Early K-lite results

[Rick]

Not true.



So if I give 100% nitrate N, my bark will last forever?

Nothing will make it last "forever". Sterilize it and store it in liquid nitrogen if that is your goal.

 

[Rick]

There is no mention of any corporate sponsor, but I wonder if a fertilizer manufacturer provided some $$ or other resources for this study. It's as if they're trying to justify using as much fert as the plants will tolerate.

I was acused of research bias with support of the low K principal (since it ultimately led to development of a commercial product), and I don't even make/sell fertilizer. Plenty of research (bad and good) happens in this country without corporatate support.

The commercial orchid fertilizer market is chump change in comparison to the agriculture market, they (try to even identify a single giant corporate entitie that even messes with orchid fert products) don't need to support orchid research to make a buck.

 

[Stone]

Not true.

Nitrate is only utilized by anaerobes. If you keep the potting mix aerobic and operate in the 5.5-6.5 pH, with low alkalinity and low TDS you can starve the microflora into a manageable population. Feeding lots of ammonia and shoveling in bicarbonate to accommodate the pH drop, and you turn the matrix into a waste treatment plant.

I had another look at this and it seems you are wrong. To test nitrogen draw-down ( or how much N is used by decomposing bacteria ) One test (very simplified) is to use potassium nitrate poured through the mix and to then test leachate for nitrate after a certain incubation period.
Orchid mixes certainly aren't anaerobic so decomposing bacteria do use nitrate as their N source. So I stand by my comment that you must provide for them with N in an organic mix with a carbon to nitrogen ratio greater than 30 to 1.(which is most of them) They can operate at pH of between 5 and 9 so alkalinity or acidity doesn't really enter the picture.
If you are talking about the nitrifiers that prefer pH above 6 then yes they can be somewhat starved by low pH and high nitrate but some still are important to help avoid any ammonium toxicity whic may be produced by the decomposers as they break dowm the organic matter. I think we are talking about 2 different groups of bacteria?

 

[Rick]

Orchid mixes certainly aren't anaerobic so decomposing bacteria do use nitrate as their N source.

The core of your porous bark materials can easily go anaerobic. Especially if you have a dense wet mix The decomposing bacteria use the NO3 as a source of oxygen. The amount of N required to make amino acids/proteins for organism growth is a fraction of the nitrate they would consume for "respiration".

Actually you can run the same nitrifying bacteria "backwards" under anoxic systems to convert the nitrate produced in nitrification of ammonia back to N2 gas. (Otherwise known as a sequential batch reactor) so you can nitrify and denitrify in the same physical system, by having both aerobic and anoxic conditions available in proximity. The aquarium people understood this years ago when they started using trickle filters. The highly aerated trickle system converts ammonia to nitrate at a fantastic rate. Then in the sump they would place a lot of fine porous material like lava rock that would develop colonies of denitrifiers in the anoxic core of the rock. This area would need a feed of methanol or sugar solution to supply a carbon source for the denitrifying bacteria to use.

There are other species of bacteria/fungi that denitrify under low O2 conditions, most likely composting your mix with excessive nitrogen available of any form. Then you can also get a lot of blue green algae that can utilize it too.

Are you trying to grow orchids, or how much non-orchid life do you want to support in your pots?

Check out the terms oligotrophic vs eutrophic.

 

[Rick]

If you are talking about the nitrifiers that prefer pH above 6 then yes they can be somewhat starved by low pH

Actually it alkalinity rather than pH that controls nitrifiers, I recently read an article on nitrifiers operating quite efficiently at pH between 4-5. And with using acidic media, but still supplying inputs of bicarbonate ion you can have low pH and still enough alkalinity to nitrify.

 

[Rick]

Orchid mixes certainly aren't anaerobic

We hope not, and that's' certainly the goal. But as I mentioned earlier the pores in your bark matrix certainly go anoxic when respiration occurs. The more open the pot and the mix (going to a mounted condition as the max open/aerobic) the deeper O2 penetrates to the core of the individual pieces of porous bark/CHC/moss, reducing the volume of colonizable space for anoxic nitrate users.

