K-lit after 6 months

[Rick]

Are they "weak" or "non-conforming"?

It's interesting in my toxicity work. We work with water fleas. They are parthenogenic, and we narrow the base with every generation by starting new colonies from a single females' offspring. A colony lasts 14 days, so you get lots of generations' DNA narrowed over a course of a year. These are true genetic clones.

Here's the interesting part. The 48 hours LC50 for NaCl is 2 grams per liter +/_ 20%. The definition of LC50 is the concentration were 50% of the organisms die by 48 hours.

So in the 2 gram per liter exposure, without fail every month over the last 17 years I've been in the lab doing this test, 10 of 20 water fleas die. But 10 don't. But if they were 100% genetically identical then how come its not all or nothing?

So now compare the genetic diversity of a flask of seedlings (even from a f2 or f3 selfing) to the water flea, and expose them to an un-naturally high level of potassium salts.

At some point you are going to see an LC50 or IC25 (thats' the concentration that causes a sublethal inhibition, like stunted growth, to 25% of the test organisms).

Maybe we can eventually grow an orchid with kidneys, but until that time we will always see a significant percentage of non conforming offspring to the un-natural chemical pressures we impose on our plants.

 

[Rick]

Many labs have tried to select for a salt tolerant water flea, but have never been able to get much more than twenty percent improvement over more generations than it was worth counting.

There are other water flea species that have different tolerances to sodium chloride. In some cases there is some difference in geographic range, but in some cases you can find all these species of different tolerances together in the same pond, or lake. So ecologically they are not separating on the basis of water chemistry (generally food size selectivity).

 

[dodidoki]

K-lite have enormous effect not only slippers, but other generas what I grow. I will take pics tomorrow about so sensitive generas and species, as coryanthes, corybas and cattl. dowiana.
NOTE: i didn't compare them with controll-group. I only see change on my plants.

 

[The Mutant]

Being a newbie and not having anything to compare to, I really can't say what effect K-lite has had on my Paphs, and being in the hands of a beginner, many of them haven't fared that well, while others are doing fine. Maybe I would've killed more than I have without the K-lite (no causalities so far, but one that's barely hanging in there, and two less than happy Paphs)?

One thing that I HAVE noticed though, is my the development on my little fairrieanum. This was a freebie I got in June last year and the new leaves it has put out since I got it, compared to the ones it had/has... Well, pictures speak louder than words sometimes.

Here's the fairrieanum when I got it:

Here's how it looks now (it's in the same pot):

It hasn't lost as many leaves as it might appear, it's hiding two of the older leaves underneath the new ones (the two topmost leaves in the first picture are the ones that are hidden), so no reason to panic I hope. Three of the old leaves are dying back though, which might have to do with me repotting it recently. I hope it'll continue to grow as it has, then it'll replace the old leaves soon.

But what I wanted to show you is the the difference in width... The leaves it had were less than 1cm wide, to the newest leaf which is 1.6 cm wide. It's a significant difference and the villsoum freebie I got, shows the same development.

It's all part of them growing into BS plants, I know, but the (at least in my eyes) remarkable difference, could it have something to do with K-lite?

 

[Trithor]

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that they are all 'freebees'? Do you pay for any of your plants?oke:

 

[The Mutant]

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that they are all 'freebees'? Do you pay for any of your plants?oke:

Haha! So if they're freebies, they grow well? I "only" got freebies when I placed larger orders with Asendorfer, smaller ones and I get no extra plants (as it should be ).

 

[Trithor]

Haha! So if they're freebies, they grow well? I "only" got freebies when I placed larger orders with Asendorfer, smaller ones and I get no extra plants (as it should be ).

It is all part of 'Murphey's Law', if you drop a slice of bread with peanut butter on it, the law predicts that it will land peanut butter side down. There are millions of other examples of this law in action, but regarding your plants, the law will predict that the free ones will grow and flourish, while those that you paid the most for will struggle and sulk.

 

[The Mutant]

It is all part of 'Murphey's Law', if you drop a slice of bread with peanut butter on it, the law predicts that it will land peanut butter side down. There are millions of other examples of this law in action, but regarding your plants, the law will predict that the free ones will grow and flourish, while those that you paid the most for will struggle and sulk.

Aha, "lagen om allts jäklighet" as we say in Sweden (the law of everything's [insert bad word here]). Well, seems like Muphy works just fine then considering the relatively most expensive Paph I have (a roth seedling) is struggling after getting burnt.

And if I happen to dislike the flowers on any of the freebies, of course they will bloom for me, right? :wink:

 

[Trithor]

Mutant, you have a perfect understanding of how Murphy works!:rollhappy: