# K-lit after 6 months



## dodidoki (May 19, 2013)

I don't now how, but obviously works. I red Rick's article carefully and modified a little: I use weaker cc K-lite but with every waterings ( about 100 ppm total).
As you can see, main effect is excessive root forming, only one side effect appearing algees, but harmless.

Anitum:
I got it 9 months ago, only suffered till this timme. Now I noticed not only new root forming but a new growth emerges at base!







Intaniae:
I got it with that anitum, now it produced a nice new growth with roots.







Violascens:
hard to grow and keep it alive, roots are extremely sensitive and die quickly. I got it 6 months ago, when I started to use K-lite, established with nice new roots.



Vittatum:
I got it about 15 months ago, almost died, someone said that if I had a real vittatum, I will realize it, because it will die within few months. Now you can see it produced very nice, shiny leaves with characteristic yellow stripes, and I ccould take pic olny in its place because I couldn't remove ( roots grow into seramis)



Effects on catts:

Someone said that K-lite won't work at catts, because they are faster in growing so there would be K-deficiency symptoms on catts. I can't see that, only see, that my aurea is in sheath, it happened 2 years ago, as I can remember.Trianaei alba has 3 new growths, rosita has very large dormant( I mean waking) eye.


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## dodidoki (May 19, 2013)

Rosita:




Uploaded with ImageShack.us


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## gonewild (May 19, 2013)

Good observations. Thank you for the report.


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## TyroneGenade (May 19, 2013)

Very encouraging!


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## Brabantia (May 19, 2013)

Beautiful results! Do you use a seaweeds extract simultaneously with the KLite fertilizer?


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## dodidoki (May 19, 2013)

Brabantia said:


> Beautiful results! Do you use a seaweeds extract simultaneously with the KLite fertilizer?



I only use RO / rain water with K-lite, nothing more.


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## SlipperFan (May 19, 2013)

Good work, dodidoki!


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## NYEric (May 19, 2013)

Thanks for the updates.


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## eggshells (May 19, 2013)

A+ effort dodi doki. But I am more curious about the anitum and intaniae? Where did you get them and have you bloomed them before? I have a couple of intaniae and it looks exactly like your leaves. I haven't bloom them yet but I am always curious if its true intaniae. As you probably know, there are rare as f***. Will post some pics later.


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## dodidoki (May 20, 2013)

There were few vendors who offered them in Germany, I bought from one of them. I know, rare, never bloomed yet, anitum I have a bigger one, intaniae I have just only one. Now I'm happy to see that all established, I think I have to wait for blooming is at least two years.


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## Brabantia (May 20, 2013)

An other paper which confirm the phylosophy of Klite *Here*
and this one will certainly interest Rick *Here*...unfortunately I have no access to the full text.


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## Ray (May 20, 2013)

If anyone can get these, please share!


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## gonewild (May 20, 2013)

I think this is the same document but I don't have time to read it now...

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00011066.pdf#page-1


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## get (May 20, 2013)

thanks for share!
Fantastic results, i´m trying to learn about these method, and i find a study that i think is very similar with the same results:
http://www.google.com/patents/EP1030555A1?cl=en


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## The Orchid Boy (May 20, 2013)

I've heard the same thing, that K-lite won't work with catts. Good to hear it works. I've been using it with the few that I have and they seem good as ever. A little off subject but, anyone heard of using low or nitrogen free fertilizer with catts when in bud and bloom or else they'll blast??? I know I've found this to be false but has anyone ever heard of it?


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## Rick (May 20, 2013)

The Orchid Boy said:


> I've heard the same thing, that K-lite won't work with catts.



It works great with mine, but I only have about a dozen (so that's annecdotal).

But I'm glad we have folks coming up with more papers and exploring on their own!


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## Stone (May 21, 2013)

Brabantia said:


> > An other paper which confirm the phylosophy of Klite *Here*
> 
> 
> Please explain how that confirms the Klite philosophy? It has been known for ages that too much K can induce Ca and Mg deficiency. So can too much ammonium and so can low pH and so can high humidity in certain situations.
> ...


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## dodidoki (May 21, 2013)

Stone said:


> Brabantia said:
> 
> 
> > Please explain how that confirms the Klite philosophy? It has been known for ages that too much K can induce Ca and Mg deficiency. So can too much ammonium and so can low pH and so can high humidity in certain situations.
> ...


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## emydura (May 21, 2013)

Stone said:


> Brabantia said:
> 
> 
> > Kelp also has plenty of K. !
> ...


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## Stone (May 21, 2013)

dodidoki said:


> Stone said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, maybe you have right, God knows, maybe it is more difficult problem than we thought.
> ...


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## Stone (May 21, 2013)

emydura said:


> Stone said:
> 
> 
> > Mike - In the fertiliser I use it says it it contains 19% Kelp and Fulvic Acid but only 0.45% K. Would you question that?
> ...


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## dodidoki (May 21, 2013)

Stone said:


> dodidoki said:
> 
> 
> > Most nursery plants are raised in bark mixes with no Ca added in the fertilizer but only as dolomite/limstone added to the mix pre-plant. This supplies enough Ca and Mg for good growth over at least 1 year. Long -term you would need to add more. It very much depends on how fine the limestone used is. Limestone has a fixed solubility therefore a range of particle grades is used to give both quick and long term supply. You wil get almost no Ca or certainly not enough if you use anything much above 2mm particle size. And if you only use 2mm you will need to add a lot. Of course you can replace this by using Calcium nitrate and Magnesium sulphate as they must do in hydroponic systems. Or a combination of both like most of us do.
> ...


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## TyroneGenade (May 21, 2013)

This may be of some value:






Essentially, it is very hard to disentangle the nutrients from each other to perform a control experiment. But I think the central idea of the K-light philosophy is:
1. Organic media accumulate K+.
2. Plants extract cations by exporting H+ to exchange cations with the substrate.
3. The plant can't control for which cation it lets in. Whether it wants K, Ca or Mg it must take what is gets and keep pumping H+ until it has enough of what is wants.
4. This results in the excess K+ from the substrate being imported in excess.
5. Excess K disrupts the uptake of Mg and Boron (from the chart).
6. Therefore (the hypothesis): by feeding low-K fertilize the excess of K in the substrate is avoided and the plan can assimilate sufficient Mg and B.

So the critical issue is the uptake of Mg and B and the test is to see whether plants given Low-K have taken up more Mg and B than high-K plants. Mg is linked to plant health, not only chlorophyll, and a classic symptom is "ticking" (spots on the leaves) and sensitivity to infection.

Now, I write this, it dawns on me that in the formulation of the MSU fertilizers, this hypothesis was probably tested already and we are arguing over an issue which was settled long ago.


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## ALToronto (May 21, 2013)

So is K-Lite supposed to be used only on plants grown in organic media? That would be news to me...


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## TyroneGenade (May 21, 2013)

Organic media is the major culprit. As it breaks down it holds more and more cations as the negative carbon based compounds attract them. The experiments with CHC suggests that it will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg. I can't think bark is much different as it is mostly the same stuff... In addition, the tannins and phenols form insoluble salts with Ca and Mg.

I would think that stone is more resistant to this but will, eventually, have the same problem as the silicates are negatively charged (but have a much higher pKa* than bark and CHC). I don't know about LECA types...

I would also think that the major benefit from K-light in inorganic medium is that the fertilizing comes more regularly in smaller doses. Also the medium is rinsed more so excesses don't build up. If you supply K-heavy ferts as per instruction (once a month) the odds are that the plant gets a massive dose of K that hinders Mg and B uptake and then all the ferts are simply washed away and the plant remains short og Mg and B.

That is at least my thinking on the subject.

*pKa is a measure of acidity. A pKa > 7 would imply an alkaline medium. A pKa < 7 is acidic. If you have two mediums of pKa 5 and 6 then the plant has to pump out less H+ to release nutrients from the 6 medium than the 5. Also, the higher acidity of the 5 medium would mean that alkali salts such as Mg and Ca would be more likely to be washed out with watering. The H+ is pumped out across an electochemical gradient. The more H+ there is outside the root the harder the plant root has to work and this means fuel and resources are taken away from growth.


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## DavidCampen (May 21, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> The experiments with CHC suggests that it will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg.


I don't remember seeing any experiments that suggested this. Which are you talking about?


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## Stone (May 22, 2013)

Looks like I'm going to have to trial Klite for myself. (Its the only way I'll be satisfied) The trouble is to find a fertilizer with the same P levels for the controls. I have an insigne which I can divide into 6 equal parts. 2 for Klite, 2 for MSU type and 2 for a general Urea based feed over 1 and 2 years. (I think I should use divsions of one clone as there is too much variation in seedlings unless you have 20 or 30 of each to cover it?)
Ray, have you sent any of this stuff downunder?


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## Stone (May 22, 2013)

dodidoki said:


> Stone said:
> 
> 
> > > I think it should be define two terms: toxicity and deficiency.
> ...


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## TyroneGenade (May 22, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> I don't remember seeing any experiments that suggested this. Which are you talking about?



Hmm... It will take a while to dig up the reference but that was the reason why loading the CHC with CaNO3 was suggested. I think this was discussed in the following thread: http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28491 and also http://www.ladyslipper.com/coco3.htm and http://www.aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk/hydroponics-advice/growing_media/growing_in_coco_coir.html (search for "Potassium" to find the relevant bit of info).


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## Stone (May 22, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> Hmm... It will take a while to dig up the reference but that was the reason why loading the CHC with CaNO3 was suggested. I think this was discussed in the following thread: http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28491 and also http://www.ladyslipper.com/coco3.htm and http://www.aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk/hydroponics-advice/growing_media/growing_in_coco_coir.html (search for "Potassium" to find the relevant bit of info).



I think the CaN03 and Mgso4 wash was to help remove the native very high K and (sometimes) Na already in the chc and to help with its low Ca Mg an S content. But once that's rectified somewhat, ( if it can be ) are chc any different to sphag or bark when it comes to K loading? If so how?


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## TyroneGenade (May 22, 2013)

The Antex and hydroponics links both imply that CHC releases K slowly but doesn't release Ca and Mg readily. High Ca concentrations push the K and Na from the CHC matrix. In essence, this is the same idea as softening water with a resin that releases K and Na but takes up Ca and Mg. But the chemistry would be the same all woody organic substances like bark. The ion exchange is occurring on a medium of cross-linked lignins, tannins, cyanins etc... which tend to chelate divalent cations (Ca, Mg, Fe, Mo etc...) but also hold on to K and Na via direct ionic interactions. To force the K and Na off those negative groups on the CHC you need a high concentration of Ca.


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## Ray (May 22, 2013)

Stone said:


> Looks like I'm going to have to trial Klite for myself. (Its the only way I'll be satisfied) The trouble is to find a fertilizer with the same P levels for the controls. I have an insigne which I can divide into 6 equal parts. 2 for Klite, 2 for MSU type and 2 for a general Urea based feed over 1 and 2 years. (I think I should use divsions of one clone as there is too much variation in seedlings unless you have 20 or 30 of each to cover it?)
> Ray, have you sent any of this stuff downunder?



Sure have.

Go to the USPS.com website and check the "calculate rates" button. I can repackage 2# into a plastic bag and fit it into a small, flat rate box.


Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk


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## DavidCampen (May 22, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> The Antex and hydroponics links both imply that CHC releases K slowly but doesn't release Ca and Mg readily. High Ca concentrations push the K and Na from the CHC matrix. In essence, this is the same idea as softening water with a resin that releases K and Na but takes up Ca and Mg. But the chemistry would be the same all woody organic substances like bark. The ion exchange is occurring on a medium of cross-linked lignins, tannins, cyanins etc... which tend to chelate divalent cations (Ca, Mg, Fe, Mo etc...) but also hold on to K and Na via direct ionic interactions. To force the K and Na off those negative groups on the CHC you need a high concentration of Ca.



The Antec paper does not present any evidence to suggest that "CHC ... will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg" as you stated earlier. And in fact, as you stated above, ion exchange resins tend to bind divalent ions (such as Ca and Mg) more strongly than monovalent ions (such as K and Na).


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## TyroneGenade (May 22, 2013)

Well spotted, David, but I didn't say that was the reference to the claim, only supporting testimony.

You misunderstand the issue of the K/Ca resin effect. When the plant pumps out H+ from the roots it can either displace a K or a Ca. But there is a lot more K present (from the fertilizer and the medium) so there is an increased probability that a K comes loose over a Ca. In addition, the organic medium holds onto Ca and Mg more readily than K and Na because: (1) the phenolics chelate divalent cations and (2) Ca and Mg form insoluble precipitates with phenolics (tannins etc...). So the probability of that H+ displacing a Ca is very small compared to it displacing a K. 

Loading the CHC with CaNO3 removes a lot of the K from the CHC (etc...) so the probability that the H+ will displace a Ca or Mg is now greater. In addition, you have precipitated out the free phenolics as well as saturated the chelating sites. So there is more Ca and Mg free to be absorbed by the plant.

Until I can recall the reference for the preferential binding of monovalent cations can you propose an alternative hypothesis for why K-light works (particularly with CHC). There is a lot of evidence for K-light being better with CHC than others. Read the thread I mentioned previously.

I do not believe that my hypothesis is necessarily correct in every way, but from the evidence presented, I believe it is the better hypothesis. If you wish to supplant it, provide your evidence.


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## Trithor (May 22, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> Well spotted, David, but I didn't say that was the reference to the claim, only supporting testimony.
> 
> You misunderstand the issue of the K/Ca resin effect. When the plant pumps out H+ from the roots it can either displace a K or a Ca. But there is a lot more K present (from the fertilizer and the medium) so there is an increased probability that a K comes loose over a Ca. In addition, the organic medium holds onto Ca and Mg more readily than K and Na because: (1) the phenolics chelate divalent cations and (2) Ca and Mg form insoluble precipitates with phenolics (tannins etc...). So the probability of that H+ displacing a Ca is very small compared to it displacing a K.
> 
> ...



Wheweee! just been offered the post of assistant Prof, and already argues like one. I wait with baited breath for the next installment, or perhaps I should just wait for everyone to resolve the issue so that I dont have to take a Doctoral Post-Grad in chem to distill the salient facts?

As interesting as the results on the insigne study will be, I am afraid to point out that they will apply to insigne only, and at a streatch those which are similar in geographical location, habitat and type. Unfortunately it will be impossible to extrapolate the results to other species. Perhaps other ST members will conduct similar trials on other species and so spread the load and give a broader base?


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## DavidCampen (May 22, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> Well spotted, David, but I didn't say that was the reference to the claim, only supporting testimony.


OK, then what is the reference that provides evidence for your statement that "_experiments with CHC suggests that it will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg_"? It is my opinion that that statement is incorrect. I don't see that the Antec paper supplies even supporting testimony.



> You misunderstand the issue of the K/Ca resin effect. When the plant pumps out H+ from the roots it can either displace a K or a Ca. But there is a lot more K present (from the fertilizer and the medium) so there is an increased probability that a K comes loose over a Ca.


I don't see how you can say I misunderstand the above since I did not comment on the above. I said only that your statement that "_experiments with CHC suggests that it will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg_" is not correct.



> In addition, the organic medium holds onto Ca and Mg more readily than K and Na because: (1) the phenolics chelate divalent cations and (2) Ca and Mg form insoluble precipitates with phenolics (tannins etc...). So the probability of that H+ displacing a Ca is very small compared to it displacing a K.


Your previous statement was "_The experiments with CHC suggests that it will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg_" Now you are saying the opposite.



> Loading the CHC with CaNO3 removes a lot of the K from the CHC (etc...) so the probability that the H+ will displace a Ca or Mg is now greater. In addition, you have precipitated out the free phenolics as well as saturated the chelating sites. So there is more Ca and Mg free to be absorbed by the plant.


This has nothing to do with your statement that " _(CHC) holds onto Ca and Mg more readily than K and Na_".



> Until I can recall the reference for the preferential binding of monovalent cations can you propose an alternative hypothesis for why K-light works (particularly with CHC). There is a lot of evidence for K-light being better with CHC than others. Read the thread I mentioned previously.


How about you first providing the reference for your statement that "(CHC)holds onto Ca and Mg more readily than K and Na. "

Where are the specific posts that provide "evidence for K-light being better with CHC than others" our do you intend to send me on another wild goose chase like you did by supplying the Antec reference for your first statement?



> I do not believe that my hypothesis is necessarily correct in every way, but from the evidence presented, I believe it is the better hypothesis. If you wish to supplant it, provide your evidence.


How about you supplying your reference first.

Can you succinctly state your hypothesis and the supporting data? Is it the potassium toxicity thesis as stated in the AOS article? Whether potassium or calcium bind more strongly to potting media, I don't think that that provides any evidence for the AOS article potassium toxicity thesis.


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## DavidCampen (May 22, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> The Antex and hydroponics links both imply that CHC releases K slowly but doesn't release Ca and Mg readily. High Ca concentrations push the K and Na from the CHC matrix. In essence, this is the same idea as softening water with a resin that releases K and Na but takes up Ca and Mg. But the chemistry would be the same all woody organic substances like bark. The ion exchange is occurring on a medium of cross-linked lignins, tannins, cyanins etc... which tend to chelate divalent cations (Ca, Mg, Fe, Mo etc...) but also hold on to K and Na via direct ionic interactions. To force the K and Na off those negative groups on the CHC you need a high concentration of Ca.



Here you have gotten things backwards. In a water softener small amounts of Ca or Mg in the water readily display the K or Na. To recharge the water softner you have to flush it with high concentrations of K or Na because the cation exchange sites on the water softener media hold the Ca and Mg much more strongly than they do K or Na.


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## Stone (May 22, 2013)

Trithor said:


> Wheweee! just been offered the post of assistant Prof, and already argues like one. I wait with baited breath for the next installment, or perhaps I should just wait for everyone to resolve the issue so that I dont have to take a Doctoral Post-Grad in chem to distill the salient facts?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Trithor (May 23, 2013)

Mike, I agree with you, that a controlled study would be benificial. I think you are being overly sensitive to what was intended as a constructive comment. We all know that not all paphs have the same nutritional requirements (FACT), so my suggestion that perhaps other ST members would consider helping out with a similar study to yours using different species would give us a broader understanding of the effect of K-lite, benificial or otherwise.


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## cnycharles (May 23, 2013)

can we stop bitching about who said what, and decide whether or not that something seems to work or not? instead of always trying to poke holes in something, come up with statements that are backed by refuting evidence. getting tired of the usual blather about 'you said this and that and contradict yourself'. either make your own statement about how something does or doesn't work, which is productive, or please refrain from being a dart-thrower. I am only asking politely, not telling anyone to do anything. supplying something that actively supports or refutes something is much more forward-moving and thinking and results in supportable conclusions


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## TyroneGenade (May 23, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> Your previous statement was "_The experiments with CHC suggests that it will preferentially hold onto K and Na over Ca and Mg_" Now you are saying the opposite.



Yes, on rereading my post I see I have fallen into the same trap as equating the cation exchange capacity (the resin element) with the chemical reactions between the phenolic matrix and Ca/Mg. This was not my attention. Rather, what was meant, is that the experiments/experiences are that the resin-character of CHC will preferentially accumulate K while absorbable Ca & Mg is either washed out or (in the case of Mg) its absorbence in inhibited by the uptake of K. This is easy to see on mediums. Ca/Mg phenolic salts are brown in color but the salt building up on organic mediums tends to be white---K and Na salts. It is these salts that accumulate in the medium.

But this discussion is useless. I have previously proposed a testable hypothesis in http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=427088&postcount=23 which was that: by feeding low-K fertilize the excess of K in the substrate is avoided and the plant can assimilate sufficient Mg and B.

Leaf/stem analysis of plants fed high and low-K fertilizers should find that the low-K plants have more Mg and B than the high-K plants. Testing the hypothesis is the only means to arrive at any certain answer. This philosophical banner is of no use for we have no certainty over the various claims. What we do have are lots of people who have switched to K-light and have seen improvements in their plants. I was looking at my Seagrow fertilize this morning and notices that is a K-lightish fertilizer with 70 g/kg N but only 15 g/Kg K (with 0.5 g/kg Ca and 1.7 g/Kg Mg).

Unless we do the experiment we can argue forever and not get anywhere. 

And for the last TIME the Antec site is NOT the reference for CHC holding onto K preferentially to Ca/Mg. I am still trying find that reference again.


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## Stone (May 23, 2013)

Trithor said:


> > Mike, I agree with you, that a controlled study would be benificial. I think you are being overly sensitive to what was intended as a constructive comment.
> 
> 
> Trithor, I reread my post to see where you may have come up with the notion of oversensitivity but it beats me! I think you may have assumed your comment was seen as offensive or critical to me in some way. Farthest thing from my mind! Not at all! I welcome all comments equally. And I agree that the more people who have the disipline to carry out such a trial the better. I just disagree with your contention that it would only apply to insigne, nothing more.
> ...


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## TyroneGenade (May 23, 2013)

Ok,

I'm still battling to find my original reference but my memory did bring be back to this: http://www.apsa.co.za/board/index.php?topic=4213.msg41180#msg41180 and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852401001894

First, Erik Biksa holds a diploma in agriculture with majors in fertilizer sciences and crop production and the article quoted in the above link is from Maximum Yield Magazine. Sadly, I can't find the original article.

the ScienceDirect article gives K, Na, Ca and Mg values before treatment for growing. These are respectively, on average, 24.26, 7.13, 0.82, 0.95 mol m−3. Now compare those values to the treated CHC values given by Erik. Note that the medium still contains a lot of K and Na after being treated with high concentrations of Ca. Whether CHC likes K or just continues to release cannot be told from this data but, being a cation exchanger, it accumulates what it is given and releases in proportion to the solutes in solution. If you supply high K it will accumulate more K to the resin and not be inclined to release it. The chemical process is governed solely by equilibrium kinetics and the law of mass action. That is the theory at least. And this can be tested as follows:

Take some new CHC and some old CHC fed high K and another lot of old CHC fed low K. Take 1 kg of each, dry it out and burn it. You are left with various oxides. Take 10 g of the ash and dissolve it in 100 mL of dilute 1M HCL. You will now have solutions of K, Na, Ca and Mg Cl etc... as well as insoluble precipitates. Redry the precipitate and measure the mass. 100 mL HCl would need 13.8 g of K2CO3 to neutralize the acid and precipitate the Ca and Mg salts. K2CO3 is very soluble in water (112 g/100 mL) so, again collect the precipitate to dry and weigh (this will be mostly Ca and Mg carbonate). You can again neutralize the K2CO3 with dilute HCl and then evaporate the solution. 13.8 g of K2CO3 is 7.79 g of K so the difference between the mass of the salts in solution and 7.79 g is the mass of K/Na from the CHC.

Assuming I can't find the original reference I had the above is the experiment to finally settle the issue. It would work as well for bark and LECA (except with LECA you can just wash the pellets in the acid to start with).

While we can continue to argue the issue only the experiment will reveal whose hypothesis is wrong.


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## Ray (May 23, 2013)

Just a small caveat: Folks who are knowledgeable about crop nutrition tend to have no knowledge about epiphyte nutrition, but also tend to assume its similar - which it is obviously not.


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## TyroneGenade (May 23, 2013)

Ok,

I have found a reference (but not the original one I found). The article is: Charlo , H.C.O., Ferreira, A.F., Vargas, P.F., Castoldi, R., Melo , D.M. and Braz, L.T. 2012. ALTERATIONS IN LEVELS OF NPK, ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY AND PH OF SUBSTRATE, IN CULTIVATION OF PEPPERS. Acta Hort. (ISHS) 927:437-442
http://www.actahort.org/books/927/927_54.htm

In it potassium content of CHC is followed over 189 days. The pepper plants grown in the CHC are given (in addition to other ferts) 6.18 mmol/L K per daily (using "fertigation"). Ca and Mg are 3.96 and 1.34 mmol/L respectively. Over the 189 days the level of K in the CHC climbs from about 120 to 270 mg/L.

Another paper, from the same author: (Charlo , H.C.O., Ferreira, A.F., Castoldi, R., Vargas, P.F., Barbosa, J.C. and Braz, L.T. 2012. CHEMICAL ALTERATIONS OF SUBSTRATE IN THE CULTIVATION OF PEPPERS . Acta Hort. (ISHS) 927:443-448 http://www.actahort.org/books/927/927_55.htm) tracks changes in Ca and Mg in the CHC and that shows an increase from about 10 and 5 to 240 and 110 mg/mL.

How this fertilizer regime compares to K-light I have no idea but CHC definitely does accumulate K. Whether CHC would accumulate more K if the K concentration of the fertilizer was greater is an open question but I did find a commercial fertilizer (designed for CH products) stating that "


http://blog.bghydro.com/tag/coco/ said:


> “The nutrient you use on coco is going to be extremely important,” said Canna’s David Hill, adding that growers should be cautious when using flowering enhancers loaded with high levels of potassium, which competes with magnesium to bind with coco, upsetting the nutrient balance in the root zone.



The K-light vs K-absorbing nature of organic mediums is a neat hypothesis that explains the better results had by K-light over K-heavy fertilizers. If there is another, better, hypothesis or direct evidence refuting this hypothesis I would like to know about it. In the mean time, experiments by which to test this hypothesis have been suggested and if anyone can do those experiments than we would know whether the hypothesis is wrong.


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## DavidCampen (May 23, 2013)

cnycharles said:


> either make your own statement about how something does or doesn't work, which is productive, or please refrain from being a dart-thrower. I am only asking politely,



If you consider challenging erroneous statements to be throwing darts then you are saying that you want to believe in fantasies.


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## TyroneGenade (May 24, 2013)

I must confess to having a lot of appreciation for dart-throwers. Tough scrutiny makes for a stronger theory as well as uncovering the the critical question. The brilliance of Socrates was in asking the write questions. His method eventually gave us Modern Science and the various fruits it has born through Engineering, Medicine, Agriculture etc... While it irks me having to put up with nit-picking it is the price paid for thorough discussion.


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## cnycharles (May 24, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> If you consider challenging erroneous statements to be throwing darts then you are saying that you want to believe in fantasies.



When someone only spends their time trying to poke holes in other's statements, then it is largely negative. Come up with some ways on your own to discredit what you find to be inaccurate. I've already said this. Poking at me instead of coming up with a said scientific rebuttal also is dart-throwing.


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## ALToronto (May 24, 2013)

I will repeat the offer I posted on Orchid Board, to design a statistically valid experiment that will test not only the single effects of K, Mg and Ca absorption, but interactions between different variables as well.


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## gonewild (May 24, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> I will repeat the offer I posted on Orchid Board, to design a statistically valid experiment that will test not only the single effects of K, Mg and Ca absorption, but interactions between different variables as well.



What is your offer?


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## Markedg (May 24, 2013)

*Where to buy KLite in Europe*

Hi all,
This is slightly off topic but does anyone know where in Europe I could buy the KLite formula? I have read this thread and the article in March 2013 orchids magazine, and it does make sense. Some of it is over my head though. I have no issues growing cattleyas but I do have some issues with paphs/phrags. I see that Ray in the us does sell it and will ship to Europe but I would be a bit concerned that when it gets to me in Dublin, Ireland, it could be confiscated as they might think I was trying to build something else with it. Thanks.


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## Ray (May 24, 2013)

As far as I know, firstrays.com in the US is the only commercial source. I have shipped it to any number of countries without issue, other than the seizure of a larger volume in Colombia.


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## Stone (May 24, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> I will repeat the offer I posted on Orchid Board, to design a statistically valid experiment that will test not only the single effects of K, Mg and Ca absorption, but interactions between different variables as well.



Lets have it


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## Rick (May 24, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> The K-light vs K-absorbing nature of organic mediums is a neat hypothesis that explains the better results had by K-light over K-heavy fertilizers.



The pot chemistry aspect seems to be only one facet of the benefits. I probably have roughly 50 mounted plants with little or no media around the roots and those plants have also improved dramatically. Also Ray is a SH grower with constant root immersion. That's also quite a different system from standard high absorbent organic media. 

You also mentioned looking at leaf tissue data, and one of the references in my article does look at K in leaf tissues with and without K supplementation (in Bromeliads).

Two foods (for weekly feeding, with daily non feeding irrigation between feedings).

Solution with K was 45 ppm N, 90ppm PO4, 90ppmK , 14ppm Ca and 5ppm Mg
Same numbers for the non K feeding except no K (sodium subbed for the Kphosphate salts). All nitrogen came from ammonium nitrate.

Leaf tissue K definitely was increased with presence of K by a factor of 5X in younger fast growing leaves. The experiment was only run for 250 days. No difference in size and condition of plants noted at the end of the test.

The test was short, and no measurements of Ca and Mg were conducted. Leaf tissue K in wild collected plants was measured /compared in 16 species/6 different studies. All lower K than GH grown plants in above study.

Other parts of the paper include using rubidium tracers (as a K surrogate) for determination of uptake rates and mechanisms in bromeliads.

Conclusion was that bromeliads actively appropriate K (not just passive osmosis) through both roots and leaf trichomes. And K is inducted well beyond metabolic needs for luxury storage.


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## Rick (May 24, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> 5. Excess K disrupts the uptake of Mg and Boron (from the chart).



Actually in most plants this has been tested on already, (rice, cotton, beans, potatoes, even some orchids), increased K generally disrupts uptake of Ca first, Mg secondarily. Phosphate when Ca and Mg are trashed. The rice paper experiment is hydroponic so doesn't take organic media effects into account.

There was a good study done by Cornell university (I think in 1977) that Stone posted a link on a ways back. It was only short term (9 months), but run on Catt, Cymbidium, and Phaleanopsis hybrids. 

