# oyster shell



## ehanes7612 (Nov 11, 2011)

what paphs besides delenatii would people not dress with oyster shell (i know about antec's advice) ..just want other's experience too...


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## likespaphs (Nov 11, 2011)

{not from much experience but} any of the epiphytic ones


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## Rick (Nov 11, 2011)

I really think it makes a difference on the chemistry of your irrigation water and the basic nature of your potting mix and fertilizer combo.

I have limestone gravel in the potting mix for mine (which are now in baskets of sphagnum moss).

The old convention was that this species liked lower pH than others (so skipping pH buffering materials like oyster shell).

But augmenting my irrigation water and fertilizer with extra calcium and magnesium really got mine to take off. Cutting the K back in the fertilizer is producing even stronger and crisply contrasting colored leaves.

Maybe they like a bit more silicates and Mg than other paphs??? But mine are responding very well to the same high Ca and low K regime as all my 
other paphs.

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19671&highlight=dunkel

Here's a thread started by Paphman 910 on his delenatii var dunkel . He's adding lime to his mix and is also boosting the Ca and Mg of his weak fert mixture. He dose have a low TDS and slightly acidic irrigation water.


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## keithrs (Nov 11, 2011)

I found this awhile back......

http://www.ladyslipper.com/calsub.htm


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## eggshells (Nov 11, 2011)

Paph adductum and paph anitums seems to like slightly acidic conditions so no limestone or oyster shell. Also paph randsii. I think.


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## Rick (Nov 11, 2011)

keithrs said:


> I found this awhile back......
> 
> http://www.ladyslipper.com/calsub.htm



Yes I used this as a basis for making potting mixes for several years, and in the end didn't get the payoff for it.

Most folk made the take home point to be that calcareous paphs had a high calcium need. What I finally figured out is that all plants have a high calcium need, but calcareous species appear to be extra sensitive to excess potassium. Limestone rock is almost devoid of K, so when you give perennial plants access to the high levels of K typical of most fertilizers on the market, they suck it up like crazy. The symptoms of K overdose are the same as Ca and Mg deficiency (check out another ANTEC reading room article), namely because high tissue K prevents the uptake of Ca and Mg (almost no matter how much you bury the plant with).

Also because of the cation exchange properties of our usual potting mix components, they become saturated with K too. Adding Ca and Mg to the potting mix or irrigation water helps to slow down the K buildup in the potting mix. Orchiata bark (which is infused with Ca and Mg) should really last a long time before getting saturated by K.


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## Rick (Nov 11, 2011)

eggshells said:


> Paph adductum and paph anitums seems to like slightly acidic conditions so no limestone or oyster shell. Also paph randsii. I think.



I'm using a dash of pH buffering Cichlid Sand (which is aragonite sand, high calcium limestone) with my adductum and randsii seedlings with good results.

I just got some pics of Rick H's adductum using the high Ca low K system I've been advocating, and he got 3 new growths pop up on his plant over the summer.


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## SlipperKing (Nov 11, 2011)

eggshells said:


> Paph adductum and Paph anitums seems to like slightly acidic conditions so no limestone or oyster shell. Also Paph randsii. I think.



I have not found any of these species enjoying an acid bath, sorry but I think that is the wrong information


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## ehanes7612 (Nov 12, 2011)

seattle water is between 6.2 and 6.6 ...and it is difficult to lower the pH just by adding material to the substrate..my fertilizer doesnt even drop it...so it has good buffering capacity ...i have dressed limestone pellets to the mix on some plants and it doesnt affect pH (tested water pH from initial watering to just before next watering by squeezing out water from CHC)..so its really not a concern with me..seattle water is probably is somewhere in the middle for hardness ....so i dont know if it would matter to add oyster shell...i know some growers here who dress it on most of their paph pots..i know a grower who bloomed an adductum with dressed oyster shell


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## Mocchaccino (Nov 12, 2011)

Quite a lot of species under the subgenus Sigmatopetalum such as venustum and wardii whose habitats were found to contain few or no limestone in the growing substrate. So for these species, I don't add calcium carbonate-rich substance.


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## eggshells (Nov 12, 2011)

SlipperKing said:


> I have not found any of these species enjoying an acid bath, sorry but I think that is the wrong information



I didn't mean totally acidic condition. I meant around 6.0 to 6.5 PH like rainwater.


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## Roth (Nov 14, 2011)

Mocchaccino said:


> Quite a lot of species under the subgenus Sigmatopetalum such as venustum and wardii whose habitats were found to contain few or no limestone in the growing substrate. So for these species, I don't add calcium carbonate-rich substance.



Well, I used to trust such statements, but wardii grows on limestone in northern Burma ( not in China), and I have got paphiopedilum purpuratum in clumps of hangianum, heavy limestone content. On the other side purpuratum grows on mosses and fern roots in Hong Kong at a very low pH, and does so in at least two locations in GuangXi. 

As for adductum, and randsii, they grow in exceedingly low pH environment in the wild ( decaying fern roots, nothing else grows in that except anitum and randsii). The same applies to gigantifolium and intaniae, they grow in extremely low pH media. They will grow very well in cultivation with low pH if they are grown in fern roots, believe me. But they will die in sphagnum, and for sure in bark if grown with such low pH. I noticed several times when I visited habitats an ammonia smell, sometimes very strong, and I think it is part of their nutrition...

But the nutrition is not understood in those low pH environment. So far I have got good results with ammonium phosphate feedings on those ones, in Orchiata bark. 

Delenatii var. Dunkel/vinicolor whatever is growing only on limestone outcrops, it is a specific colony. Normal delenatii grows on granite cliffs, or in fern roots and decayed leaves, there are two distinct types.

I did put lime on my delenatii and did not notice any ill effects, again I am not using MSU, and I am using urea/ammonium based fertilizers, this might explain that...


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## Mocchaccino (Nov 14, 2011)

Roth said:


> Well, I used to trust such statements, but wardii grows on limestone in northern Burma ( not in China), and I have got paphiopedilum purpuratum in clumps of hangianum, heavy limestone content. On the other side purpuratum grows on mosses and fern roots in Hong Kong at a very low pH, and does so in at least two locations in GuangXi.
> 
> As for adductum, and randsii, they grow in exceedingly low pH environment in the wild ( decaying fern roots, nothing else grows in that except anitum and randsii). The same applies to gigantifolium and intaniae, they grow in extremely low pH media. They will grow very well in cultivation with low pH if they are grown in fern roots, believe me. But they will die in sphagnum, and for sure in bark if grown with such low pH. I noticed several times when I visited habitats an ammonia smell, sometimes very strong, and I think it is part of their nutrition...
> 
> ...



I did notice, from some photographers, that purpuratum is growing on such medium in Hong Kong. Whether the pH is low or not, I'm really not sure. 

However I do have a question, it sounds silly though. Will those wildly collected clones be different in terms of nutritional requirements than those which are cultivated from flasks? Perhaps this would explain why some species nowadays can grow much better in cultivated state such as delenatii, which was once reported to be a very difficult species to maintain in cultivation. However, if not mistaken, when a German successfully maintained the only one of the many clones collected, he made crosses and finally produced offsprings that could be easily cultivated.


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## Mocchaccino (Nov 14, 2011)

Roth said:


> Well, I used to trust such statements, but wardii grows on limestone in northern Burma ( not in China), and I have got paphiopedilum purpuratum in clumps of hangianum, heavy limestone content. On the other side purpuratum grows on mosses and fern roots in Hong Kong at a very low pH, and does so in at least two locations in GuangXi.
> 
> As for adductum, and randsii, they grow in exceedingly low pH environment in the wild ( decaying fern roots, nothing else grows in that except anitum and randsii). The same applies to gigantifolium and intaniae, they grow in extremely low pH media. They will grow very well in cultivation with low pH if they are grown in fern roots, believe me. But they will die in sphagnum, and for sure in bark if grown with such low pH. I noticed several times when I visited habitats an ammonia smell, sometimes very strong, and I think it is part of their nutrition...
> 
> ...



I did notice, from some photographers, that purpuratum is growing on such medium in Hong Kong. Whether the pH is low or not, I'm really not sure.


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## Ray (Nov 14, 2011)

OK. This brings up a question:

When I have seen plants "growing on rocks", they aren't. Instead, they are growing on accumulated detritus in pockets and cracks in the rocks.

Can't the detritus be the controlling environment, as opposed to the rock itself?

Secondly, there are different type of "limestone" with different solubilities, so might that not imply that "growing on limestone" may not mean a pH above 7 in the root zone?


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## Rick (Nov 14, 2011)

Mocchaccino said:


> Quite a lot of species under the subgenus Sigmatopetalum such as venustum and wardii whose habitats were found to contain few or no limestone in the growing substrate. So for these species, I don't add calcium carbonate-rich substance.



Although these species are found in leaf litter/forest duff, and not attached directly to rocks (limestone or otherwise), the trees that produce the leaf litter produce a calcium rich environment since they are sequestering/recycling the nutrients that they pull out of the surounding geology. But if we were concerned with what the plants get in their natural environment we shouldn't be using "balanced" fertilizers with 100's of ppm of potassium in it.

Subsequently ALL plants have a calcium requirement, and it is about equal to species not found directly on limestone. 

The use of fertilizers and top dressings or potting mix ammendments will add orders of magnitude more than what these plants actually access in the wild anyway.

This goes back to my beef on potassium. Since K is actually less common than Ca in the environment (esentially non existant in limestone), plants expend selective effort to uptake K, while Ca and Mg are inducted almost passively. So if you offer plants lots of K (typical for the fertilizers we use) they will scarf it up like crazy and store it in their cells.

As K in tissues goes beyond Ca/Mg levels, the passive induction of Ca and Mg is inhibited esentially causing a Ca and Mg deficiency.

Even if your plant does not normally come from a place that has limestone in direct contact with the roots, the presence of oystershell and lime in the potting mix helps (to an extant) help the plant avoid K overdose and Ca/Mg deficiency by offsetting the incredible amount of K we throw on our plants through typical fertilizer regimes.


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## suss16 (Nov 14, 2011)

Thoughts about City of Norfolk, VA water quality? I do run it through an in-line packed carbon filter to remove chloramines. Mainly grow in an Orhiata based mix for pots and straight sphagnum for baskets and mounts - mainly Phals (shhhh...). I use 15-5-15 cal/mg at 100 ppm N and an occasional MgSO4 based watering. Through in a 20-20-20 based watering on occasion.


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## Rick (Nov 14, 2011)

suss16 said:


> Thoughts about City of Norfolk, VA water quality? I do run it through an in-line packed carbon filter to remove chloramines. Mainly grow in an Orhiata based mix for pots and straight sphagnum for baskets and mounts - mainly Phals (shhhh...). I use 15-5-15 cal/mg at 100 ppm N and an occasional MgSO4 based watering. Through in a 20-20-20 based watering on occasion.



You have close to "soft" water with low alkalinity. According to the nitrate/ammonia/alkalinity convention, you should use a fertilizer with most of the nitrogen from nitrate rather than ammonia. This is really what the MSU pure water formula was made for (except it has too much K). Your water already has 3ppm of K in it. You could probably feed with straight calcium nitrate and add a dash of bonemeal to your potting mix for phosphate, and never miss a commercial fertilizer.

Maybe just for fun use nothing but some of that cold pressed kelp extract 80% of your feedings and boost with the 15 5 15 once a quarter.


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## ehanes7612 (Nov 15, 2011)

Rick said:


> You have close to "soft" water with low alkalinity. According to the nitrate/ammonia/alkalinity convention, you should use a fertilizer with most of the nitrogen from nitrate rather than ammonia. This is really what the MSU pure water formula was made for (except it has too much K). Your water already has 3ppm of K in it. You could probably feed with straight calcium nitrate and add a dash of bonemeal to your potting mix for phosphate, and never miss a commercial fertilizer.
> 
> Maybe just for fun use nothing but some of that cold pressed kelp extract 80% of your feedings and boost with the 15 5 15 once a quarter.



well, given that advice for norfolk water.. i think with seattle water (half the hardness and almost nothing on potassium) ..i will add the oyster shells to everything except the delenatii...i do use a commercial fertilizer so i am guessing they are soaking up the K


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## suss16 (Nov 15, 2011)

Thanks for the info... TDS reading for the tap water is about 85 ppm TDS. I was planning on cutting my 15-5-15 fert in half and add Calcium Nitrate and MgSO4 as you mentioned in a post somewhere. I am cutting back on ferts now any way. What seaweed extract do you reccommend? I have tried a couple types...


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## Rick (Nov 15, 2011)

suss16 said:


> Thanks for the info... TDS reading for the tap water is about 85 ppm TDS. I was planning on cutting my 15-5-15 fert in half and add Calcium Nitrate and MgSO4 as you mentioned in a post somewhere. I am cutting back on ferts now any way. What seaweed extract do you reccommend? I have tried a couple types...



I'm using a product from Seaplex that I got from the Worm's Way people.

I can't vouch anything sacred for this particular product. I'm sure there are others out there. I think the main thing to look for is cold processed.


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## Rick (Nov 15, 2011)

suss16 said:


> TDS reading for the tap water is about 85 ppm TDS.



Sounds about right for the conductivity value listed in your table.


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