Also the higher the TDS the less O2 water can hold. So salty water in mushy/highly porous material in semi sealed pots makes it easier for composting anoxic bacteria to take over your mix.

Definitely a foreign habitat for epiphytic and semi epiphytic species.

 

[Ray]

Also the higher the TDS the less O2 water can hold. So salty water in mushy/highly porous material in semi sealed pots makes it easier for composting anoxic bacteria to take over your mix.

that makes me wonder about the relative amounts of oxygen plants get from water versus air.




Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk

 

[Rick]

that makes me wonder about the relative amounts of oxygen plants get from water versus air.




Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk

That's a whole science unto itself. Thin films of water no containment, or semi sealed containers????

Water loves to hang onto CO2, but is relatively stingy about O2. So the bigger issue in pots may be CO2 release from bacterial and nighttime plant respiration rather than O2 uptake.

The basket system may be as effective as my mounted systems simply because they get the orchid roots exposed to uncontained air, and gas balance is optimal for keeping carbolic acid production to a mnimum.

 

[likespaphs]

Nothing will make it last "forever". Sterilize it and store it in liquid nitrogen if that is your goal.

that made me giggle
:rollhappy:

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

Rick- at least in salt water reef systems, trickle filters and such have been abandoned as nitrate factories. (Invertebrates are way less tolerant of nitrates than fish.) More nitrate was produced than could be denitrified by anaerobic bacteria. Now filtration is limited to skimming and activated carbon, with lots of "live rock" (coral rubble), loaded with denitrifiers inside the rock. Some also use deep sand beds, up to 6" deep. I keep my sandbed about 3" deep....and I have no nitrate problems. (Of course, I just discarded a tank where the heater broke, and I didn't realize it until almost everything died...I hoped I could recycle it, but the stench was unbelievable.)

 

[cnycharles]

ouch

 

[limuhead]

You can talk about the science of K-lite, MSU, Peters, Miricle Grow, Fish Emulsion, Bat guano, or any of the dozens, if not hundreds of products all day long. You can analyze it, disect it, run tests on it, hell, you can even write your congressman about it. The bottom line is IS THERE ANY PROOF that it works? Here is how I see it. I am using it after seeing many of my plants do very well on the MSU type fert thrive for years, then slowly decline. I see LOTS of commercial growers push thier plants to get them off the benches and sold, only to have them go downhill after a while. I will let you know in a couple years, because that's how long it will take to know for sure...

 

[Rick]

Now filtration is limited to skimming and activated carbon, with lots of "live rock" (coral rubble), loaded with denitrifiers inside the rock. Some also use deep sand beds, up to 6" deep. I keep my sandbed about 3" deep....and I have no nitrate problems.

Yes moved the system out of the box under the tank to in the tank. Same biology though.

Also compared to a waste treatment system the input load for aquariums is very low, and a greater emphasis on supplemental photosynthesis.

It used to crack me up that the waste water engineers essentially did all the same stuff we do with aquariums, but they put it all to numbers, and get paid a lot more.oke:

 

[Rick]

I will let you know in a couple years, because that's how long it will take to know for sure...

There is a great deal of correctness to this statement.

I started my plants on low K in May of 2011, so I have almost 2 years on this now. However, I also have plants that "survived" my MSU days for almost 10 years that have improved noticeably (leaves longer/stronger/shinier) within a few months. The other effect that is "fast" is seedling material and time from flask to bloom. Several of us have reported in the past high seedling mortality and maturity times on the order of 6-7 years. Now my mortality rate on new flasks in the last 2 years is virtually 0 with stuff making it to blooming size by 2 years.

But yes we'll need to wait 5 or more years before saying for sure.

 

[Rick]

(Invertebrates are way less tolerant of nitrates than fish.)

I don't do much toxicity testing with salt water organisms, but I do nitrite and nitrate testing on freshwater fish and inverts, and inverts are more sensitive.

Nitrate is kind of interesting in that acutely its not very toxic. Short term LC50's are on the order of 200ppm. But chronically it causes growth or reproductive inhibition down around 20mg/L N. The inverts more sensitive. I do lots of testing with nitrate impacted waste waters, and the inverts always go down first.

Now I recall lots of speculation on lateral line disease and stuff like that so ultra-chronically I wouldn't be surprised that fish would show more secondary effects from lower levels of nitrate.

Also nitrate (and nitrite) toxicity is effected by hardness and TDS, with increasing hardness and TDS (even just from NaCl) reducing toxicity.

 

[limuhead]

The proof is in the pudding

OK, after reading the K-lite articles several times I noticed a few things. First and foremost, to my understanding there were too many different variables- adding dolomite, epsom salts, well water(more calcium), and bone meal, along with using K-lite made drastic improvements, so realistically you can not give credit to K-lite for those improvements. I looked up potassium toxicity and poisoning in orchids, and found nothing conclusive other than references to the AOS article and posts on slippertalk(or references from other sites referring to ST). I am no scientist so I decided to talk to 3 of the best commercial growers in Hawaii. All of them are using an 'MSU' type fert at slightly different dilutions ranging from 150 ppm down to 50 ppm. They grow all types of orchids, including paphs and phrags and without question have some of the best looking, healthiest orchids I have ever seen. When I mentioned low K one said don't believe everything you hear/read and the other 2 laughed at me. Not only do they not believe in potassium toxicity they ADD substancial amounts of potassium to thier fert regularly, and have for years! I think that the real key to success with ANY type of fert is getting the proportions and Ph right. The formulation of Potassium nitrate they are adding is 13.7 - 0 - 46.3, adding it to a 15 - 5 - 15, at the low end 20%. So now I am adding my K-lite 50/50 with the 13.7-0-46.3. The key, as it was explained to me, is that the use of epsom salts, dolomite, and calicum nitrate in the proper proportions and timing will effectively adjust the Ph to the proper range and your plants will uptake the nutrients they need in the proper amounts. Two biologists and one farmer with almost 100 years combined experience between them, with over 500 registered hybrids, over 100 AOS awards, growing the BEST plants I have EVER seen must know something. I will be going to the nurseries where the extra potassium programs are in place and posting pictures over the next few weeks.

 

[limuhead]

Oh, if you are interested in the other fert they add it is called K Plus...

 

[limuhead]

Here are a few pics of plants using added K, more to follow


Onc. ampliatum, about 5 feet tall, bulbs the size of a grapefruit

C. gaslelliana compot

another angle of the same compot

 

[Stone]

OK, after reading the K-lite articles several times I noticed a few things. First and foremost, to my understanding there were too many different variables- adding dolomite, epsom salts, well water(more calcium), and bone meal, along with using K-lite made drastic improvements, so realistically you can not give credit to K-lite for those improvements. I looked up potassium toxicity and poisoning in orchids, and found nothing conclusive other than references to the AOS article and posts on slippertalk(or references from other sites referring to ST). I am no scientist so I decided to talk to 3 of the best commercial growers in Hawaii. All of them are using an 'MSU' type fert at slightly different dilutions ranging from 150 ppm down to 50 ppm. They grow all types of orchids, including paphs and phrags and without question have some of the best looking, healthiest orchids I have ever seen. When I mentioned low K one said don't believe everything you hear/read and the other 2 laughed at me. Not only do they not believe in potassium toxicity they ADD substancial amounts of potassium to thier fert regularly, and have for years! I think that the real key to success with ANY type of fert is getting the proportions and Ph right. The formulation of Potassium nitrate they are adding is 13.7 - 0 - 46.3, adding it to a 15 - 5 - 15, at the low end 20%. So now I am adding my K-lite 50/50 with the 13.7-0-46.3. The key, as it was explained to me, is that the use of epsom salts, dolomite, and calicum nitrate in the proper proportions and timing will effectively adjust the Ph to the proper range and your plants will uptake the nutrients they need in the proper amounts. Two biologists and one farmer with almost 100 years combined experience between them, with over 500 registered hybrids, over 100 AOS awards, growing the BEST plants I have EVER seen must know something. I will be going to the nurseries where the extra potassium programs are in place and posting pictures over the next few weeks.

0 0h...............Pass me the pop corn...

 

[Cheyenne]

Yes, please keep the pictures coming. This is very interesting. I can't wait to hear the replies.