Leaf tissue concentrations were measure in different manipulations of increasing (separately) N P K and Mg. For the study with increasing K (everything else stable). Ca dropped (significantly) in leaf tissue in all 3 genera. Mg dropped significantly in only one or two of the genera. PO4 was not measured in the K increase study. The K concentrations ranged from 50 to 300 ppm (depending on the genus). So all concentrations above K lite range. Also Ca was held constant at 200 ppm through all manipulations, which is very high compared to growers using RO water and MSU or K lite.

Given how high the Ca was, it was interesting to see that leaf tissue K was always greater than Ca even for K doses lower than 200 ppm, and the magnitude increase in leaf tissue K with increased dose was also very strong.

The leaf tissue data actually conform well to the K uptake premiss of the bromeliad work.


Ca and Mg as K goes up Ca = 200, Mg = 25ppm 


K ppm	K% drW	Ca%drW	Mg%drW
Phaleanopsis 
100	5.77	3.16	0.59
200	7.49	2.79	0.54
300	7.92	2.43	0.46

Cattleya 
50	3.66	1.44	0.49
100	4.34	1.29	0.46
200	4.73	1.15	0.46

Cymbidium 
50	2.48	1.05	0.38
100	3.00	0.91	0.32
200	3.31	0.88	0.30


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## Rick (May 24, 2013)

Cut and paste of the excell data is a bit buggered up. 

In each the first column is K dose
2nd column is % Dry Weight leaf K
3rd column is leaf Ca
4th column is leaf Mg

the heading notes that Ca was constant at 200 ppm and Mg at 25ppm while the K doses were manipulated as shown.

Note that even at the 50 ppm K dose, leaf K is > leaf Ca. In wild epiphytic plants it is generally opposite. I have an abstract of leaf tissue values from wild Asian/Indian orchids, and leaf K was always lower than leaf Ca and Mg.

So something is definitely weird in fertilized GH grown plants compared to their wild (unfertilized) counterparts.


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## ALToronto (May 24, 2013)

Stone said:


> Lets have it



First, I need to know if people here are serious about doing a trial. Then we need to figure out the logistics - who, which plants, in what growing conditions. Then I'll need input from the experts - what do we want to test, what do we want to vary, what do we want to keep constant. Only then can I start on the design matrix. 

It's a serious, time consuming undertaking (designing an experiment), and I'm not going to spend time on it without commitment from enough people to make the experiment happen. If enough people want to commit, I will start a separate thread.


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## Stone (May 25, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> First, I need to know if people here are serious about doing a trial. Then we need to figure out the logistics - who, which plants, in what growing conditions. Then I'll need input from the experts - what do we want to test, what do we want to vary, what do we want to keep constant. Only then can I start on the design matrix.
> 
> It's a serious, time consuming undertaking (designing an experiment), and I'm not going to spend time on it without commitment from enough people to make the experiment happen. If enough people want to commit, I will start a separate thread.



There is no need to get too complicated. Somthing similar to what I mentioned in this thread above will do for our purposes. I do not have enough of one clone of plants to go higher than 2 to 3 for each group. Rather than equal EC as I suggested, we should instead stick to the same ppm N for each group. I would like to try 4 different fertilizer treatments for my own intrest. My control would be fed with a standard all purpose ''garden center'' fertilizer. In this case it would be an NPK of 23-3.95-14 + 6.6 S and 0.15 Mg. with most N as Urea.
Calcium and extra Mg would be supplied via 50/50 dolomite/limestone powder. This is the way most orchids are grown here so it would be a good starting point for the control.
For the other groups, one would be Klite of course, one a hydroponic formulation very similar to Klite but K/N ratio of 1.2 from memory and P/N ratio of about 0.18. with all N as Calcium nitrate form. And one should be a low P formulation as in Klite but normal K ( somewhere around 0.6 to 1 K/N ) That is important as the Klite has a P/N ratio of 0.1---the same as K/N= 0.1

That would give a good indication if the claimed klite success is from the low K or the low P. I don't see a reason to go more strict than that unless you want to make up your own formulations.


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## TyroneGenade (May 25, 2013)

Rick, one of your claims is that seedlings fair better on the K-light (and I think your plants back this claim up nicely). If one uses deflasked seedlings for an experiment this will ensure high plant numbers needed for sound statistical analysis. Stating with seedlings also removed a lot of history from the plants that could end up being confounding factors.

I don't know, but using a CHC as the growing medium might be more telling than SH or bark. CHC from agric stores seems to come now in mostly the same standard product and I don't think many people grow in SH (though that will be my option when I start again). I think the experiment must be relevant to the "average" grower (and not the nuts the in either extreme of the bell curve).

I think 3 fertilizer regimes will be most useful to the average grower:
K-heavy without Ca/Mg supplementation
K-heavy with Ca/Mg supplementation
K-light (which I understand does come with Ca/Mg in any case)
The CHC would have been treated in Ca and Mg, but does extra Ca/Mg make a difference?

I think it is important to know how the quality of the medium changes (so we can satisfy David) so both the soil and leave mineral content would need to be tested.

Maudiae crosses seem to be very productive and good growers and have good resale protection (so some experimental costs can be recouped). So, does anyone have a bumper-crop mother flask to donate to science?


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

Stone said:


> Most nursery plants are raised in bark mixes with no Ca added in the fertilizer



Also most nursery plants are watered with local surface or well waters (not RO water) with lots of soluble Ca and Mg available.

Nashville tap water has 25 ppm Ca, 9 or so ppm of Mg and 3 or so ppm K. Hardness is only 100 ppm as CaCO3 so by national standards this is not a high TDS water. 

The water used for big nurseries in Florida used well waters with 3-4X these levels. 

Obviously a lot of variation around the world, but it helps to know your basic local water chemistry for understanding what your plants get to see.


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## gonewild (May 25, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> First, I need to know if people here are serious about doing a trial. Then we need to figure out the logistics - who, which plants, in what growing conditions. Then I'll need input from the experts - what do we want to test, what do we want to vary, what do we want to keep constant. Only then can I start on the design matrix.
> 
> It's a serious, time consuming undertaking (designing an experiment), and I'm not going to spend time on it without commitment from enough people to make the experiment happen. If enough people want to commit, I will start a separate thread.



What is enough people?
Based on what you are thinking what would each participant need to commit to?
How many plants, how long, ect....

If you give some basic general plan then more people might get interested.


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## gonewild (May 25, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> If one uses deflasked seedlings for an experiment this will ensure high plant numbers needed for sound statistical analysis. Stating with seedlings also removed a lot of history from the plants that could end up being confounding factors.



There would be a problem starting with deflasked seedlings. There is too much variation of growth between seedlings in the first 6 months. Their growth rate and survival rate is too heavily influenced by environment.
Uniform seedlings.



> I don't know, but using a CHC as the growing medium might be more telling than SH or bark. CHC from agric stores seems to come now in mostly the same standard product and I don't think many people grow in SH (though that will be my option when I start again). I think the experiment must be relevant to the "average" grower (and not the nuts the in either extreme of the bell curve).



How to avoid the variations between different organic media sources? 




> I think it is important to know how the quality of the medium changes (so we can satisfy David) so both the soil and leave mineral content would need to be tested.



What is the desired result? To learn what minerals plants assimilate or to see what gives more pleasing growth based on what you see?


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

About a year ago I started a side by side trial with ten deflasked lowii seedlings.

5 get K lite/kelp and 5 get MSU (just like in the old days). All are in 2 inch plastic pots with a CHC mix (just like in the old days).

I must say that even to maintain this little separate test in my small GH is a total pain in the rear. And the variation among 5 seedlings per treatment still seems to be too high for clean comparisons. Probably need to go to at least 10 per treatment. In our tox test at work, we usually need 20-40 organisms per treatment to get decent statistical power. 

It only takes up a foot of bench space, but finding even a foot with even lighting and not getting drips from overhead mounted plants has been a challenge.

Then making up separate watering/fertilizer regimes, week in week out for years on end makes for lots of slop in the application. So who ever decides to do this is making a big commitment.

At this time the above mix portion of the plants are doing well in either fert regime. However the MSU plants appear to have only shallow roots and are floppy in the pots, while the K lite/kelp plants seem to be rooting deeper and firmer into the pots.


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## ALToronto (May 25, 2013)

gonewild said:


> What is enough people?
> Based on what you are thinking what would each participant need to commit to?
> How many plants, how long, ect....
> 
> If you give some basic general plan then more people might get interested.



Number of people would depend on the number of growing environments we want to test - GH, windowsill, basement with lights - anything else? We'd probably want two or three participants in each category. 

Then we need to decide on growing media - types of organic, LECA/lava rock, semi hydro. Not every person would have to do all of them - that's where the design comes in. Then for each growing medium, we test the different fertilizers. I would do only 3 - Klite, MSU and something like Dyna Grow. Soil and fertilizer amendments would also have to be determined. 

I wouldn't do this experiment with expensive plants - catts or phals would be fine. On the other hand, slippers will show the differences between the conditions much more readily. I will defer to the experts. 

In any event, I'm not offering to manage the trial - just design the experiment. But now you should be getting a good idea of the scale and scope.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> In any event, I'm not offering to manage the trial - just design the experiment. But now you should be getting a good idea of the scale and scope.




You could save a lot of time and just take the Cornell study and divide the chemical concentrations by 10, and increase the study period from 9 months to 5 years.

Judging from the reaction of folks over the last year, I don't think you can ever design a study robust enough to cover the skeptics. Every time you do this for species ABC they will just come back with "that means nothing for species XYZ" "Or hybrids PQL".

That's why we have countless threads for "How do you grow X?" Threads for growing Paph emersonii claiming something totally different from Paph hangianum, with the argument that species are separated by inscrutable but critical physiological differences.

I've been observing this forum since its inception years ago, and noting that history repeats itself over and over and over.....


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## Ray (May 25, 2013)

I think that in order to do a definitive experiment, it should be many, many plants in a single, stable environment, so that every environmental factor is identical, except for the food. Trying to compare plants grown in my greenhouse and yours, for example, is not apples to apples. OK, maybe it's Granny Smith to Macintosh, but still not the same, and environmental variables can have a huge impact on the results.

Even the water supply can vary, RO to RO. Membranes remove a percentage of what's fed into them. Unless your input water supplies and membranes are identical and of the same usage history, the RO will have differing traces and levels of minerals in them.


Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk


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## ALToronto (May 25, 2013)

I agree, Rick. At the same time, I think there is a significant interaction between the medium and the fertilizer. It would be worthwhile to learn that, perhaps, plants growing in lava rock need a different fertilizer blend than plants growing in bark/sphag/chc.

I think the main reason for all the skepticism is that none of the studies has been designed to cover different growing conditions, and that the fertilizer concentrations have been much too high. I have looked through all the studies that have been referenced by you and others on this forum, and I haven't felt comfortable adapting any of the results to my plants.

Personally, with K-lite, I have seen some dramatic improvements recently - but could that also be because it's finally spring in Toronto, and the plants on my windowsill are getting more sun, with higher humidity? Or could it be that KelpMax is helping more than the K-Lite? Only a properly designed experiment will separate the main effects and the interactions; otherwise we're just shooting darts in the dark.


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## Trithor (May 25, 2013)

I think perhaps it would be easier to compare plants within each growing environment, rather than from one environment/grower to the next, and see how many results are common. It might be very difficult to get sufficient uniformity from one environment/grower to the next. After all I assume the intention here is to get a reasonably accurate idea if k-lite works for orchid growers in general, rather than if it works with a single cultural profile. To standardize the trial across twenty different growers in twenty different environments may prove too difficult and sink the trial before it even got off the ground. 
Perhaps if a number of growers would agree to perform the trial on a reasonable number of plants in their individual environments and cultural techniques with the only difference being the fertilizers (standardized across the whole trial) and see what the results are at intervals across the test. After all if grower A finds that MSU performs best on plant type Z in his environment, but all the rest find that best results were obtained on their various groups of plants in their various environments using K-lite, then a fair set of conclusions will be able to be reached from the study, especially if a difference between grower A and the rest can be identified.
I for one would be happier if I saw a result in a variety of growing conditions on a variety of plants, rather than a perfect result in a laboratory on a single set of plants. 
...... Just a suggestion from a carpenter, not a scientist.


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## DavidCampen (May 25, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> Or could it be that KelpMax is helping more than the K-Lite? Only a properly designed experiment will separate the main effects and the interactions; otherwise we're just shooting darts in the dark.



With the addition of KelpMax to K-Lite regimen, at least 3 to five variables have been changed from a plain MSU regimen - ratios of K, P, Ca and Mg and the addition of KelpMax.

Since we are engaging in unfettered speculaton here; I speculate that increased root growth with a KelpMax/K-Lite regimen compared to MSU is due to the KelpMax and more specifically because of the presence of amino acids in the KelpMax. I find exuberant root growth with my plants that I speculate is due to the large amount of aspartic acid in my nutrient formulations.




Trithor said:


> I think perhaps it would be easier to compare plants within each growing environment, rather than from one environment/grower to the next, and see how many results are common. It might be very difficult to get sufficient uniformity from one environment/grower to the next. After all I assume the intention here is to get a reasonably accurate idea if k-lite works for orchid growers in general, rather than if it works with a single cultural profile. To standardize the trial across twenty different growers in twenty different environments may prove too difficult and sink the trial before it even got off the ground.


Exactly.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

The study is going on as we speak.

I believe it started in May 2011 when I first proposed the idea, and started a low K work around with my 300 + plants. In conditions ranging from mounted, potted bark, potted CHC, basket, and SH/leca. By December 2011 I think we were up to a couple dozen growers trying it out, with all their idiosyncratic growing methods.

As of today, there are probably at least 125 worldwide participants either using K lite or some version of their own design. My collection is pretty small, I would guess there at least 37,000 (captive) orchids getting exposed to some semblance of a low K/high Ca, Mg fertilizer regime.

rather than trying to get someone to dedicate a whole GH, you should design a survey that can plug data into an ANOVA analysis.


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## consettbay2003 (May 25, 2013)

What are the thoughts on the amount of Kelpmax to add to a litre of fertilizer solution and how often should this be used?


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## Stone (May 25, 2013)

consettbay2003 said:


> What are the thoughts on the amount of Kelpmax to add to a litre of fertilizer solution and how often should this be used?



Kelp should not be used in any trial of Klite


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> I find exuberant root growth with my plants that I speculate is due to the large amount of aspartic acid in my nutrient formulations.



What is your final concentration of aspartic acid?

Looking at the analysis of Kelpmax there is a total of 2462 mg/L of all amino acids combined. 316 mg/L of aspartic acid. I use Seaplex kelp extract at 1/4 tsp/gal max (0.32ml/L). So without fudging up for material density, my dose rate of total amino acid (assuming Seaplex is equivalent to Kelpmax) is 0.788 mg/L (total amino acid) or 0.1mg/L of aspartic acid.


Total auxin would come to 0.00352 ppm and cytokinin 0.0000099 ppm

1/4 tsp/gall of Kelpmax would boost K by 2.3 mg/L and Ca by 0.256 ppm

All in all pretty sparse.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> ratios of K, P, Ca and Mg and the addition of KelpMax.



Unfortunately ratios don't explain the whole story as opposed to overall concentrations hitting the plant.

Keeping in mind the Cornell study, 200 ppm and 25 ppm of Ca and Mg respectively was supplied constantly to the orchids while K doses ranged from 50 to 300 ppm.

For Phaleanopsis when K dose was 100 ppm (1/2 the Ca dose and 4 times the Mg dose), leaf tissue K was almost 2 X the leaf Ca and 10X the leaf Mg.

This is backwards from wild orchid data where actual soluble K exposure concentrations are generally 1/10 (or less) what we splash on our plants.


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## gonewild (May 25, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> I speculate that increased root growth with a KelpMax/K-Lite regimen compared to MSU is due to the KelpMax and more specifically because of the presence of amino acids in the KelpMax.



Consider that a lot of folks have used KelpMax combined with many different fertilizer formulas and none have really resulted in such positive results as with K-lite.
I tried Kelp with MSU and never saw any results that warranted continued use.
So if results from Kelp use history are considered one can easily assume the dramatic improvement with the K-lite/Kelp combo is mostly due to the K-lite.


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## Stone (May 25, 2013)

Once again any trial should be individually standardized for each individual grower. We all have different water, we all use different media and we all have different growing enviroments. 
The recommendations for nursery trials suggested in my ''Bible'' written by K Handreck, a soil and media scientist for the CSIRO in Autstralia are:

''Techinique to use when you want to check to see if a particular treatment will improve plant growth. The treatment could be more or less frequent watering, an increased rate of fert application, an increase or decrease in the level of one nutrient element, a different pH, a new fungicide etc.''

In the simplest form:
Select pots for 2 groups (at least 10 pots)(use at least 5 pots for each treatment)
Label one group of pots with a ''C'' the other with a ''T''
Apply the teatment to the ''T'' pots.
Set the plants out in a suitable place.
Assess the effects of the treatment after several weeks to several months.
(simply compare the height and appearence of the two groups)

For more complicated trials we add more pots and label them ''T1, T2, T3'' etc.
For very complcated trials involving all sorts of combinations, you need expert statsical help which is beyond the scope of the average grower.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

Here's a summary from a recent article I found on stemflow and throughfall in Diptocarp forest preserve in Borneo. Specifically they looked at N, K and conductivity concentrations above and below birds nest ferns during rainfall events. They even did a series of pour through tests on birds nest ferns (with all the accumulated leaf litter, bird poop, frog poop, insect poop....) and still couldn't get K values greater than 8 ppm.

Note for scale the MSU conductivity is only 25% actual (so multiply it by 4 for comparison to insitu values


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## gonewild (May 25, 2013)

Stone said:


> Kelp should not be used in any trial of Klite



Probably a better trial would be to compare K-lite with and without kelp.

Trying to do a formal trial to evaluate K-lite is not going to provide any more definitive results than what are already being reported.

It would be interesting to try to sort the already reported results to see how with and without kelp compare.

after saying that I do agree with you a direct comparison between K-lite and MSU and other off the shelf fertilizers would be the way to go.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

gonewild said:


> Consider that a lot of folks have used KelpMax combined with many different fertilizer formulas and none have really resulted in such positive results as with K-lite.
> I tried Kelp with MSU and never saw any results that warranted continued use.
> So if results from Kelp use history are considered one can easily assume the dramatic improvement with the K-lite/Kelp combo is mostly due to the K-lite.



Logic not withstanding:wink:


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## Stone (May 25, 2013)

Rick said:


> > couldn't get K values greater than 8 ppm.
> 
> 
> 
> But K similar to N levels.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

Stone said:


> But K similar to N levels.



At this point I don't think ratios have anything to do with it for N uptake.

Also if you convert conductivity to TDS (by rough standards), and compare to sum of K and N, there's probably more than 50% of the mineral solids unaccounted for in the stem flow and throughfall waters (Ca Mg???)

I have an email into the lead author to see if he has additional data.


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## Stone (May 25, 2013)

Ratios are everything. If you took the N out of Klite, you would not have klite anymore but a high K high P fertilizer.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

Stone said:


> Ratios are everything. If you took the N out of Klite, you would not have klite anymore but a high K high P fertilizer.



Don't forget the Ca and Mg:wink:


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## ALToronto (May 25, 2013)

Rick, what are the metrics used in the current 'trial'? I use quotes because unless the participants agreed on what to measure and took starting values, there is nothing to put into an ANOVA. Also, large scale observational studies tend to provide too much data, so everything ends up being significant. 

I know very little about observational data analysis, just enough to stay away from it. I studied and worked in Design of Experiments, so I'm offering to do what I know.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> Rick, what are the metrics used in the current 'trial'? I use quotes because unless the participants agreed on what to measure and took starting values, there is nothing to put into an ANOVA. Also, large scale observational studies tend to provide too much data, so everything ends up being significant.



Since the "trial" was never officially defined, some of the best stuff will be based on memory. Few folks (including myself) are keeping detailed records on their entire collections (other than inventory).

Inventory by itself is a decent parameter to monitor. Plants in to program, plants out of program. Exit by death exit by sale/trade/gift. Duration of plant in program. Condition/health, age, size when entered into program.

Then specific program details. Feeding rate, feeding concentration, non-feeding watering rate, chemistry of base irrigation water, potting format and materials, humidity control? temp control? light control?

You can start the "trial" in the future by having each participant select 50 or so plants with matching pre-program plants that are now dead for "before and after" comparisons.

That last point is pretty much what is going on informally now. For instance a typical flasking from Troy Meyers holds about 25 plants. I can go back through my flasking records at TM (which are better than my home records) and count the numbers of seedlings that entered my pre-klite program, and count up the numbers that died vs how many made it to blooming, and compare that to the number making it to blooming now. 

There was a post started by Eric Muehlbaur several years ago called "tombstones" showing all the pot tags for all the plants purchased and dead. I have a pretty hefty handful myself. A simple metric would be to count plant tags per year, pre klite and post klite (normalized to total inventory).

There's lots of creative ways to measure sublethal performance too. Leaf length, rate of new growths, total number of leaves per pot, numbers of flowers. Time to first flower, age of new growth to flowering.

You could count things like $ spent on disease and pest control. Frequency of health interventions (normalized to total inventory).

These are all ideas that occur to me while I work with my collection. But since this is my hobby, I just keep the info in my head. If you can get people to write it down or file into excell spread sheets, then you can do stats on it.


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## Rick (May 25, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> Also, large scale observational studies tend to provide too much data, so everything ends up being significant.



Actually I find that large population level studies end up with large amounts of noise, and when significant things make it out of the pile, they are slam dunks.

That's the BPJ part of it. Just because something can be statistically significant at a 10% effect doesn't mean you have to accept it as a real effect. It may be arbitrary, but in my biz we don't get serious about things unless they produce 20 to 50 percent effect (like the EC50 or IC25). The NOEC/NOEL is really used these days for QA/QC of the data.

You can increase rep size to find significance at <10% effect, but on a performance basis who really cares about doing 10% better or worse?


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## Trithor (May 26, 2013)

My unscientific mind and lack of organisation has prevented me being too formal in my approach. However my need to find an improved fertilizer fomulation for use on my orchids forced me to addopt this very basic approach.
I have 8 benches in my greenhouse, each measuring 1.2m x 2.4m. Each bench has a mixture of seedlings, NFS, and mature flowering size plants. Each bench has a mixture of Parvi, Brachi,Paphio,Barbata, Multis, Complex and near primary hybrids. I tend to distribute plants through the greenhouse in order to try and find 'that ideal' position. I now no longer move them arround since I started my basic trial. I now apply a basic 'balanced' off the shelf formulation to one half of the greenhouse (4 benches) and a K-Lite type formulation to the other half. Before I started I stopped all treatments for a month and only used water to flush the pots as much as was feasible. Now whenever the one side gets fertilizer, the other side gets K-lite. All other treatments are applied to the whole (fungicide, plain water, misting, insecticides etc) 
I am now a month into my very basic trial, and can see no difference as of yet. We are of course going into winter and so most growth is slowed. It is my intention to carry on regardless of what I start seeing for a full year (unless I start seeing one half all dying of course)

I would find it too difficult totreat only a few pots any different to the rest without changing a whole buch of other variables in those few pots as well. At present I dont find it inconvenient to treat the whole collection identicaly except a change in which fertilizer from one half to the other. I just have to mix two different concentrates, one for each side.


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## Stone (May 26, 2013)

Trithor said:


> My unscientific mind and lack of organisation has prevented me being too formal in my approach. However my need to find an improved fertilizer fomulation for use on my orchids forced me to addopt this very basic approach.
> I have 8 benches in my greenhouse, each measuring 1.2m x 2.4m. Each bench has a mixture of seedlings, NFS, and mature flowering size plants. Each bench has a mixture of Parvi, Brachi,Paphio,Barbata, Multis, Complex and near primary hybrids. I tend to distribute plants through the greenhouse in order to try and find 'that ideal' position. I now no longer move them arround since I started my basic trial. I now apply a basic 'balanced' off the shelf formulation to one half of the greenhouse (4 benches) and a K-Lite type formulation to the other half. Before I started I stopped all treatments for a month and only used water to flush the pots as much as was feasible. Now whenever the one side gets fertilizer, the other side gets K-lite. All other treatments are applied to the whole (fungicide, plain water, misting, insecticides etc)
> I am now a month into my very basic trial, and can see no difference as of yet. We are of course going into winter and so most growth is slowed. It is my intention to carry on regardless of what I start seeing for a full year (unless I start seeing one half all dying of course)
> 
> I would find it too difficult totreat only a few pots any different to the rest without changing a whole buch of other variables in those few pots as well. At present I dont find it inconvenient to treat the whole collection identicaly except a change in which fertilizer from one half to the other. I just have to mix two different concentrates, one for each side.



That sounds ok to me. What are the details of your two formulations?


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## Trithor (May 26, 2013)

I have had two sepparate mixes made for me by the same agricultural fertilizer manufacturer (required quite intricate waltzing to get them to mix my small 25kg of each formulation) I opted to have both mixed by the same company to try and exclude other variables not immediately obvious.
The 'regular' was based on an off the shelf product and has the following;
138g/kg N (NH4=51 & NO3= 110)
130g/Kg P
125g/Kg K
Micro and trace Elements plus red dye

The K-Lite
165g/Kg N
33g/Kg P
16g/Kg K
120g/Kg Ca
10g/Kg Mg
Micro and Trace to same concentration as first formulation plus green dye

It is probably not ideal, but was the best that a carpenter could accomplish with the information at my disposal. I marked plants getting each with the same colour plant tags, my intention is to make notes on these tags when I observe any problems and benifits. Also my RIP box (new one for this study) will allow me to finaly count all the deaths from each group simply by colour of each tag, and to be able at the end to identify what the problem was at the end of my 1 year study.

As I say a very basic study, but I hope to be able to decide which fertilizer works best in my conditions on the range of plants which I grow. Any suggestions will be very welcome


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## DavidCampen (May 26, 2013)

Why do you not have any Ca or Mg in your 'regular' formulation? If you had added Ca and Mg then I would expect it to perform as well or better than the so called 'K-Lite'. An even better formulation would be to take the 'K-Lite' formulation and just increase the K.

What is the ammonium/nitrate ratios the 'K-Lite' formulation.




> Also my RIP box (new one for this study) will allow me to finaly count all the deaths from each group simply by colour of each tag, and to be able at the end to identify what the problem was at the end of my 1 year study



It would be interesting to know the species of each dearly departed as well as age at time of death and how long it had been in your care.


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## Rick (May 26, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> Why do you not have any Ca or Mg in your 'regular' formulation? If you had added Ca and Mg then I would expect it to perform as well or better than the so called 'K-Lite'. An even better formulation would be to take the 'K-Lite' formulation and just increase the K.



At that point he would be using the plain old MSU formulation, which really isn't any different from any other "balanced" feed. Not only would it be "reinventing the wheel." It wouldn't be much of an experiment if both sides of the GH are fed the same thing.

I can't recall if you are using a "pure water" source or local mains supply Trithor. The chemistry of that is important to know. I also don't recall what your intended feeding rate was (either temporal rate or concentration).


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## DavidCampen (May 26, 2013)

Rick said:


> At that point he would be using the plain old MSU formulation


Yes it would be a lot like the MSU formulation.



> which really isn't any different from any other "balanced" feed


I disagree, look at Trithor's formulation that has no calcium or magnesium; there are a lot of what you seem to call 'balanced feeds' that do not contain calcium or magnesium.



> Not only would it be "reinventing the wheel." It wouldn't be much of an experiment if both sides of the GH are fed the same thing.


No, the other side would be the 'K-Lite' and now the control fertilizer that the 'K-Lite' is being compared against would no longer be defective.


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## Rick (May 26, 2013)

The Cornell study covered all these permutations with a base Ca of 200 mg/L and Mg of 25 ppm

It just never used a K of less than 50 ppm. And only ran for 9 months.

So what would be new?


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## DavidCampen (May 26, 2013)

Rick said:


> The Cornell study covered all these permutations with a base Ca of 200 mg/L and Mg of 25 ppm
> 
> It just never used a K of less than 50 ppm. And only ran for 9 months.
> 
> So what would be new?



Nothing with the control formulation would be new. That is the purpose of a control. An MSU like formulation would be a good control. How do you evaluate 'K-Lite' if you don't compare it against a known good formulation as a control?


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## Stone (May 26, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> > Why do you not have any Ca or Mg in your 'regular' formulation?
> 
> 
> Absolutely! any control should be able to supply a similar amount of Ca and Mg as the Klite or it is a futile exersize. The whole purpose is to determine if the very low K is making the difference not the increased Ca/Mg. A sprinkle of 50/50 dolomite/gypsum powder at 1 gram/Lt of mix every 2-3 months will provide this for the non-klite plants Or you must add MgS04 and CaNo3 to your fertilizer but this will increase the N. Also the S content of both should be brought into balance somehow or again it may disguise the true results. In fact all ''macro nutrients'' should be as close as possible except the K. If the control has twice as much or half as much P or N or whatever then the trial would be void.


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## Stone (May 26, 2013)

Rick said:


> > I can't recall if you are using a "pure water" source or local mains supply Trithor. The chemistry of that is important to know.
> 
> 
> Rick, I'm not sure how relevent the water is in this case. Firstly, Whatever the water chemistry is, most growers have no way of changing it. Secondly, the same water will be used for both the control and the treated plants so it will still be appropriate to determine the efficacy of the low K. Or are you saying that whether we use low K is dependant on the water we use? If thats the case, then we don't need klite at all but just need to adjust the hardness of the water.


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## ALToronto (May 26, 2013)

Mike, water quality is important because the interaction between Ca/Mg and K is important. If you're testing the effects of high and low K, you need to keep everything else the same. Since K-Lite has Ca and Mg added, so must the control fertilizer. 

Rick, a control is important in any study. Mike's growing conditions are too different from those of the Cornell study to just use the Cornell results. 

This is exactly the problem with observational studies - results cannot be aggregated.


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## Stone (May 26, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> > Mike, water quality is important because the interaction between Ca/Mg and K is important. If you're testing the effects of high and low K, you need to keep everything else the same. Since K-Lite has Ca and Mg added, so must the control fertilizer
> 
> 
> .
> ...


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## Rick (May 26, 2013)

DavidCampen said:


> Why do you not have any Ca or Mg in your 'regular' formulation? If you had added Ca and Mg then I would expect it to perform as well or better than the so called 'K-Lite'. An even better formulation would be to take the 'K-Lite' formulation and just increase the K.



I get it, you want him to compare MSU to K lite. :wink:

I thought you were advocating comparing MSU to the balanced mix without cal/mag.


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## TyroneGenade (May 27, 2013)

gonewild said:


> There would be a problem starting with deflasked seedlings. There is too much variation of growth between seedlings in the first 6 months.



Hmm... good point but...

How are we going to assess the effect of the K-light over other fertilizers? What are we going to measure? Leaf length---compared to what? Plant mass---compared to what? What is our standard, our starting point? We can measure leaf values of various minerals but that doesn't tell us the plant was bigger or fared better? Seedlings offer us the single most telling bit of data: survival. One of Rick's claims is that the seedlings did better. There is simple stats (log-rank, Kaplan-Meier analysis) to test for significantly different survivals between experimental groups.

In addition, as most seedlings will be mostly the same size (there is no big difference in size between my Mystic Jewel x fairrieanum seedlings) we also have a base-line for measuring growth. After the experiment all the seedlings as simply weighed and we have a measure of growth as well as survival. There are also protocols for the exclusion of outliers in datasets. So the seedlings that are doomed to under-perform can be excluded from the eventual dataset.

Maudiae hybrids are now largely inbred so there is very little genetic variation left in them. Perhaps an inbred species such as Roths? Environmental variation may be large but this is typical of natural populations and, I think, is something NOT to be avoided in biological experiments.

Perhaps several different Paph types should be used? Godefroydae is very inbred... what about charlesworthii and primulinum? Then there is callosum and rothschildianum.

Your organic media point is perhaps more important. Maybe SH may be a better medium for the experiment?

I think we have three important questions:
1. Do Paphs survive better with K-light
2. Do Paphs grow better with K-light
3. Do Paphs flower better with K-light

With seedlings we can have a result to 1 & 2 in as little as 12 months and an answer to 3 in only a few years.


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## ALToronto (May 27, 2013)

Stone said:


> ALToronto said:
> 
> 
> > .
> ...


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## Rick (May 27, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> Rick, a control is important in any study. Mike's growing conditions are too different from those of the Cornell study to just use the Cornell results.



I guess if we are going to get serious about controls then need to add a negative control with no supplementation. I know a little old lady in Shelbyville, TN that has a few thousand plants that have NEVER received supplementation beyond what's in her well water. She has many specimen plants that have been in her collection as far back as 1958.


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## Rick (May 27, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> This is exactly the problem with observational studies - results cannot be aggregated.



Even the scientist on the Koch brothers payroll finally agreed with the data on Global warning. I guess he would have been easier to convince if there was a control in the first place.

That's why legitimate understanding can be accomplished by comparison of reconstructed historical baseline conditions.

To bad nature just doesn't happen only when we have time to think about it and plan the investigation. :wink:


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## TyroneGenade (May 27, 2013)

Rick said:


> I guess if we are going to get serious about controls then need to add a negative control with no supplementation.



Hmm... another good point. But I'm still perplexed about what exactly will be measured for comparison?


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## ALToronto (May 27, 2013)

Rick said:


> I guess if we are going to get serious about controls then need to add a negative control with no supplementation. I know a little old lady in Shelbyville, TN that has a few thousand plants that have NEVER received supplementation beyond what's in her well water. She has many specimen plants that have been in her collection as far back as 1958.



Well, that's not exactly zero supplementation. Well water has plenty of calcium and sulphur, likely magnesium and possibly even nitrates. Some poorly maintained wells have organic matter as well. Short of taking a trip and testing this lady's well water, I don't think we should condemn a group of seedlings to death by starvation. 

It's also possible that she uses solid supplements of some sort.


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## Rick (May 27, 2013)

ALToronto said:


> Well, that's not exactly zero supplementation. Well water has plenty of calcium and sulphur, likely magnesium and possibly even nitrates. Some poorly maintained wells have organic matter as well. Short of taking a trip and testing this lady's well water, I don't think we should condemn a group of seedlings to death by starvation.
> 
> It's also possible that she uses solid supplements of some sort.



Actually I tested the water for basic mineral chemistry, N and TOC. It's drinking water standard with regards to N and TOC (less than a couple ppm Nitrates or TKN. TOC less than 4 ppm. PO4 is non detect.

Hardness is high, and middle TN hardness is sulfate based. Conductivity was around 400 uS/cm. At this point, most of her plants have broken out of pots so roots have take over the benches. She throw's a lot of cypress mulch around, and some stuff still in pots is in a cypress mulch mix with charcoal and spongerock. Nothing else. Her basic philosophy is "if you feed it, all the growth goes into vegetation and not into blooms". 

I really don't agree with her to that extent. But she ran a successful cut flower/corsage business in the 60's and 70's. She gets no shortage of blooms.

However, if you look at the table I supplied on stemflow values in Borneo, orchids there are growing on not much at all there either.

Stone keeps saying that the amount of NPK in our mixes is so high, it giving us a false impression of how much K we are really feeding, so I think the negative control is just as viable as the standard MSU baseline to compare to a low K alternative.

I still didn't see what the base water is at Trithor's place.


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## Rick (May 27, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> I think we have three important questions:
> 1. Do Paphs survive better with K-light
> 2. Do Paphs grow better with K-light
> 3. Do Paphs flower better with K-light
> ...



Actually blooming better was not a consideration of low K feeding except for reducing the incidence of "blooming to death", and blooming consistently from season to season without dying.

I heard it again at an orchid show last week, that getting a quality award on a plant is the "kiss of death". Maybe just ugly rumor, but I've heard it multiple times over the years that the majority of plants receiving quality awards (not cultural awards) are dead after a few years. 

Leaf length is comparison to the control length. You could also do a count of new growths.

Even my hybrids and line bred species are doing better under this regime, but unless you don't believe in evolution, the production of plants by seed is a pretty heavy duty selection process from day 1. So the more generations of breeding, you are selecting plants that are adapted to what you throw on them. The best effects are going to be for species that historically have poor survival rates, under a particular feeding regime. So if you want to see results (like Bjorn was getting) start with something that already has a poor chance of doing good under the old regime.


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## Trithor (May 27, 2013)

I am going to have to re-read this whole last part carefully in the morning with a cup of coffee rather than a glass of wine!


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## dodidoki (May 27, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> I think we have three important questions:
> 1. Do Paphs survive better with K-light
> 2. Do Paphs grow better with K-light
> 3. Do Paphs flower better with K-light



I didn't thought that I would start this long argument with my experiences....
I would like to tell everything:
I have no any financial interest about K-lite. I only wrote my experience, I would have written , if I had bad results to avoid you from a wrong way of orchid growings.But this way seems to be very good, anyway. I wrote period of application for seeing clear.

For me first is surviving of plants, without K-lite many of died. Most of dieing were because of bacterial or fungal rot. While I use K-lite rot problems are extremely rare if any ( I can't remember one for several months).

Many plants what could survive my bad conditions get much more better since I use K-lite.

Flowering is question of time, I think first few months are recovery time, but many of my plants are in sheath or developing mature size growths with VERY STRONG root system.

I have to say many more: MY EXPERIENCE OF K LITE IS EXCESSIVE ROOT FORMING.


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## Rick (May 27, 2013)

Keep in mind the low K system was designed to solve problems and performance shortcomings from the old MSU regime. I didn't come up with this to win show awards.

The positive effects I noted to stuff doing what I perceived as fine from the start are certainly a big bonus that I'm not going to complain about.

But if you are perfectly happy with your old regime, then by all means stick with it.

With regards to formulating a study plan, then look into your program and find out what you are dissatisfied with, and quantify what you want the improvement to be.

If you want to reduce seedling mortality then counting seedling mortality and growth rate is the way to go. 

Do you think your overall collection mortality rate is too high. That's easy to quantify.

I believe Justin's primary goal was to reduce the incidence of Erwinia rots in his collection. Loss to disease or frequency of interventions to control disease is also easy to quantify.

You want to spend less time repotting and $ in preventive maintenance chemicals? That's also easy to quantify.

You want to try the "hard and slow growing species" but shied away from poor past experience These are the prime ones to get into a study like this.

Don't waste your precious time and space on a bunch of easy oncidium, catt or phal hybrids.


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## dodidoki (May 27, 2013)

Rick said:


> Don't waste your precious time and space on a bunch of easy oncidium, catt or phal hybrids.




Many thanks for mentioning this!!!!

I noticed that my father's phala hybs are going very well with enormous amount of roots, leaves and flower stems. ( some of them was 30 cm LS when was bought, but now 50-60 cm LS "giga" phala now!!!)
In windowsill, low humiditiy, tap water and traditional fertilizer......and I heard about K-lite, tried it and saw it works...and I begun to think, how about my father's phalas???? And while I dealt with orchids for many years, even phalas got wrong at me...

Here is solution: TAP WATER, full of Ca and Mg + traditional fertilizer, it is just a "modified K-lite formula" with higher cc, but phalas like it. Slippers need lower cc. But I tried RO or rain water with trad. fert., caused Ca and Mg def., secondary P def., rots and so on....and even phalas suffered.


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## dodidoki (May 27, 2013)

And another modification of your way as I wrote previously is continous fertilizing without interruption but weaker cc of fertilizer ( not with 150 only with 100 ppm but with every waterings), it fits closer to natural way of orchid-feeding, I think.


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## Stone (May 27, 2013)

At the moment, by far my biggest problem in growing paphs is that some seedlings for some as yet unknown reason, decide to completely stop growing. They just sit there for month after month after month and do nothing. Many slowly lose their roots and any new leaves become smaller and smaller until there is nothing left. No matter what you do nothing seems to help. Stop feeding, plant in moss, keep wet, keep dry, keep warm...nothing.
Lance Burke calls them snitches and recommends throwing them out as soon as you identify them. But I still hope to find a miracal cure for this problem or at least the cause.
One thing I've noticed is that if you don't get continual growth out of flask, there is a higher risk of this happening. 
I'm actually hoping that it is a high K concentration that has something to do with it but I fear it is something else entirely.
Any thoughts most welcome!


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## consettbay2003 (May 28, 2013)

When Terry Root owned The Orchid Zone he used to ruthlessly cull weak growing seedlings.


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## TyroneGenade (May 28, 2013)

Rick said:


> Actually blooming better was not a consideration of low K feeding except for reducing the incidence of "blooming to death"...
> 
> ...Leaf length is comparison to the control length. You could also do a count of new growths.
> 
> Even my hybrids and line bred species are doing better under this regime, but unless you don't believe in evolution, the production of plants by seed is a pretty heavy duty selection process from day 1....



Ah! Ok, so leaf length and new growth as measures. I think new growths would be a good indication over all health of the plant so that could work nicely.

I take your point about the linebreeding of the plants and their adaptation to our conditions. Perhaps the success of bulldogs is that in their breeding went a lot of Paphs that had descended from the trees and rocks to survive in the nutrient loaded dirt? Your idea of using plants that fair poorly is a good idea but the danger is that people will turn around and then say "well, it just had specialist needs that you have now met." It may be a good idea to include a hardy Paph as well that anyone can grow to make the case that they grow better on K-light?


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## Rick (May 28, 2013)

TyroneGenade said:


> and then say "well, it just had specialist needs that you have now met." It may be a good idea to include a hardy Paph as well that anyone can grow to make the case that they grow better on K-light?



That's just fine if it doesn't pan out on the "specialists needs" issue.

I'm finding toughies all the time that would die like flies in the old days are doing good now. Case in point are those South Pacific paphs like mastersianum, papuanum, and violacea. Also things like emersonii and vietnamense were considered slow and speciallized. 

Since it's really tough for a hobbyist to split out parts of a collection for special programs, the easy stuff will be in the mix anyway. 

That's why I listed those as bonus surprises when I started going low K.


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## Rick (May 28, 2013)

Humidity (as % RH) in the growing area must be tracked as an environmental parameter.

I have seen little evidence that low K feeding has made it possible to do better with orchids if your growing environment is too dry to start with.


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## Trithor (Jun 3, 2013)

Sitting quietly at the farm waiting for the game capture crew to pack nod go, has given me the opportunity to re-read this thread.
It was never my intention to do a strict comparison between k-lite and any particular fertilizer. Years ago my fertilizer was similar to my 'control' fertilizer, then I switched to a new product which as one of the differences had an extremely high K, and was formulated for tomatoes (don't ask me why I started using it, it still confuses me!) I noticed a definite change in growth, some plants stopped completely, there was a definite increase in bacterial and fungal rots, and less flowers. I have never changed my source of water, or my frequency of watering, also no changes in pots, potting medium, or air circulation. The only change was the fertilizer. Now I am effectively changing one half of the plants back to the old fertilize (hopefully I will see an improvement on this side back to original vigor and flowering) the k-lite side will be the surprise, I hope to see an even better improvement in these plants. I understand fully that the difference will not be directly attributable to a low K, and may be due to increased Ca and Mg. I also understand that in the absence of a water test a lot of the results will be difficult to interpret. 
If after a full season I see one side doing significantly better than the other, then I will switch both to that fertilizer for a while, and then change another component (perhaps the Ca and Mg).
I have sent away two samples of water away for testing (why two, ... I have noticed that there is a difference in the taste of our tap water over a cycle of about 21 days, perhaps something to do with how they chlorinate the supply) I should have the results on my desk when I return to town later in the week.
Again it was never my intention to prove if k-lite works, or to perform a strict scientific study, simply to find a formulation that works better than my previous formulation under my conditions. There are currently over 7000 plants involved, most of them paphs, with a range in size, species/hybrid and all of them mixed up on the various benches. Obviously another factor which I could change would be the water source, but until I get the results, that would be pointless. I might well find that certain groups perform better on the one side than the other, and others perform visa versa. Time will tell.


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## Stone (Jun 3, 2013)

Trithor said:


> > Sitting quietly at the farm waiting for the game capture crew to pack nod go,
> 
> 
> 
> I want to hear about the game capture crew and the farm!


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## shadytrake (Jun 3, 2013)

consettbay2003 said:


> When Terry Root owned The Orchid Zone he used to ruthlessly cull weak growing seedlings.



The problem is that some of those weak growing seedlings are nursed to BS and then sold to unsuspecting newbies for a fair price. I cull as best I can, but when I spend a fair amount on a species or hybrid I don't want to throw it out until it is past the point of no return. That is why I am desperately trying to get my Phrag Wossen to turn around.

Case in point: I have killed 5 Den tobaense to the tune of about $150 and I just screwed up my 2nd flask of Paraphal denevei by making a stupid mistake. If I could find it as a seedling, I think I would pass up deflasking but I can't find it anywhere.


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## Rick (Jun 4, 2013)

Are they "weak" or "non-conforming"?

It's interesting in my toxicity work. We work with water fleas. They are parthenogenic, and we narrow the base with every generation by starting new colonies from a single females' offspring. A colony lasts 14 days, so you get lots of generations' DNA narrowed over a course of a year. These are true genetic clones. 

Here's the interesting part. The 48 hours LC50 for NaCl is 2 grams per liter +/_ 20%. The definition of LC50 is the concentration were 50% of the organisms die by 48 hours.

So in the 2 gram per liter exposure, without fail every month over the last 17 years I've been in the lab doing this test, 10 of 20 water fleas die. But 10 don't. But if they were 100% genetically identical then how come its not all or nothing?

So now compare the genetic diversity of a flask of seedlings (even from a f2 or f3 selfing) to the water flea, and expose them to an un-naturally high level of potassium salts.

At some point you are going to see an LC50 or IC25 (thats' the concentration that causes a sublethal inhibition, like stunted growth, to 25% of the test organisms).

Maybe we can eventually grow an orchid with kidneys, but until that time we will always see a significant percentage of non conforming offspring to the un-natural chemical pressures we impose on our plants.


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## Rick (Jun 4, 2013)

Many labs have tried to select for a salt tolerant water flea, but have never been able to get much more than twenty percent improvement over more generations than it was worth counting.

There are other water flea species that have different tolerances to sodium chloride. In some cases there is some difference in geographic range, but in some cases you can find all these species of different tolerances together in the same pond, or lake. So ecologically they are not separating on the basis of water chemistry (generally food size selectivity).


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## dodidoki (Jun 5, 2013)

K-lite have enormous effect not only slippers, but other generas what I grow. I will take pics tomorrow about so sensitive generas and species, as coryanthes, corybas and cattl. dowiana.
NOTE: i didn't compare them with controll-group. I only see change on my plants.


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## The Mutant (Jun 8, 2013)

Being a newbie and not having anything to compare to, I really can't say what effect K-lite has had on my Paphs, and being in the hands of a beginner, many of them haven't fared that well, while others are doing fine. Maybe I would've killed more than I have without the K-lite (no causalities so far, but one that's barely hanging in there, and two less than happy Paphs)?

One thing that I HAVE noticed though, is my the development on my little fairrieanum. This was a freebie I got in June last year and the new leaves it has put out since I got it, compared to the ones it had/has... Well, pictures speak louder than words sometimes.

Here's the fairrieanum when I got it:






Here's how it looks now (it's in the same pot):





It hasn't lost as many leaves as it might appear, it's hiding two of the older leaves underneath the new ones (the two topmost leaves in the first picture are the ones that are hidden), so no reason to panic I hope. Three of the old leaves are dying back though, which might have to do with me repotting it recently. I hope it'll continue to grow as it has, then it'll replace the old leaves soon.

But what I wanted to show you is the the difference in width... The leaves it had were less than 1cm wide, to the newest leaf which is 1.6 cm wide. It's a significant difference and the villsoum freebie I got, shows the same development.

It's all part of them growing into BS plants, I know, but the (at least in my eyes) remarkable difference, could it have something to do with K-lite?


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## Trithor (Jun 8, 2013)

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that they are all 'freebees'? Do you pay for any of your plants?oke:


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## The Mutant (Jun 8, 2013)

Trithor said:


> Perhaps it has to do with the fact that they are all 'freebees'? Do you pay for any of your plants?oke:


Haha! So if they're freebies, they grow well? I "only" got freebies when I placed larger orders with Asendorfer, smaller ones and I get no extra plants (as it should be  ).


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## Trithor (Jun 9, 2013)

The Mutant said:


> Haha! So if they're freebies, they grow well? I "only" got freebies when I placed larger orders with Asendorfer, smaller ones and I get no extra plants (as it should be  ).



It is all part of 'Murphey's Law', if you drop a slice of bread with peanut butter on it, the law predicts that it will land peanut butter side down. There are millions of other examples of this law in action, but regarding your plants, the law will predict that the free ones will grow and flourish, while those that you paid the most for will struggle and sulk.


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## The Mutant (Jun 9, 2013)

Trithor said:


> It is all part of 'Murphey's Law', if you drop a slice of bread with peanut butter on it, the law predicts that it will land peanut butter side down. There are millions of other examples of this law in action, but regarding your plants, the law will predict that the free ones will grow and flourish, while those that you paid the most for will struggle and sulk.


Aha, "lagen om allts jäklighet" as we say in Sweden (the law of everything's [insert bad word here]). Well, seems like Muphy works just fine then considering the relatively most expensive Paph I have (a roth seedling) is struggling after getting burnt. 

And if I happen to dislike the flowers on any of the freebies, of course they will bloom for me, right? :wink:


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## Trithor (Jun 10, 2013)

Mutant, you have a perfect understanding of how Murphy works!:rollhappy:


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