# sell me on kelpmax



## ChrisFL (Sep 22, 2017)

Well... My goal this time around is big, healthy plants. Plants that are rough from import. 

Has anyone actually verified the increase in hormone presence in the plants that are being fed pre-existing hormones from the kelpmax, e.g. vs. a control plant?


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## naoki (Sep 22, 2017)

With auxins, bean seedling root growths is frequently used as an indicator. In the following study, they compared effects of several seaweed extracts on mung bean roots at several concentration. It is basically quantifying the concentration of *bioactive* hormones in different product. It included Kelpak (=KelpMax) and Maxicrop (and other less available products in the US).

Stirk, W.A. and Van Staden, J., 1996. Comparison of cytokinin-and auxin-like activity in some commercially used seaweed extracts. Journal of Applied Phycology, 8(6), pp.503-508.

Kelpak appears to cause the most root growth at extremely high concentration (25 roots at 20% v/v). At around 1% concentration, MaxiCrop and Kelpak didn't differ much (around 12 roots). Indeed, they don't differ much below 2% or less. 1TBS/gallon is 0.39%.

With many plant hormones, when you give too much, the response could be opposite. This has been seen in MaxiCrop. Maximum is achieved at 1%, but beyond that, the beans produced less roots (than at 1%). But in other products (including Kelpak), this reduction in response didn't happen until really high concentration (10-20%). One thing to note is that the sensitivity of plants (i.e. the optimum concentration) to hormone is somewhat species specific. Actually different tissues has different optimum response (e.g. root vs shoot).

If you want to take a look at the paper, you can pm me your email.


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## ChrisFL (Sep 22, 2017)

naoki said:


> With auxins, bean seedling root growths is frequently used as an indicator. In the following study, they compared effects of several seaweed extracts on mung bean roots at several concentration. It is basically quantifying the concentration of *bioactive* hormones in different product. It included Kelpak (=KelpMax) and Maxicrop (and other less available products in the US).
> 
> Stirk, W.A. and Van Staden, J., 1996. Comparison of cytokinin-and auxin-like activity in some commercially used seaweed extracts. Journal of Applied Phycology, 8(6), pp.503-508.
> 
> ...



Great info, naoki, I appreciate you taking the time to write that out. I'll be working with a lot of weak/freshly imported plants in the future and trying to establish divisions from friends. I also traditionally haven't used any fertilizer at all, but I don't see that as sustainable with synthetic media. PMing you now.

Chris


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## Ray (Sep 24, 2017)

Chris, in addition to the auxins, KelpMax does contain nutrients, amino acids, vitamins, plant growth regulators - a wide range of beneficial ingredients - but in my opinion, not enough NPK nutrients to forego using some fertilizer. I know there are some folks that are using it exclusively, but I think that if used enough for adequate nutrition, the hormone application would be excessive, and if used properly, focusing on the stimulant aspect, insufficient nutrition is applied.

For about the last five years, all of my plants received K-Lite (12-1-1-10Ca-3Mg) at 25 ppm N in RO water, at every watering, flooding them each time. Once a month they received KelpMax at 1:256 added to that, and once a month, staged two weeks later, Inocucor Garden Solution at 1:100, also added to the fertilizer application.

In addition to them growing and blooming particularly well, sympodial plants all multiplied the number of growths at a much greater rate than I have ever experienced in 45 years of orchid-growing. I certainly hope my growing skills have improved over the years, but this has been a step-wise improvement.


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