Improving on MSU/rain mix with growstones

[gego]

Thanks David, very interesting.

Rain mix is a fertilizer? I'm assuming you mean EC reading and the units is in uS. Tap water with 300 uS EC is pretty good already. If that is indeed a fertilizer then you have 90 units of total dissolved fertilizer. Since the pots sit on the mix then is it right to say that the nutrients are available to the plants 24/7? Assuming some roots are reaching the water or the media is delivering that water to the roots. Almost like SH.

 

[Bjorn]

Interesting David,
I thought that I used low amounts of fertiliser, but it seems that I am not alone At 90µS you should have something like 50-60ppm TDS fertiliser in your mix. Since commercial fertilisers are a bit low on their content of micronutrients, this leads me to think that you might be on the brink of lacking some micronutrient (although the rainwater contains a lot of interesting things)
The growstones are made of glass that has been blown up by the use of calcium carbonate as far as I understand. And as is stated earlier here this could make them useful as a source of both calcium and silicon. Guess you already have enough calcium, so my suggestion is that its silicon. Silicon is believe it or not, an important element in plant nutrition, and sufficient silicon is making plants utilise certain fertiliser elements better and also makes them tolerate stresses like drought, heat, lack of nutrition etc. So, if you are on the brink of e.g. some nutrient deficit, silicon makes your plants tolerate that better, and that may be what you see.

 

[monocotman]

rain mix

Gego,
as far as I know, rain mix is a European version of MSU fertilizer. The pots sit in trays of water so it is available 24/7. It is pretty much semi hydro.
This adds another layer of 'consistency' to the plants as they do not go through any significant wet/dry cycles.
The levels of water, O2 and fertilizer are very constant in the pot and the roots can adjust their growth to fit with these.
This may be very important when you are a phrag and a large leafy plant with no buffering capacity like you have when there are pseudo bulbs.
This helps maintain pristine foliage.
Bjorn - being on the brink is probably true. I remember that the new growth of Don Wimber was pretty pale to begin with but 'greened up' quickly when the growstones were added to the Suzanne Decker in September.
It is going to be interesting to see what develops when the plants go through a second cycle of growth in this environment,
David

 

[gego]

I can relate to that since I'm using SH on some of my plants. Catts actually love it.

So the only input you added are the growstones and you believe the plants reacted positively to that.

Thanks for sharing. Keep us posted.

 

[phraggy]

Funny you should mention growstones David because I started using them only two weeks ago just to see what would happen. By the looks of your plants I hope the same will apply to mine.

Ed