me. I grow in bark which I find work best. I can't say I get great root systems with this group.


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## paworsport (Nov 27, 2013)

I have better results with barbata with rain water, warm and high humidity than in the past when I used tap water. The are making a lot of roots with good quality water for me.


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## SlipperKing (Nov 27, 2013)

I had the same issue. Not sure if I still do, too early. I do seem to think a fresh mix is a must. This was also pre-orchiata bark and my strong cutback on the amount of total nitrogen I feed. In the old days callosum etc would do great in a early change of mix but if delayed (10-12 months) and the mix turned sour, boom! No roots, soon no plant even after repotting I would loose them. I think the high fertilizer rapidly broke the mix down plus toxified the plants.


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## Stone (Nov 27, 2013)

I do use orchiata now but I havn't seen much difference to the bark I used before (at least for these types) I also use rain water mainly and very little fertilizer. Rick, what does turning sour mean exactly? I've read the term countless times but I don't really know what is meant by it. If it's acidity, then it should be easy enough to correct with a lime drench. If its a build up of salts then a few heavy leachings should help with that. Xavier says it is a drop in Zn, B and Mn which makes the difference between old and new mix but I think there must be some other reason for this problem. TN Rick would say too much K but that can't be it in my case at least. Maybe David is on to something with the humidity but the 50 to 70% that I give them should be ok?
TN Rick is having good results with Sphag and stones and his plants always look wet. That's why I thought it may be my watering?
A while back a club member brought in a sukhakulii with 6 flowers. The mix it was in was so decomposed that half was gone and the rest of the bark looked like peat!! When the people told him to repot the damn thing he said ''I'm to scared to, If I repot it it will probably die!'' And here's my little suk sitting in its pot with fresh mix etc and no roots :rollhappy:
Is there such a thing as good neglect?


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## SlipperKing (Nov 27, 2013)

Well Mike,
The crap I had to grow in before Orchiata, was put out by Rexius wood products here in the states. Young and knew it all when it came to growing my plants right? "Re-pot every year". Well this crap looked "ok" on the top but underneath it had broken down and yes, became acidic well before 12 months. Also, way too high on the total nitrogen, 100 to 125ppm which resulted in an algae bloom in my Rands aircone (clear)pots. This contribute to the acidification of the mix as well. Always had rooted root in the center and a few good ones attached to the pot walls and with so much algae you couldn't see anything inside of the pot. I don't recall ever having mosses grow in or on my mixes either.
So Mike, how long have you had the suk in the new mix? Maybe you need to add a little dirt as an inoculum(?) to mimic your club member.
TN Rick also has barbatum types in pots with CHC plus additives along with limestone rocks in the bottom of the pots.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 27, 2013)

Rexius was the worst bark I have ever used. Toxic! I lost the best paphs in my collection to it. It rotted faster than any other bark...maybe with repotting 3 times a year it would be ok, but who wants to do that? It was also loaded with splinters. As much as it killed paphs, my phrags loved it.


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## abax (Nov 27, 2013)

May I ask what kind of pots you use? Fertilizer?


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## Stone (Nov 27, 2013)

abax said:


> May I ask what kind of pots you use? Fertilizer?



I assume you mean me. I've been trying a few clay pots lately with a wide range of Paphs. The brachys seem to like them. (but note most of my plants are young--immature) With the barbartas, I put some into clay a few days ago in a mix of treefern and moss. We shall see how that goes. 
Fertiliser. I probably still use too much or too often but any way I have been rotating between a mix of K-lite and a higher K fert at an EC of about 0.2 dsm. N would be under about 40ppm I think but I haven't bothered to work that out. and then a little fermented seaweed/fish for its high amino acid content.


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## paphioboy (Nov 28, 2013)

True. Barbatas (include Maudiae hybrids) are a bit difficult to grow under my conditions. Roots can go downhill in a short time when the mix decomposes and forms a layer of sludge at the bottom of the pots. But they do grow very vigorously if repotted frequently (twice a year) in a suitable mix. I have better successes now by purchasing larger clumps. Single-growths are risky. Some are just reluctant (or very slow) to clump no matter how it is grown.


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## Rick (Nov 28, 2013)

Barbata types also used to be the plague for me.

First I went through lots of iterations of humidity control. Some species are very sensitive below 70% humidity so 50-70 was not good enough for many.

But even after the humidity was raised some things were still tough (like suk, mastersianum, sangii, and purpuratum).

That's when I started the basket thing, which started out great for the first few months, but started to screw up until adding the low K thing. 

So I think it goes back (over and over) to excessive fert application, and these guys are really sensitive (like Nepenthes!!!). I'm down to N application rates of around 5 ppm. K would be on the order of 1-0.5ppm. I think you could actually skip feeding this group altogether and let them live off of whatever breaks down from the media with a live moss application growing on top.

I set up half a compot of colosum seedlings in a mix of shredded fall leaves a couple years ago and gave them nothing but water for the first year. Then by the time I cut feeding to 5 ppm N I got lazy and have been feeding them at that rate. They have done better than the seedlings that got fed (anything) at higher rates.

I would also say that I'm not feeding/watering anything (including specimen Vandas and Catts) at higher than 100 uS/cm and usually its around 60 or so uS/cm, and everything is growing and blooming pretty well. Nothing appears to be starving:wink:


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## Rick (Nov 28, 2013)

I started a side by side trial of about 10 lowii seedlings a couple years ago.

1/2 get my old feeding/watering regime. MSU in RO at 1/2 tsp/gal about once a week (when I remember) and in between waterings with only RO water.

The other 1/2 get the K lite d'jour. So initially was 1/4tsp/gal with dilute well water, + irregular kelp additive. But now much more dilute and every other or third day (as regular irrigation water).

They are still fairly close with regard to leaf size, but the dilute feeders are inching ahead. I can also tell (by picking them up by the leaves) that root growth is superior in the dilute/frequent fed pots.

What also seems weird is that potting substrate seems to "evaporate" away in the high concentration fed pots, while the mix volume is still where it started in the dilute pots.

They were all potted in plain old 2" plastic pots with a few styro peanuts in the bottom using a CHC mix. I have not repotted since I started.

I'm not sure if I'll run this until they get to blooming size or see obvious failures of one group or the other. But right now the differences by just looking at photos of top growth are subtle.

Also these are lowii (which are fairly easy compared to barbata types for me)


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## Rick (Nov 28, 2013)

Stone said:


> Fertiliser. I probably still use too much or too often but any way I have been rotating between a mix of K-lite and a higher K fert at an EC of about 0.2 dsm. N would be under about 40ppm I think but I haven't bothered to work that out. and then a little fermented seaweed/fish for its high amino acid content.



I think you are still too high.

0.2dsm = 200 uS/cm (the units I use).

The representative daily feed/irrigation water I just ran in my lab has a conductivity of 50uS/cm and total N a bit under 5ppm (that's combined nitrate and ammonia). I also use kelp about once a week, but that doesn't seem to raise conductivity, but should bump up the N P K a touch.

The total hardness of my application water is about 20ppm (as CaCO3). The Ca and Mg concentrations are coming out to about 3 ppm each.

I doubt that the big limestone gravel in the pots or baskets contributes much to chemistry in the root area, and I quit using things like oyster shell or cichlid sand for pH support a couple years ago.


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## Rick (Nov 28, 2013)

I didn't see any mention of light, but given ChrisFL brought that up in a separate thread, it might be more influential than we think.

I generally grow my barbata types in the most shaded corner of my GH, and most are further shaded by lots of hanging plants. 

I don't think this group has a universal light requirement (max or min), but my suks are doing better in a recent move to a darker spot than before, but the parnatatum seem to be doing better in a brighter spot. I have a papuanum doing very well hanging in fairly bright light next to henryanum, and one doing equally well on the bench buried under a bunch of specimen Catts.

Even though the bulk of my barbata types are in the darker areas, I often see leaves or spikes "growing towards the light" which has often led me believe that they may be in too dim light


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## Stone (Nov 28, 2013)

Thanks for the input Rick, good info! Now.... I would love to see some pics of your experiments, especially the ''leaf mould'' paphs.
The barabatas recently repotted have not been fed anything at all yet. I will try a few of months (all summer?) at very low concentrations as you are doing and see what happens.
I have a couple of lowii and they are doing very well. They seem to handle anything I throw at them. The same with praestens, philippinense, roths, wilhelminiae, haymaldianum, lynniae. Charleswortiis are also powering away.
The brachys are finally doing pretty well too. I'm not so sure of the old notion that they are very more sensitive to salts is so accurate. I give them less than the multis but the same as section Paphiopedilum without problems.
If it's true that the barbatas are sensitive to high EC, and I don't doubt that they are, I wonder why. You would think that they have access to higher concentration of nutrients in the habitat compared to the crack dwellers but that may not be the case??
Are you still using kelpac as well?


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## SlipperKing (Nov 28, 2013)

Here is an excerpt from Xavier's article. I tend to follow his recommendations. I don't have a light meter but I bet on a good day I might have 1500 fc of light a few hours/day. Guessing 80% of the time it is less and this is for the plants on the top benches. 
*Light *
A tough subject. In fact, I have seen some of the best plants of Paphiopedilum being grown in shade, including 
gigantifolium, rothschildianum, Paphiopedilum rothschildianum prefer shady to very shady conditions, 
especially if properly fed. It can reach enormous sizes, and very dark, glossy green leaves with strong flower 
spikes and strong growths. 
I tend to give a reasonable amount of light. In general, the leaves, if the plants are properly potted and fed, 
should be ‘shiny’, like if oil had been used on them, never dull. It is a sign of excessive light if the leaves are 
greyish or dull looking. I tend to go for the darker green leaves rather than the yellowish leaves. If the plants 
have enough light, they make nice dark green leaves, with no mottling or marbling even, and the leaves are 
very large. They must not be floppy, just large and dark green. Apart from Paphiopedilum exul, which grows in 
full sun, most species grow with some sort of shade, or so much fog that they are shaded by it. The plants that 
are in full sun in the wild usually do not look so nice to be fair, and whilst they bloom earlier, the best blooms 
are produced with moderate light. 
I always did the light part as a feeling, though I can say that I have seen the best Borneo Paphiopedilum 
species ever grown in three places, Sabah, Sarawak and in Cameron Highlands, with a triple layer of 70% of 
shade. It was not exactly possible to read a newspaper, and in Cameron highlands, they even had gigantic 
plants of Paphiopedilum philippinense with 6-7 flowers per stem, and maybe 30 growths per pot, absolutely 
amazing. When the said plants were brought outside, they were blackish green, healthy looking. 

Xavier Garreau de Loubresse 
14 

The amount of light depends on the fertilizer, and I know, from other pot plant orchids too, that many 
growers tend to give a very high level of light, and give plenty of fertilizer, without realizing that they give a lot 
of fertilizer to compensate for the too high light level, which nullifies the purpose of increasing both, as the 
plants do not grow better than with a lower level of feeding and lower levels of light. More about that part in the feeding."


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## Stone (Nov 28, 2013)

SlipperKing said:


> > The amount of light depends on the fertilizer, and I know, from other pot plant orchids too, that many
> > growers tend to give a very high level of light, and give plenty of fertilizer, without realizing that they give a lot
> > of fertilizer to compensate for the too high light level, which nullifies the purpose of increasing both, as the
> > plants do not grow better than with a lower level of feeding and lower levels of light. More about that part in the feeding."[/
> ...


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## abax (Nov 28, 2013)

Stone, sorry I didn't address you directly. I grow mostly Brachy and the
unglazed clay orchid pots with holes all around the sides seem to be their
preference. All of my Paphs. are in clay and it seems to make a big difference in terms of air movement through the potting medium. I think
gas exchange is far more important than is generally considered. Most growers pay more attention to fertilizer, etc. than they do air movement
through the pot...THROUGH the potting medium, not just over it.


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## Stone (Nov 29, 2013)

abax said:


> Stone, sorry I didn't address you directly. I grow mostly Brachy and the
> unglazed clay orchid pots with holes all around the sides seem to be their
> preference. All of my Paphs. are in clay and it seems to make a big difference in terms of air movement through the potting medium. I think
> gas exchange is far more important than is generally considered. Most growers pay more attention to fertilizer, etc. than they do air movement
> through the pot...THROUGH the potting medium, not just over it.



Agreed! But in my g/house clay pots with side holes dry to fast.


