K-lite fertilizer

[Stone]

Just a couple of points.
Rain water has been shown to contain sometimes high levels (often higher levels than ocean water) of disolved elements picked up from the sea and air- bourne dust during storms (monsoons,hurricanes etc.).
These minerals including Na, Ca, and K are then depostited over forests in the rain. If this is the case, and given that we know that plants can acumulate levels of K beyond luxury levels more easily than they can Ca., Where is all the K that must have been arriving over these areas during the past billion years?

Rick, the data you speak about is concerning dead leaf litter? Heavy rain can leach K from humus. Do you have any info on live tissues? It seems we are only going to know the REAL nutritional reqirements of Paphs if someone goes out into various habitats and analyizes healthy wild paph leaves in at least 2 different eco systems. (limestone and non limestone) After all we have all seen good specimens of paphs grown in such a wide variety of mixes and fertilizer regimes that we are stuck with speculation.

Roth seems to have access to wild collected plants?

I'm not saying, I'm just saying

Mike.

 

[gonewild]

look through a fertilizer catalog, there are dozens and dozens of different things listed. to say one is the same as other is funny. as stated before, many are just styled and marketed without need of plant. most of the things we use are either geared recently for stable solutions for seedlings, or for poinsettias etc often styled to be the same as or like greencare ferts designed for the specifications of certain cutting and seedling growers who sell to wholesale markets. they aren't corn fertilizer

I had a good friend who worked at Purdue University and UC Davis in plant nutrition research during the 50's and 60's. He told me a story that pertains directly to fertilizer labels and why we should not rely on what they claim to be good for. Here is a short version...

A company that was making fertilizer for home use retail sales (Miracle ****) called him on the phone one day and asked if their new fertilizer formula (30-10-10?) would be good to use on house plants. He told them that in his opinion it would be good. Soon after the company launched a National advertising campaign introducing the new revolutionary fertilizer for house plants. In bold print on the label it said "Recommended by Purdue University"! The fertilizer company made a lot of money and my friend nearly lost his job, neither Purdue University nor my friend actually recommended it . The moral of the story is that labels are put on fertilizer packages to help sell fertilizer and not necessarily to tell you what is best for your plants.

 

[Rick]

J

Rick, the data you speak about is concerning dead leaf litter? Heavy rain can leach K from humus. Do you have any info on live tissues? It seems we are only going to know the REAL nutritional reqirements of Paphs if someone goes out into various habitats and analyizes healthy wild paph leaves in at least 2 different eco systems. (limestone and non limestone) After all we have all seen good specimens of paphs grown in such a wide variety of mixes and fertilizer regimes that we are stuck with speculation.

Roth seems to have access to wild collected plants?

I'm not saying, I'm just saying

Mike.

Actually both in bits and pieces. One of the leaf litter papers collected (via collection traps) fresh surface leaf litter every month (so not mega dead/leached from the bottom of the pile. This paper also correlated the rainfall data to determine if some months were seeing higher"leaching" effects. The focus of the paper was on total nutrient flux in rain forest ecosystems, and compared to some other rain forest local too (as a gross check). So they also looked at nutrients in rainfall, nutrients from soil geology, nutrients in water washing down through the trees into the forest floor.

In this paper the amount of nutrients from air borne sources was negligible. The primary flux was recycle through the biomass.

Other less detailed papers on nutrient flux I've read also have rain values with very low nutrient levels. I've never seen rain levels saltier than ocean water. The only way you could get this is for rain to flow through a salt pile or other significant surface accumulation.

There's two ways to look at the leaf litter data. 1) that's what is ending up staying in the plants from whatever geological sources, or 2) if you are a paph growing in humus cracks or leaf litter on the forest floor, then that is what you have available.

Roth has some fragmentary leaf tissue analysis, for wild collected paphs, and for the handful of data he has posted in previous threads, it still supports that wild paphs are not full of K. Ca is still higher than K.

 

[Rick]

Where is all the K that must have been arriving over these areas during the past billion years?

Mike.

There are small amounts in all geologies (larger amounts in feldspar, but most of it not readily available).

