Substantial K in rainforest through fall.

[Rick]

Wow, its amazing that you did not give up Rick! So many mortalities!

Besides the free aspect, when you spread out the pain over several years its not as obvious. Until I looked up the records, I really thought I had only killed about 1/3 to 1/2 of what it adds up to:sob:

 

[lepetitmartien]

Note Rick that there's another explanation: you're a better seedling grower over time. (note: devil's advocating)

(I want to survive the Big ST Low-K Flame War, back into hiding

 

[gonewild]

Note Rick that there's another explanation: you're a better seedling grower over time. (note: devil's advocating)

(I want to survive the Big ST Low-K Flame War, back into hiding

You become a better seedling grower when you start learning about what the plants truly need and respond to and not just fertilizing with traditional concept fertilizer that everyone told you to use. :evil:

 

[lepetitmartien]

That's exactly what we don't *_know_*, but we sure can have an educated guess or multiple educated guesses. That's why Rick's low K twist is very interesting. Modern orchid growing is an experiment going on for more than a century. Here is a new one going on, like S/H is another.

Note that we have a few growers here in France reproducing the Low K approach by their own means (no K-lite in sight) and for one who's into it for near a year it's fine for now afaik. As he may be (and I think he is) reading here, it'd be better if he talks about it by himself, so I won't speak about it (save if he wants to and I have the Kalach pointed to my back).

On the arguments :fight:, it's a bore for a long time now :snore: (really guys!:evil, but the papers showing here and there are interesting. The end reasult is what counts and it takes at least 3 full years with multiple entries to be sure. Then we can wonder why it works same or better* than orthodoxy (even if Rick has an educated guess).

If only everyone could agree that:
- What's come in near the roots is:

• maybe not what they eat but maybe partially only;
• maybe a little bit more complicated than this;
• still a research field without much persons working on it.

- The whole thing is still lacking scientific data on many aspects especially the intake, across multiple genus, position int he trees, location on earth.

We'd make some progress.
Thank you

(*If it doesn't work, we have already a sh…load of explanations.):viking:
(back into hiding, I want to survive, just trying not to be too ridiculous, Eat at Joe's)

 

[Leo Schordje]

Wow, just read the whole thread in one sitting, no time to go through the papers posted along side. That will take at least another pot of coffee.

One key point that is getting missed in all this.

We are growing orchids in an artificial system, in pots at nutrition levels at least 10 time the concentrations noted in observations from the wild. When concentrations of nutrients are higher than what is typically experienced in the wild, TOXICOLOGY considerations should be taken into consideration. I think Rick Lockwood is on target. Potassium in excess of what plants have evolved to handle is a toxic chemical. In humans, and excess of vitamin D can kill a person, if I took as much Vitamin D as Vitamin C I would be dead.

I fertilize with a roughly 900 ppm total dissolved solids solution, with the N being about 80 ppm. This is almost 100 times the concentrations that are being talked about in monsoon rain, and between 10 and 50 times more than the higher figures reported for nutrients in nature. I want my plants to grow faster. I want nutrients to not be the limiting factor for their growth. SO one year & 3 months ago I switched to K-Lite, and have had a remarkable improvement in my plants. I stopped the poisoning with excess K.

My thoughts, the data from the wild is very relevant as a starting point, but orchids in our light gardens, windowsills, and greenhouses are in a very different and very artificial environment. The wild data does not directly translate to what we do in our growing areas.

On mycorhizae, and the nutrients orchids get from associations with mycellium. Watch this video of Paul Stament's Ted Talk. ignore the wild flight of fancy where he says something about Dark Matter, his zeal got ahead of his normally solid scientific approach. Key is the brief but well documented 3 minutes where he talks about trees of different species sharing water, carbohydrates and nutrients with each other through the connections with their mycellium. A well developed mycellial mat is not just one species, it is a complex of many species. The mycellial matt does not connect to just one plant, it usually connects to many plants, and frequently other species of wood decomposing fungi too. This fact has far reaching implications (complications) when trying to sort out nutrient cycling in the wild. It also should give one pause to think about possible implications for cultivating our orchid species in our artificial systems. A very enjoyable 15 minute video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRFxmfQNbo

Also a very inspiring read, Paul Staments 2005 book, Mycellium Running, or how Mushrooms can Save the World. Every chapter has a large number of citations to peer reviewed journals, every point made is backed by experimental data, or is clearly noted as speculation where he does speculate. A good read, and not outdated yet. Newer research has largely confirmed everything he says in this book. The book is still available on Amazon, and directly from Staments at http://www.fungiperfecti.com

 

[Brabantia]

Wow, just read the whole thread in one sitting, no time to go through the papers posted along side. That will take at least another pot of coffee.

One key point that is getting missed in all this.

We are growing orchids in an artificial system, in pots at nutrition levels at least 10 time the concentrations noted in observations from the wild. When concentrations of nutrients are higher than what is typically experienced in the wild, TOXICOLOGY considerations should be taken into consideration. I think Rick Lockwood is on target. Potassium in excess of what plants have evolved to handle is a toxic chemical. In humans, and excess of vitamin D can kill a person, if I took as much Vitamin D as Vitamin C I would be dead.

I fertilize with a roughly 900 ppm total dissolved solids solution, with the N being about 80 ppm. This is almost 100 times the concentrations that are being talked about in monsoon rain, and between 10 and 50 times more than the higher figures reported for nutrients in nature. I want my plants to grow faster. I want nutrients to not be the limiting factor for their growth. SO one year & 3 months ago I switched to K-Lite, and have had a remarkable improvement in my plants. I stopped the poisoning with excess K.

My thoughts, the data from the wild is very relevant as a starting point, but orchids in our light gardens, windowsills, and greenhouses are in a very different and very artificial environment. The wild data does not directly translate to what we do in our growing areas.

On mycorhizae, and the nutrients orchids get from associations with mycellium. Watch this video of Paul Stament's Ted Talk. ignore the wild flight of fancy where he says something about Dark Matter, his zeal got ahead of his normally solid scientific approach. Key is the brief but well documented 3 minutes where he talks about trees of different species sharing water, carbohydrates and nutrients with each other through the connections with their mycellium. A well developed mycellial mat is not just one species, it is a complex of many species. The mycellial matt does not connect to just one plant, it usually connects to many plants, and frequently other species of wood decomposing fungi too. This fact has far reaching implications (complications) when trying to sort out nutrient cycling in the wild. It also should give one pause to think about possible implications for cultivating our orchid species in our artificial systems. A very enjoyable 15 minute video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRFxmfQNbo

Also a very inspiring read, Paul Staments 2005 book, Mycellium Running, or how Mushrooms can Save the World. Every chapter has a large number of citations to peer reviewed journals, every point made is backed by experimental data, or is clearly noted as speculation where he does speculate. A good read, and not outdated yet. Newer research has largely confirmed everything he says in this book. The book is still available on Amazon, and directly from Staments at http://www.fungiperfecti.com

Very interesting Leo. All this recall me that Lance (if I remember well) recommended to add some leaves humus (leaves litter?) in substrate to cultivate Paphiopedilums. With all that was said in this subject I understand much better all importance of this addition.
This afternoon I went to a beech forest and examined what there was under leaves fallen at the end of last year. I found decomposing finely shredded leaves gone through by a whole network of white filament ... mycorhiza?
If yes I know what I need to do!

Look (on 1,2,3/4) on what are growing Paphiopedilum in Borneo Here

 

[Rick]

Note Rick that there's another explanation: you're a better seedling grower over time. (note: devil's advocating)

There's a couple ways to look at it (especially if you only look at parts of the data not in context with all the other observations).

The mortality differences when posted on a year to year basis have a bit of a gradual look (as if cumulative small things were being changed over the course of the last 11 years). But the mortality is based on a 3-5 year lag period, and low K hasn't been in full use since May 2011 (2.5 years). So you really need extremely good records to demonstrate the intervention on the seedlings aquired within roughly 3 years of the low K program to see things numerically as black and white what you seem to be after. Or else you need to wait 2.5 more years for seedlings I recieved after May 2011.

However, the other anecdotal part (since my records aren't as detailed on this point, is based on seedlings making it to blooming.

So going back to everything prior to 2008, not only did they mostly die, but almost none of the survivors ever got big enough to bloom before death.

But I've had more of my own seedlings make it to blooming in the last 2 years than in the previous 9-10 years combined. I could also include individual seedlings purchased over the years, and inflate the number even more.

Yes we learn how to navigate light/temp/humidity and gradually learn through time (years if we make the same mistakes without learning), but this has been like turning a light switch on in my growing. (And the lights still on to see whats coming in the future!!)

 

[Stone]

QUOTE] I think Rick Lockwood is on target. Potassium in excess of what plants have evolved to handle is a toxic chemical.

No, it results in Ca/Mg deficiency if they are too low.

 

[Rick]

No, it results in Ca/Mg deficiency if they are too low.

Except all of us (including myself) were applying tons of Ca/Mg during our high K years with no positive results. I have another paper (Bangerth 1979)exclaiming the same problem with non orchid plants. This has been documented in agri science for years. The uptake of K is independent of the amount of bioavailable Ca in the environment.

The 1970's Cornell study that you supplied had soluble Ca at 200ppm and the plants preferentially pulled up K at 50, 100, 200 and 300 ppm. (So much for ratiosoke

It may not fit your personal definition of "toxicity" but in the toxicity biz, any adverse effect caused by an excess of a chemical is a toxic effect.


If orchids can't pull up Ca against a 4:1 Ca to K ratio then how much Ca do you need? With MSU at 100 ppm N that was 130 ppm K?

So how do you get 1300ppm (for 10:1 ratio) or more soluble Ca into the system?? Ratios are BS

 

[Rick]

Modern orchid growing is an experiment going on for more than a century. Here is a new one going on, like S/H is another.

I would say that modern hobbyist orchid growing is about 100 years behind that for food crop science. And every time they think they come up with something new, the physiology is really the same.

Farmers don't apply an indiscriminate amount of K at a set concentration to a single plant.

They apply a discreet mass of K based on how much they know is going to be utilized by an acre of plants at a known density.

Tissue analysis of root leaf and fruit was done so that the application of discreet mass of NPKCaMg could be applied to minimize waste. The studies also included optimization to find out how much was too much. You can find plenty of corn and tomato projects that look at excess as well as deficiency. I'm not sure why orchid people are in such denial of the excess side of the equation (especially since the first time I saw it in print was on the ANTEC orchid website!!)

The only thing I've done is apply the same understanding to a slow growing group of plants adapted to very low nutrient environments.

I claim nothing more than trying to catch up hobby orchid "research" with the rest of the plant sciences"

 

[Stone]

.

If orchids can't pull up Ca against a 4:1 Ca to K ratio then how much Ca do you need? With MSU at 100 ppm N that was 130 ppm K?

I wasn't going to take further part in this discussion as it seems a waste of time but what you're pushing with above statement is blatently wrong. If it were true we would be falling over Ca deficient plants.
If you won't believe me perhaps you will take notice of Kevin Handreck Bsc, MAgrSc who has written a 500 page book on growing media and fertilizer practice?

Under Toxicities: ''There is no such thing as potassium toxicity. However, repeated heavy use of fertilizers containg potassium can interfere with magnesium supply. Any symptoms produced are those of magnesium deficiency''

Under deficienies: Causes of calcium deficiency: *''Excessive applications of ammonium and/or potassium fertilizers and rarley, high applications of potassium and magnesium without applications of Calcium. *An inadequate consentration in the medium eg unamended coir dust. * high humidity can contribute because it reduces uptake of Ca.''....Read on....
Liquid feed chapter, Supplying Ca. '' If Ca is needed over and above that supplied by irrigation water and pre-plant applications of gypsum, superposphate or liming materials, it is best supplied as calcium nitrate injected seperately from a general liquid feed. One alternative is to top-dress with gypsum. Another alternative is to use the Grace sierra product Excel. ****GENERALLY IF THE PH REMAINS IN THE RECOMMENDED RANGE (5-6.40) THERE SHOULD BE ENOUGH EXCHANGABLE CALCIUM HELD IN THE MIX''

Under ''Balance between calcium magnesium and potassium'':


''Most plants grow satisfactorily is soils and other growing media with widely different exchangeable calcium, magnesium and potassium levels. ****GROWTH IS AFFECTED ONLY WHEN THERE IS A GROSS IMBALANCE BETWEEN THE THREE''

Just because there is large and varying amounts of Ca circulating in the environment, it is incorrect to assume you need to have the same levels in a fertilizer or in a pot. This FACT has and is being proved every day of the year all around the world.

As far as ratios of N P K Ca and Mg being BS (even though the whole premise of your article was based on your belief that current fert ratios are damaging and a new ratio is needed), At some later stage I will try one more time to demonstrate that they (general fertilizer formulations) are not as bad as you say

 

[Stone]

On the arguments :fight:, it's a bore for a long time now :snore: (really guys!:evil,

ity: Not:fight: just oke: Please do not put mouse arrow device on thread and click :evil:

 

[naoki]

Mike, which book is it?

I have been also wondering that the mechanism explaining why k lite works well with some people may be something else. Interference among cations seems unlikely at such low concentration. What do you two think about the Classic Poole and Sheehan 1982? They didn't see k toxicity for most orchids even at 200ppm K.

It is known P is detrimental for mycorrhizal association (K-lite is low in P, too). Lower fertilization is Also known to increase root biomass, maybe resulting in more robust plants?

Poole and Sheehan is a chapter in Orchid Biology: Reviews and Perspectives, Volume 2, Joseph Arditti (ed.) 1982 Lots of materials from this review paper is repeated in Fundamentals of Orchid Biology by Joseph Arditti (1992).

 

[TyroneGenade]

I think we are conflating two issues.

The first is nutrient interference:

from http://nutriag.com/article/mulderschart

An imbalance of nutrients can disrupt nutrient utilization and uptake. Too much K will disrupt Mg uptake but it will also increase Iron availability so the plant can become more sensitive to iron overload.

The second issue is toxicity and toxicity can come about in several ways. Give a human too much K and they will have a heart attack and die. Too much K is poison (very important: the dose makes the poison!). K is more tricky for plants. K is hydroscopic: it is going to draw water towards itself. If you give high K you are going to disrupt plant water uptake. The plant can only solve this one way: by taking up K so the water can follow it out of the soil. But the plant can only hold so much K... so to take up more K it has to grow. To grow it needs more N, Fe, P, Mg etc... But now these are all out of balance (i.e. too much of some, too little of others) and the K builds up in the tissue while it also builds up in the soil and this means the plant has trouble getting water... and then the roots die and the plant follows. K accumulation in the substrate (and plant) is just as toxic to the plant as Na.

It is very important, at this point, to remind everyone that water is needed to fuel photosynthesis, so once the plant can't get enough water it will begin to starve to death. It will also be less able to transport nutrients through its tissues, so in effect, too much K in the soil (and plant tissues) shuts down the plant's circulation as surely as it would give us a heart attack.

 

[Rick]

.
If it were true we would be falling over Ca deficient plants.

We don't trip over them because the carcasses are in the compost heap (like the 1000+ seedlings I just mentioned), or the suviving are too stunted to trip us. But this is what started this thing in the first place was admission that results are not good.

Kevin Handreck Bsc, MAgrSc who has written a 500 page book on growing media and fertilizer practice?

Under Toxicities: ''There is no such thing as potassium toxicity. However, repeated heavy use of fertilizers containg potassium can interfere with magnesium supply. Any symptoms produced are those of magnesium deficiency''
Under deficienies: Causes of calcium deficiency: *''Excessive applications of ammonium and/or potassium fertilizers

Obviously Handreck is not a toxicologist (plant or animal). Everything he describes as "deficiencies" are a classic definition of sublethal chronic toxicity.