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## Trithor (Nov 29, 2013)

I found barbata grew best in coco husk chips. Problem was that it 'soured' too quickly. It was a great medium if you repotted every 4 - 6 months, but if left for a year or longer it was deadly. I still use coco as a preliminary/interim medium for new plants. I find that it is easy to work with and I can get a lot of plants into pots very quickly. Root growth seems to be very fast, and after about three or four months I move the plants over to my regular medium which is good for 18 months to 2 years. 
Certainly a reduction in feed rates has been a great factor in improving growth. I agree that shade is important as well, I grow my barbata under the benches, and they seem quite happy.


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## Paul (Nov 29, 2013)

Hi,
I've bought a barbatum division to a seller, multigrowths plant in pure coco fiber, about 4 years ago. I've only repotted it last week, because he plant was much too big for the pot. Roots were excellent and in active growth. 
The coco medium had absolutely not broken down for almost 5 years... impressive!!

I think the very low feeding as Rick says is one of the most important key for them. I've had to lower my EC (municipal water to rain water) because a few plants had still troubles in rooting. low K and very, very low feeding is important, to me, for growing in coco mixes...


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## atlantis (Nov 29, 2013)

Most of my favourite paphs. are Barbata species so half of my small collection are Barbata species or hybrids.
I find many of them a bit tricky and difficult to manage because once the root rot has begun the plant usually continues declining until death.
I´m quite newbie in growing paphs. but in these years I´ve learnt something about this group and I´ve been trying to improve some aspects of my culture:

- I grow my Barbata in as much humidity I can provide (60-70% at least). They love to be wet (I keep their leaves damp except when they´re flowering).
- I avoid too much light. They grow MUCH better in semi-shade. Leaves are bigger, glossier and they grow faster.
- I use fir bark based medium. When I started growing paphs. I used to repot every year but I saw that plants stopped for a looong time after repotting and the new roots stopped growing in the "clean" medium. 
What I´m doing now is to mix half of the old medium with half of the clean one and the roots seem to love it. They are able to continue growing after they´re repotted without any sign of disturbance.
- I feed them just a bit and only in spring and summer. The rest of the year they are only watered with a very soft water (maybe this is what keep the medium in good condition for a long time). And I´d like to reduce the fertilizing regime even more.
Some of them need tons of water. I´ve noticed that my acmodontum and my standard venustum need a soggy medium (almost as wet as a Phrag. would like) if I want them to send new roots. In the other hand I have to water carefully the Varuna and the venustum album If I want to keep a healthy root system on them (I mean each plant has its own behaviour so I´ve needed some time to learn how to treat each one).
- I used to add some sphagnum in the mix for my Barbata paphs. but now I prefer to avoid it. I´m using small pieces of sponge with quite good results (it holds water but dries out faster than sphagnum, provide aireation and doesn´t break down as fast as moss).

Every year I feel a bit more confident than the previous one so I think I´m going step by step in the good direction.

I hope you find useful some of this


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## papheteer (Nov 29, 2013)

I have very limited experience with barbata species and hybrids but i have found that they like to be kept wet and very shaded. High humidity of course. And in my experience, they HATE CHC!


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## emydura (Nov 29, 2013)

papheteer said:


> . And in my experience, they HATE CHC!



Mine as well.


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## Rick (Nov 29, 2013)

papheteer said:


> And in my experience, they HATE CHC!



I also used to have terrible results in CHC, but with very dilute applications of low K fertilizer, it seems to work out just fine these days.


Not that far back Xavier started on thead that ultimately demonstrated how much fert (and in particular K) gets held up in different media. 

Orchiata bark held very little K compared to Sphagnum moss. 

From looking at studies on CHC, it has a big capacity to hold onto K and Na, so I think that the bad experiences of folks with CHC and barbata types was just a reflection on how CHC retains K coupled with species that have low TDS tolerance.

Another thing to consider is that materials that have high cation exchange capacity (such as CHC and moss) will be accumulating the micro nutrient metals as well as the cationic macros. And many of these materials will also cause toxicity issues of their own (copper is a very potent algicide).

So when working with potting materials of high ionic exchange capacity work very dilute overall.


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## papheteer (Nov 29, 2013)

I forgot to add that I haven't used chc in a long time and when I used it I was feeding way more than now and i wasn't mindful of excess k. My plants did grow lots of roots at first then after a few months go into decline. Maybe I will give it another go now that I feed less..


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 29, 2013)

I've already posted about my hatred of CHC on paphs...or rather, my paphs hatred of CHC. Of all paphs, it seemed that barbata types hated it the most. (Brachy's and multi's did OK with it, better than other paphs.) I'm trying a new fertilizer regime in my light garden (where plants get watered every other day). I've made a K-lite stock solution, maybe 200 ppm, and diluting it very heavily. Not measuring, but reducing concentration to maybe 10% or less...and using it with every watering. I've done OK with my usual concentrations, especially since switching to K-lite and orchiata, but I figure it can't hurt. Same concentration for all under the lights, both multi's, barbata, and brachy's. We'll see what happens.......


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## Stone (Nov 30, 2013)

Paul said:


> QUOTE] Roots were excellent and in active growth.
> The coco medium had absolutely not broken down for almost 5 years... impressive!!



How did the seller treat this plant Paul?


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## Stone (Nov 30, 2013)

atlantis said:


> > I hope you find useful some of this
> 
> 
> 
> Yes! Every bit of information is useful!!


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## eggshells (Nov 30, 2013)

You got to plant it deeper everytime it grows roots on top of the medium. Very annoying but that is the genus habit. That is the only way i find to have a good amount of roots. The axil is so thin that it constantly grows roots upwards. Unless you have a multiple growth plants (more growts junction) then tose are easier to work with.


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## Rick (Nov 30, 2013)

Here's a couple pics of callosum seedlings. They came out of flask in 5/2011 About the same time I started low K, but before K lite.




The plants at the top are in ground up leaf litter, and weren't fed at all for well over a year. I only recently pulled out that big one (top left) to move into a CHC mix. I got tired of dodging the tray during the time I would do heavy weekly feeding, and they really didn't get watered very well either. I started the very light feeding/w watering strategy about early summer of this year, and that's when they started getting fed. The larger one in the bottom left corner was a fast grower in the compot being fed (compot on the bottom), and was pulled out and potted up in CHC quite a while ago. It has been getting fed the whole time. Once I cut the feed way down, even the fed compot has been improving.

Another view.


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## Rick (Nov 30, 2013)

Here's some previews of the lowii trial.

Here's what they looked like Feb/March 2012 (About 1 month into the trial) The K lite guys started out slightly smaller on purpose (front row).




Here's what they looked like at August 2013. K lite plants on the right side. Note the smudged leaf on one of the MSU plants. It was a case of crown rot that ultimately took that leaf off. Amazingly it has a new leaf coming up from the crown anyway.






Here's the two biggest today pulled out of their pots for the first time since I started this trial







Roots definitely better on the K lite plant, and it is now bigger than any MSU plant.

Also the potting mix was more broken down in the MSU fed pot (that pic didn't come out too good.


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## paphioboy (Nov 30, 2013)

Interesting results, but based on just gross observation, I wouldn't even begin to call this any significant result considering large variation in your samples.


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## naoki (Dec 1, 2013)

Pretty interesting, Rick. In the P. lowii experiment, K-lite plants seem to have greener leaves. Is it the case? If the plants are clustered (instead of randomized), slight difference in the location could cause the difference.


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## Trithor (Dec 1, 2013)

These are two flasks of callosum, both from the same breeding and both deflasked on the same day and treated the same. The only difference is the level of light. The one on the right is under a more sparsely packed bench, while the LH one gets only reflected light. They are both about the same size (10cm LS, and are about 3 months out of flask) I feed all my seedlings with organic fertiliser only, never chemical. At the moment they get a Kelp type fertiliser once a week at a rate of 100ml per 50 liter. (identical to the rest of my plants, only the bigger plants get a chemical Low K fertiliser at a rate of 60ppm once a week in between the kelp.)


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## Rick (Dec 1, 2013)

naoki said:


> Pretty interesting, Rick. In the P. lowii experiment, K-lite plants seem to have greener leaves. Is it the case? If the plants are clustered (instead of randomized), slight difference in the location could cause the difference.




The greenness factor seems to be only a slight and not consistent difference in the plants. Especially over time. Leaf length/width ratio seems more consistently different if one were to look at effects that don't seem to infer health differences. They are all in the same tray in the same spot in the GH so light, humidity, and temp are all very close within that 1 square ft of space. They are rotated periodically from one end of the tray to the other end, but there are limitations given the space and rest of activities going on in the GH.

However, I don't think a 50% difference in root mass is accounted for in slight differences in light/temp/humidity that would occur on the bench site where the study is taking place, and the slight color difference could be just as easily attributed to root quality rather than minor differences in light quality.


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## Rick (Dec 1, 2013)

paphioboy said:


> Interesting results, but based on just gross observation, I wouldn't even begin to call this any significant result considering large variation in your samples.



Yes, granted the foliage is all still pretty much the same, but I wouldn't call the root difference insignificant. Even though we are only looking at one pair of plants, I can tell by trying to pick up the others by their foliage that the other 4 MSU plants are in similar shape root wise. And I would wager that an across the board 50% difference in root growth would be statistically significant.

Technically the control is the MSU group (the way I historically used fert). One hypothesis going into this test was that K lite use would cause deficiencies and would cause reduced growth.

So at this point I can see that reduced fertilizing does not significantly reduce plant health either.:wink:


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## Rick (Dec 1, 2013)

paphioboy said:


> Interesting results, but based on just gross observation, I wouldn't even begin to call this any significant result considering large variation in your samples.



The callosum compots may be a whole different story.

I took some measurements and can run a Ttest later.

Excluding the biggies potted separately.

There are 10 seedlings in the "no feed" condition.
They range from 11 to 2.8cm in leaf span
The average is 6.9cm, std deviation is 2.4 cm, and CV of 34.7% 

The "with feed" compot has 11 seedlings.
They range from 8.9 to 3.0 cm
The average is 5.1cm, stdeviation of 1.7cm and CV of 32.8%.

The "no feeds" are 35% bigger on average than the "fed" plants. Given the relatively low standard deviation and Coefficients of Variation, there's a pretty good chance that that would be statistically significant. But I'll let you know when I run the test.

Ran test and 1 tail probability is only 0.03, so highly probably that the difference between the two groups is significant.


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## Rick (Dec 1, 2013)

Trithor said:


> These are two flasks of callosum, both from the same breeding and both deflasked on the same day and treated the same. The only difference is the level of light. The one on the right is under a more sparsely packed bench, while the LH one gets only reflected light. They are both about the same size (10cm LS, and are about 3 months out of flask) I feed all my seedlings with organic fertiliser only, never chemical. At the moment they get a Kelp type fertiliser once a week at a rate of 100ml per 50 liter.



Both look great Gary. The color difference is easy to see, but they otherwise look about the same size. That sounds like a very week fert application. For US comparison the organic fert rate is 7.6 ml/gallon (about 1.5tsp/gallon). And usually those liquid organic feeds are very low in NPK, so I would expect a pretty low application of inorganic nutrients. For instance if you were using the Botanicare Seaplex kelp product I use, 100 ml/50L would provide about 0.2 ppm N final concentration (Seaplex NPK is 0.01-0-0)

Do you have a conductivity meter for another comparison?

You may have mentioned in other threads, but what is your irrigation water?


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## Trithor (Dec 1, 2013)

Rick, I use council water which as opposed to nearly every where else in the word is deficient in everything other than toxins. The tests show levels of Ca and Mg to be extremely low, but Cl are disturbingly high
I feed at very low levels, as my plants are just starting to recover from excessive fertilizer caused by a fertigator which had been malfunctioning all the way through the last growing season. I believe if you can smell it, it is there in sufficient quantities for orchids to use, and boy can you smell that kelp!. I am very happy with my current growth rates. I definitely believe that we tend to over feed and that orchids benefit better from lower levels at more regular intervals. Orchids in nature seem to do just fine without the regular application of chemical waste to their root zone.


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## Rick (Dec 1, 2013)

Here's a compot of wardii that came out of flask 6/1/2013 (so 6 months OOF), so have never seen N application rates higher than 5 ppm. Plant size ranges from 5-11 cm leaf span. The potting mix is straight sphagnum moss. The present location of this pot lets it get a lot of mist from the fogger, which actually has a fairly high TDS well water, but almost nothing but calcium/magnesium salts of sulfate and bicarbonate (some Na but low chloride, K was non detect, <1ppm).


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## Stone (Dec 1, 2013)

Rick said:


> Here's some previews of the lowii trial.
> 
> Here's what they looked like Feb/March 2012 (About 1 month into the trial) The K lite guys started out slightly smaller on purpose (front row).
> 
> ...



The root difference is interesting.( the plant is bigger because it has more roots) When you decide to repot all of them, I'd like to see all the Klite and MSU roots side by side. If there is significant difference in all of them, then I think we can say more definitely that the Klite helps with, (or a least dosen't inhibit) root growth.


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## Rick (Dec 1, 2013)

Stone said:


> The root difference is interesting.( the plant is bigger because it has more roots) When you decide to repot all of them, I'd like to see all the Klite and MSU roots side by side. If there is significant difference in all of them, then I think we can say more definitely that the Klite helps with, (or a least dosen't inhibit) root growth.



The K lite plants all started slightly smaller (I purposely added that bias to the group) and the MSU plants probably jumped ahead a bit faster too in the first several months. I agree that better roots make for better plants. What I see on a day to day basis, is that the MSU plants start a lot of roots (and just as many new leaves), but the roots just don't survive well. 

I think most of us would have repotted these a long time ago, but I'm not going to repot until I get obvious negative or positive effect differences in the top growth. I thought I was going to see that with some leaf rot issues with the MSU plants, but they seem to have got past that for now.

I'm also going to check into leaf tissue analysis and probably sacrifice a few to see what kind of leaf tissue content these plants end up with.

I have another 2 plants from this flasking in baskets, that dwarf any of these plants (one is probably close to blooming size), but I really wanted to see what would happen with more traditional potting techniques with this group.


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## naoki (Dec 2, 2013)

I agree, it will be interesting to see the root of the rest. From the two plants, they look quite different. Now, one thing which may complicate the result is that plants are known to adjust the shoot:root ratio depending on nutrient stress. In other words, if K-lite plants are nutrient stressed, they allocate more biomass to root. This may contribute to the longer term health of plants. I was checking out this paper recently:
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/Special_Issue/1255.full.pdf


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## Rick (Dec 2, 2013)

naoki said:


> In other words, if K-lite plants are nutrient stressed, they allocate more biomass to root. This may contribute to the longer term health of plants. I was checking out this paper recently:
> http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/Special_Issue/1255.full.pdf



That must be a positive stress to cause faster foliage growth and better long term health outcomes. It makes sense that if resources are dilute that you increase roots to "forage over greater distances", but I've seen root masses much greater than this in pots fed at high rates too (before they rot and overwatering is blamed).

In this case I'm thinking the bigger problem is pot chemistry going downhill faster in the MSU pots. Ultimately without constantly replacing the potting matrix, the MSU plants will loose their roots and crater. I'm getting hints of that now, with the MSU plants frequently starting new roots that only go a short way into the substrate before stopping.


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## consettbay2003 (Dec 3, 2013)

Does anyone else think it might be better give less fertilizer to the roots 
and more to the foliage? I believe some commercial growers of paphs only
foliar feed them.


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## paworsport (Dec 3, 2013)

Rick said:


> Here's a compot of wardii that came out of flask 6/1/2013 (so 6 months OOF), so have never seen N application rates higher than 5 ppm. Plant size ranges from 5-11 cm leaf span. The potting mix is straight sphagnum moss. The present location of this pot lets it get a lot of mist from the fogger, which actually has a fairly high TDS well water, but almost nothing but calcium/magnesium salts of sulfate and bicarbonate (some Na but low chloride, K was non detect, <1ppm).



For warddi seedlings, I have changed my feeding and watering due to loses and since last August, I have only given tap water or rain water when available : loses has stopped and the seedling are recovering well. No more fert until 4 months. My tap water is approximatively 280 ms....
For the two compot I have deflasked 2 months ago I only give rain water and my seedling are growing very well with leaves bigger than the previous one.
I observed that all my paph have produced more roots and are healthier with a lower amount of fertilizer.
I was away from home for 2 months and all paph were watered with tap water only for this period. I continue due to the roots results when I came back.
My only question is for paph like roth, I have more roots but are they feed enough to continue to grow well ?


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## Rick (Dec 3, 2013)

paworsport said:


> My only question is for paph like roth, I have more roots but are they feed enough to continue to grow well ?



Yes.

I've been growing lots of multi's to blooming size with the same fert rate as for barbata types.


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