90 some odd % of this K is constantly being recycled by the plants themselves. Remember that before people mined rare deposits of high K rock (like greensand), K for crop fertilization was derived from wood ashes. The term potash goes back (I think even to ancient Greece) of burn ashes soaked in pots to extract the K (although at that time they didn't know it was potassium they were extracting from the wood ashes.

I mentioned a paper on leaf tissue analysis and physio mechanisms of epiphytic plants (done on bromiliads, but the authors extrapolated to all epiphytes, including orchids). This paper is the one demonstrating the high efficiency to which epiphytes extract and accumulate K at concentrations much higher than available from the surrounding environment. In fact they demonstrated that this was an energy requiring process (not passive osmosis).

 

[emydura]

SlipperKing is corresponding with NTS because we don't see any phosphorus.

If it wasn't for the lack of P listed, this would be about what I was after.:wink:
If it really was shy on P, I might use it with a dash of potassium phosphate added.

I checked with NTS and they confirmed that it has no P.

So I could add potassium phosphate as you recommend. Or I could combine this fertiliser with one I currently use which has been very successful. It is a slow release fertiliser that I attach to my hose which I use most times I water my orchids. It has a NPK of 7.0 : 17.5 : 5.0.

I have been using this for about 18 months and I have seen a noticeable increase in the size of my growths. This could be due to two reasons. Firstly the K is lower than any other fertiliser I use. Secondly I think the orchids get more fertiliser when you water and fertilise at the same time. The convention is you water first and add the fertiliser after. But I wonder how much fertiliser a plant gets when the potting mix is saturated before the fertiliser is added. Does it just flow straight out of the pot? Anyway I am loathe to stop using it as I know it is working. Others in our society who use it have told me they have seen noticeable improvements in their plants.

I will be using the Trio (CMB) as a foliar fertiliser whereas the hose attached fertiliser will be used on the roots. Between the two I hopefully should have it all covered with fairly low levels of K overall.

Any thoughts on this? Is my K low enough? Is there a risk I will over-fertilise?

 

[SlipperKing]

Interesting hose attachment David! I'm no expert but your numbers look good. Do you have any idea at what rate the fertilizer feeds from your attachment?

 

[Ozpaph]

David, Is that Magamp? I seem to remember them selling an attachment like that.

 

[emydura]

Interesting hose attachment David! I'm no expert but your numbers look good. Do you have any idea at what rate the fertilizer feeds from your attachment?

That is the unknown. It is hard to know at what concentration you are fertilising at. I don't have any figures. I wouldn't think it was real high. The fertiliser inside the attachment takes forever to dissolve. I have a chinese food container full of replacement fertiliser but I doubt I will get through half of that in my life time.

If applied equally I would expect the NTS fertiliser to be more dominant due to the far greater efficiency of foliar fertlisers. Hopefully it would get enough P from the hose fertiliser.

David, Is that Magamp? I seem to remember them selling an attachment like that.

Yes, it is. I got mine from the Orchid Tray Company -

http://www.orchidtrays.com.au/view_product.php?id=229

David

 

[Stone]

There are small amounts in all geologies (larger amounts in feldspar, but most of it not readily available).

90 some odd % of this K is constantly being recycled by the plants themselves. Remember that before people mined rare deposits of high K rock (like greensand), K for crop fertilization was derived from wood ashes. The term potash goes back (I think even to ancient Greece) of burn ashes soaked in pots to extract the K (although at that time they didn't know it was potassium they were extracting from the wood ashes.

I mentioned a paper on leaf tissue analysis and physio mechanisms of epiphytic plants (done on bromiliads, but the authors extrapolated to all epiphytes, including orchids). This paper is the one demonstrating the high efficiency to which epiphytes extract and accumulate K at concentrations much higher than available from the surrounding environment. In fact they demonstrated that this was an energy requiring process (not passive osmosis).