As far as ratios of N P K Ca and Mg being BS (even though the whole premise of your article was based on your belief that current fert ratios are damaging and a new ratio is needed),

Only for those obsessed with ratios. You are still missing the point (even from the earliest posts on this in 2011) its concentration not ratio. The article lists all kinds of ratio rational, but all tied to a starting application concentration of either 100 or 50 ppm N application rate. By math (which I know you dislike) that forces the K below 10 ppm using the ratios advocated. Since I know that orchid people are ratio junkies, the heavy comparison to insitu leaf tissue ratios was to pound home that wild plants are totally different from the cultivated plants (that we always gripe and frett over).
I've always said that ratios are not the point but all based on max K concentration.

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20716&page=3

 

[gonewild]

W
I've always said that ratios are not the point but all based on max K concentration.

Ratio is important when the concentration is high and reaching the 'toxic" levels.

 

[Stone]

Only for those obsessed with ratios. You are still missing the point (even from the earliest posts on this in 2011) its concentration not ratio.

Dear oh dear! NO NO NO!!!! PLEASE... FORGET....CONCENTRATIONS!! (they can be adjusted ATFER you get the RATIOS right.

Try this.

Annual litterfall in a NG rainforest in kg/ha.

N 91, P 5.1, K 28, Ca 95, Mg 19

Annual throughfall in the same forest.

N 30, P 2.5, K71, Ca 19, Mg 11.

Both combined (annual nutrients plants growing on the ground leaf litter layer will have access to) These are the 2 major nutrient pathways as determined by the P. J. Edwards NG Study. Are we agreed on this at least? ??

N 121, P 7.3, K82, Ca 115, Mg 25.5.

Once again... the above figures are the ANNUAL EXCHANGABLE AVAILABLE nutrients to the ground plants.

Now.....To explain again what ratios actually mean and how they are determined.... And please just for one second forget about concentrations!

The ratios ( quantaties of nutrients in relation to each other) are worked out like this: (and yes you are right about my dislike for maths but I have a calculator)

Phosphorus divided by Nitrogen. (in this case) 7.3 divided by 121 gives us...
P/N of 0.06 Remember N = 1.
K/N of 0.6
Ca/N of 0.9 (please check what I wrote about Ca application above)
Mg/N of 0.2

K-lite ratios:

P/N of 0.1....No problem there!
K/N of 0.1....You tell me???
Ca/N of 0.7....No problem as there is also no such thig as Ca toxicity (interference-yes)
Mg/N Well as long as its less than half the Ca also fine.

The stemflow figures for ''bark epiphytes'' Eg Dendrobiums Phals Catts etc. have nuch higher K/N ratios

Manutec orchid food.

K/N of 0.5

The Wang study of K in Phals (and please spare the ''but their hybrids bred for high K'' and ''this study is flawed'' bunkum) found K/N ratios of 0.5 still showed K deficiency and I'm not surprized as stemflow is typically K/N of 1 or higher!

Why are you still missing the point?

 

[Stone]

Ratio is important when the concentration is high and reaching the 'toxic" levels.

So why the need to develop k-lite? Why not just reduce concentration?

 

[Rick]

So why the need to develop k-lite? Why not just reduce concentration?

Easily could have but no-one whats to give up their N.

 

[Rick]

.

If you won't believe me perhaps you will take notice of Kevin Handreck Bsc, MAgrSc who has written a 500 page book on growing media and fertilizer practice?

''Most plants grow satisfactorily is soils and other growing media with widely different exchangeable calcium, magnesium and potassium levels. ****GROWTH IS AFFECTED ONLY WHEN THERE IS A GROSS IMBALANCE BETWEEN THE THREE''

Pg 157 of your own book:

"A good balance" of Ca Mg K in soils is:
60-80% Ca
10-15% Mg
2-5% K
Of the total exchangeable sites occupied by the above cations.

Pg 179

"Pine bark has enough K to make it unnecessary to add more"

"No pre-planting K is needed if DTPA extract of the media contains more than 50 ppm of K."

Sounds like your man Kevin is pushing on the verge of a low K philosophyoke: