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Wet.
Water them EVERY day if they are in a well drained media.
They need to be moist or wet.
They need to be moist or wet.
Carper
Well-Known Member
I'm growing in husk chunks, with a sprinkling of fir bark and charcoal. The outer covering of the roots after checking have gone soft but the inner part of the root seems firm and ok. Can the plant still take in the feed or would it be a good idea to foliar feed regularly for a while to help it along.
Gary
UK
Gary
UK
How much of the outer part of the root has gone soft?
Sounds like the roots are probably dead or at least inactive. Without active roots soil nutrients do no good but they also don't do any harm. Foliar feed is better. You have to keep the foliage from drying out, so mist the plants as often as possible. Especially try to keep the media surface moist at all times without letting the lower media get too wet. New roots will come from the base of the plant at the media surface so that is where you need to keep the moisture constant. Maybe covering the surface with moss to act as a mulch will help.
Sounds like the roots are probably dead or at least inactive. Without active roots soil nutrients do no good but they also don't do any harm. Foliar feed is better. You have to keep the foliage from drying out, so mist the plants as often as possible. Especially try to keep the media surface moist at all times without letting the lower media get too wet. New roots will come from the base of the plant at the media surface so that is where you need to keep the moisture constant. Maybe covering the surface with moss to act as a mulch will help.
Carper
Well-Known Member
How often would you foliar feed and what strength. I foliar fed a few plants this morning and most were completely dry in half an hour. I just don't want to overdo it so would you foliar feed at the same strength or stronger and if so at what strength in PPM Nitrogen or m/s.
The perfect answer to this question probably does not exist.
Foliar feeding at the same strength that you use on your other plants would be fine. However it is probably a good idea to use a more dilute strength and apply more often. Gauge the need for nutrients on plant growth. Even though the roots are bad are the plants still producing leaf growth? If the plant is growing then it needs more nutrients than if it is not increasing bulk.
Don't put too much concern on foliar feeding but rather do something to get new roots growing soon.
J
Jim Toomey
Guest
I have seen a successful grower here in Florida who grows them sitting in trays of water. Water seemed to be very shallow.
The plants are absolutely huge with many, many growths (too many to count).
They had no burned leaves and looked immaculate.
I have some of mine sitting in an oven pan liner (about 1/4" deep).
Seems to be working very well.
The plants are absolutely huge with many, many growths (too many to count).
They had no burned leaves and looked immaculate.
I have some of mine sitting in an oven pan liner (about 1/4" deep).
Seems to be working very well.
Thanx Jim; I'll take 2! 
Carper
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your suggestions so far.
It would be great for those that hold these plants to please advise me of their current mix. I normally use KLN for root growth, so would also appreciate any advice on any products members use for this purpose.
Thanks again.
Gary
UK
It would be great for those that hold these plants to please advise me of their current mix. I normally use KLN for root growth, so would also appreciate any advice on any products members use for this purpose.
Thanks again.
Gary
UK
luizhamilton@ho
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Great Tips guys ! But should the roots be CONSTANTLY moist or should dry out just a bit between waterings ?!!! What else ?
the roots have to be constantly moist even wet. i am finding that a mix of moss and fine fir bark with perlite and charcoal works well, with oyster shell mixed in. give it bright light and frequent watering with very dilute fertilizer.
luizhamilton@ho
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Thanks ! What do you think about the recommendation by many growers here to water from above with good quality water (low dissolved salt content) and then let a thin (?) or thick (?) film of the run-off water on the plate underneath the pot . This means actually being soaked by the substrate by capillary action! This would be my first time doing this to an orchid and I have successfully grown many genera but never Phrag. kovachii ! Thanks for the detailed help here (sorry but I am an engineer...
i would only sit the plant in water if there are new roots active to grow into this environment. you would also want to avoid stagnant conditions in the root zone with the sitting water with frequent changes. i'm not an expert phrag grower, though. i do just ok enough that i was brave enough to try a PK.
Rick
Well-Known Member
I went to Manola's (from Peruflora) talk on Pk insitu and culture program.
In the wild it rains every day and there is constantly water at the roots for the population he's working with.
The water quality at the rhizosphere was pretty much devoid of NPK, but very similar to tap water in most parts of the US. I posted the major cation/anion concentrations once on a different thread, but I'll try to dig it out again for this thread.
In the wild it rains every day and there is constantly water at the roots for the population he's working with.
The water quality at the rhizosphere was pretty much devoid of NPK, but very similar to tap water in most parts of the US. I posted the major cation/anion concentrations once on a different thread, but I'll try to dig it out again for this thread.
Rick
Well-Known Member
OK water at the roots (this is "dry season" which means it only rains once a day instead of continuously for days on end).
Calcium = 45.6ppm
Magnesium = 3.96ppm
Potassium = 0.39ppm
sodium = 1.2ppm
bicarbonate = 127ppm (alkalinity = 104ppm as CaCO3)
sulfate = 7.68ppm
chloride = 14.2ppm
Conductivity was 0.25 dS/m (I think that's 250uS/cm for most of us).
Nitrate was listed at detection limit of 0.39ppm (so was probably less than that).
Wet season is probably more dilute than this.
This is like a basic tap water of hardness 129ppm as CaCO3
For reference Nashville tap water has a hardness of 80-100ppm with a conductivity of 250 uS/cm.
I have a few pK that came from Glenn Decker. (I received one as a 9" seedling) I find them very fast easy growers with unlimited water and extremely light/frequent feeding. If you pile on the K they will stunt and become Ca deficient (no matter how much oystershell you put in the pot).
I also have in situ leaf tissue concentrations. These are surprisingly low N content plants and the Ca content is several times higher than K in the leaves.
Calcium = 45.6ppm
Magnesium = 3.96ppm
Potassium = 0.39ppm
sodium = 1.2ppm
bicarbonate = 127ppm (alkalinity = 104ppm as CaCO3)
sulfate = 7.68ppm
chloride = 14.2ppm
Conductivity was 0.25 dS/m (I think that's 250uS/cm for most of us).
Nitrate was listed at detection limit of 0.39ppm (so was probably less than that).
Wet season is probably more dilute than this.
This is like a basic tap water of hardness 129ppm as CaCO3
For reference Nashville tap water has a hardness of 80-100ppm with a conductivity of 250 uS/cm.
I have a few pK that came from Glenn Decker. (I received one as a 9" seedling) I find them very fast easy growers with unlimited water and extremely light/frequent feeding. If you pile on the K they will stunt and become Ca deficient (no matter how much oystershell you put in the pot).
I also have in situ leaf tissue concentrations. These are surprisingly low N content plants and the Ca content is several times higher than K in the leaves.
luizhamilton@ho
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Thank you guys ! You have been very helpful indeed! Thanks & thanks again. I willNOT however let my sit on water but instead will water every day. My mineral water (Volvic in Paris) should be fine and I grow on a northeast bay window with supplemental artificial light. So far so good. I'd love to see more pictures of flowers here though, especially of the widely distributed (Laura x Ann) from Glen Decker! Cheers !
Rick, what about the sodium and chloride in particular? I have seen similar in leaf analyses, and still, no fertliser contain chloride and sodium, at least not sodium, the chloride is normally there from other ingredients
This discepancy is normally explained with 'its there anyhow' and that is right, but when chloride gets one of the major as in this case......just my twocents
This discepancy is normally explained with 'its there anyhow' and that is right, but when chloride gets one of the major as in this case......just my twocents
Rick
Well-Known Member
Rick, what about the sodium and chloride in particular? I have seen similar in leaf analyses, and still, no fertliser contain chloride and sodium, at least not sodium, the chloride is normally there from other ingredients
This discepancy is normally explained with 'its there anyhow' and that is right, but when chloride gets one of the major as in this case......just my twocents
Sodium chloride (or sulfate) in environment is more ubiquitous than potassium nitrate. It's frequently more available than magnesium salts.
I think one reason you don't see it in fert mixes is because (outside of hobby orchid growers) the majority of users mix fertilizers in regular surface or well waters that have plenty of these ions already in it. RO water is very expensive to produce at commercial scale, so ferts with NaCl added are pretty rare.
I haven't seen anything in the physiological literature on the role of chloride, and other than osmotic balance I haven't seen anything special for sodium.
From the ion toxicity work I do with aquatic organisms, Na is not particularly bioactive (certainly compared to K and Mg). Chloride is generally more toxic than sulfate, but not as toxic as bicarbonate ion. But a "sweet spot" has been demonstrated for combinations of sulfate and chloride. The two working together somehow in the organism.....and Calcium mediating the toxicity of both chloride and sulfate.
The take home point may be to not use strict RO water as irrigation water for you plants, and not add unnatural amounts of NPK to your irrigation water.
Our tox lab "reconstitutes" all kinds of surface and well waters for testing every day. Our basic EPA moderately hard formula which we use as the dilution and control water for all our tests is reconstituted with the 7 major cations/anions in RO water. (This only needs 3-4 different salts to accomplish). This assures that we don't have random toxicants coming in from uncontrolled sources.
This appears what you are suggesting we do with orchid fertilizer.:wink:
But I think I'm getting too old to do this for my hobby when I can just black box a bit of well water into my irrigation water
You're right, at least in agriculture use of eg potassium chloride is common as potassium fertiliser and sodium is everywhere. I fully agree on the sugesstion to use normal(means low amounts,right?) fertiliser levels with some well/surface water as well. I use rain and surface water (from a bog ) and probably get whatever sodium I need, but just had this thought that people using RO only might have a deficiency.
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