If you consider a tillandsia growing on a wire cable or a vanda on a dead tree without access to humus, moss, bark, leaf litter or exudates then regardless of their efficency of nutrient uptake, its obvious there's a good (at least very small but adequate ) amount of nutrient floating around in the air at certain times. Especially N but also P, Ca and K etc.
My question was: why is this K not accumulating in the eco systems of these tropical forests when leaf samples from temperate areas typically show K levels as high or higher than N and much higher that Ca.?
I'm not doubting the findings, but I'd like to understand the process.
I wonder if high annual temp. is involved.

 

[Stone]

That is the unknown. It is hard to know at what concentration you are fertilising at. I don't have any figures.

David, You should seriously consider getting yourself a good EC meter before you unleash that onto your plants.( if you don't already have one ). It's the only way to be sure.

Maximum allowable ec for sensitive species is about 1.4 dS/m with an increase showing reduced growth and I think this too high for paphs.

If you start off with pure water, then you know excactly the composition of your fertilizer solution ( if you use completely soluble materials ) so, all you need to know is the right strength. I've been feeding at 0.3-0.5 dS/m (which is about 1/5 or less than recommended full strength ) with good results. Maybe with mature plants you could start with that and increase stength or frequency based on your results.

Mike

 

[emydura]

David, You should seriously consider getting yourself a good EC meter before you unleash that onto your plants.( if you don't already have one ). It's the only way to be sure.

Maximum allowable ec for sensitive species is about 1.4 dS/m with an increase showing reduced growth and I think this too high for paphs.

If you start off with pure water, then you know excactly the composition of your fertilizer solution ( if you use completely soluble materials ) so, all you need to know is the right strength. I've been feeding at 0.3-0.5 dS/m (which is about 1/5 or less than recommended full strength ) with good results. Maybe with mature plants you could start with that and increase stength or frequency based on your results.

Mike

Thanks Mike

Well I have been using it for 18 months and my Paphs have never looked so good. The growths are bigger than previous and my multi's are getting more flowers on a spike. So I don't think it is having a negative affect. I guess the issue is if you combine it with the NTS fertiliser at the same time, will the concentration get too high. I have often combined other fertilisers with the MAGAMP and never seen any problems. But I could just alternate to be safe.

I might be able to access an EC meter in anycase.

 

[Rick]

I checked with NTS and they confirmed that it has no P.

So I could add potassium phosphate as you recommend. Or I could combine this fertiliser with one I currently use which has been very successful. It is a slow release fertiliser that I attach to my hose which I use most times I water my orchids. It has a NPK of 7.0 : 17.5 : 5.0.


Any thoughts on this? Is my K low enough? Is there a risk I will over-fertilise?

What is the chemistry (hardness and alkalinity) of the irrigation water used with the above fert system? (and between fertilizer waterings?)

Kind of forgot about the Ca/Mg part of the equation that needs to go with that low K. Unless you are using a rain water or RO water, you are probably getting a good dose of Ca with your mains water. Other wise is there Ca/Mg supplied by the above system?

 

[Rick]

If you consider a tillandsia growing on a wire cable or a vanda on a dead tree without access to humus, moss, bark, leaf litter or exudates then regardless of their efficency of nutrient uptake, its obvious there's a good (at least very small but adequate ) amount of nutrient floating around in the air at certain times. Especially N but also P, Ca and K etc.
My question was: why is this K not accumulating in the eco systems of these tropical forests when leaf samples from temperate areas typically show K levels as high or higher than N and much higher that Ca.?
I'm not doubting the findings, but I'd like to understand the process.
I wonder if high annual temp. is involved.

The vanda on the dead tree is still access the K in the dead tree wood. And if its on a dead tree, its only going to be there for a short time anyway since dead trees get broken down and recycled very quickly in the rainforest. Tilllandsias don't grow on wire cables in nature. I would really like to see your data on the high amount of K in rain water. K is considerably more toxic to freshwater organisms than Na, Ca, and Mg. Its very rare that K exceeds 5 ppm in any freshwater ecosystem, and if it does, then it will be depopulated of molluscs and many other invertebrates. Freshwater mussels have been extirpated from large portions of the US from fertilizer runoff. They can't take more than 7-11ppm of K for very long before dieing. We work with lots of micro crustaceans that can't take much above 25 ppm. A rainfall event with concentrations "as high or higher than sea water 390ppm!!!" would pretty much cause some considerable dieoffs in inland freshwater ecosystems.

Also I'm not finding high K in temperate forest leaf litter data either. In fact the pecan growers in the southern US monitor there production growth very carefully by the use of fresh leaf tissue analysis. And it shows the same level of NPK Ca/Mg as the rain forest data. The ag extension service info for pecan growers is pretty emphatic about NOT supplementing K, and only suggests minor supplementing of N and Zinc when leaf tissue values fall.

The only time when I consistently see lots of K is in annual food crop production where fertilizer is specifically added, or soils have been amended (like with greensand).

 

[Rick]

David, You should seriously consider getting yourself a good EC meter before you unleash that onto your plants.( if you don't already have one ). It's the only way to be sure.

Maximum allowable ec for sensitive species is about 1.4 dS/m with an increase showing reduced growth and I think this too high for paphs.

If you start off with pure water, then you know excactly the composition of your fertilizer solution ( if you use completely soluble materials ) so, all you need to know is the right strength. I've been feeding at 0.3-0.5 dS/m (which is about 1/5 or less than recommended full strength ) with good results. Maybe with mature plants you could start with that and increase stength or frequency based on your results.

Mike

I work with EC meters and study TDS toxicity for a living. EC is a very poor way of understanding fertilizer relationships and paph needs.

Going back to the case of niveum and exul getting sprayed by ocean water. It has a conductivity of ~60,000 micro seimens/cm, but has almost no nitrogen. A gram of NaCl has a conductivity of 2000 useimens/cm and so does a gram of KCL. Calcium chloride, Mag sulfate, Calcium nitrate, Maghydroxide, and sucrose all have different inherent conductivities, so if you have a mixture of all of the above how is a single EC measurement going to give you a clue at all as to what you are measuring?

Your plants will react quite differently if you apply a pure solution of NaCl in RO water at EC level X than they will to the same EC level from a solution of Calcium nitrate or magsulfate.

It's apparent that a lot of paphs can handle strong ionic strength solutions as long as they are based on calcium/magesium doses in excess of the monovalents.

 

[Rick]

What I measure is hardness (which is combined Ca/Mg concentration), alkalinity (from bicarbonate buffering capacity), and ammonia and/or nitrate.

You could get all this from an aquarium store, but the nitrogen test range for fish is way to low for fertilizer strength for plants, and you'd have to make big dilutions with pure water to get to a measurable place on the scale (and then multiply the value X your dilution factor).

I don't know if HACH distributes in Australia, but they make a bunch of easy to use colorimetric water chemistry test kits.

 

[Stone]

I work with EC meters and study TDS toxicity for a living. EC is a very poor way of understanding fertilizer relationships and paph needs.

Going back to the case of niveum and exul getting sprayed by ocean water. It has a conductivity of ~60,000 micro seimens/cm, but has almost no nitrogen. A gram of NaCl has a conductivity of 2000 useimens/cm and so does a gram of KCL. Calcium chloride, Mag sulfate, Calcium nitrate, Maghydroxide, and sucrose all have different inherent conductivities, so if you have a mixture of all of the above how is a single EC measurement going to give you a clue at all as to what you are measuring?

I don't think you read my post properly. I didn't say that we use an ec meter to understand fertilizer relationships and paph needs. When you buy a packet of fertilizer and your satisfied its various components are what you are looking for, you mix it with water according to the strength you're after.
I think we must surley agree so far?

So, you take an ec reading of your solution and away you go.
Next time you make up a solution, you know exactly how much water to add regardless of the container size because the meter tells you where you are.
Whether you use a proportioner or a watering can, a sprayer or a 10 gallon bucket
your consetration remains the same. Much easier than trying to measure 1/8 and a bit of a teaspoon or weigh 1.5 grams of whatever.
Then if you decide to reduce consentration or add some organics or extra Cal. Nitrate it's a very simple matter without the guesswork. You can give whatever you like but its the final salinity that's important to roots wherever it comes from. I give my plants a varied diet but always check final salinity. In other words I use it as a dilution tool.
Hyroponic people do it everyday. Its up to the individual to decide the level of salinity a given plant can handle. If you buy a new unknown fertilizer how are you going to know the rate you can safely give? trust the manufacturer ? or just guess?

Plenty of people never use an ec meter and thats fine. I didn't for 20 years. Now I wouldn't be without it.

 

[Stone]

]The vanda on the dead tree is still access the K in the dead tree wood. And if its on a dead tree, its only going to be there for a short time anyway since dead trees get broken down and recycled very quickly in the rainforest.

Apparently Vanda coerulea grows on dead trees and lives a long life on them.I have some doubt that its getting much in the way of nutrients from bleached dead wood. Where is the P,Fe,Ca coming from?

Tilllandsias don't grow on wire cables in nature.

Not only do they grow on elecrical cables but also on cacti. Your're not going to tell me that they get their K from impervious cactus skin?

I would really like to see your data on the high amount K in rain water.

I think that was an old article in Nature I will see if I can find it.

K is considerably more toxic to freshwater organisms than Na, Ca, and Mg. Its very rare that K exceeds 5 ppm in any freshwater ecosystem, and if it does, then it will be depopulated of molluscs and many other invertebrates. Freshwater mussels have been extirpated from large portions of the US from fertilizer runoff. They can't take more than 7-11ppm of K for very long before dieing. We work with lots of micro crustaceans that can't take much above 25 ppm. A rainfall event with concentrations "as high or higher than sea water 390ppm!!!" would pretty much cause some considerable dieoffs in inland freshwater ecosystems.

Obviously there is not a consetration high enough to affect these inverts 99% of the time but it has been recorded.

The only time when I consistently see lots of K is in annual food crop production where fertilizer is specifically added, or soils have been amended (like with greensand).

[/QUOTE]

From what I'm reading K/N ratio is 0.5 to 1.5 wilth a mean of 1

 

[emydura]

What is the chemistry (hardness and alkalinity) of the irrigation water used with the above fert system? (and between fertilizer waterings?)

Kind of forgot about the Ca/Mg part of the equation that needs to go with that low K. Unless you are using a rain water or RO water, you are probably getting a good dose of Ca with your mains water. Other wise is there Ca/Mg supplied by the above system?

Our tap water is as follows -

Alkalinity - 35.8 mg/L as CaCO3
Total hardness - 39.6 mg/L as CaCO3

There is no information other than N:K for the magamp fertiliser. I assume it contains little or no Ca/Mg. That is why I am also applying the NTS fertiliser. It is good to know that Paphs can handle strong fertlisers based on Ca/Mg. That was my fear.

 

[emydura]

You can give whatever you like but its the final salinity that's important to roots wherever it comes from.

I know that the Magamp fertiliser on its own doesn't burn the roots and I will only be applying the NTS fertiliser to the leaves, so it doesn't sound like I have anything to worry about.

 

[Rick]

Our tap water is as follows -

Alkalinity - 35.8 mg/L as CaCO3
Total hardness - 39.6 mg/L as CaCO3

There is no information other than N:K for the magamp fertiliser. I assume it contains little or no Ca/Mg. That is why I am also applying the NTS fertiliser. It is good to know that Paphs can handle strong fertlisers based on Ca/Mg. That was my fear.

The basic formula to convert Hardess (as CaCO3) to Ca/Mg concentrations is

H= (2.48 X Ca mg/L) + (4.11 X Mg mg/L) If all the hardness in your water came from Ca, then you would be applying roughly 16 mg/L of Ca to your plants each time you watered. But in most cases there is always some Mg (usually about 20% of the hardness is from Mg unless you are over some strange geology like serpentine). So just guestimating you are applying maybe 10-11 ppm Ca and 4 ppm Mg to your plants with each watering.

In general your water is considered soft with fairly low alkalinity. You could stand to use a fertilizer that is loppsided to nitrates rather than ammonia as the nitrogen source.