Basket culture update 1 year 8 months later

[Rick]

Great info Rick. Can you show PICs of some of the ones you think are going downhill? I'll get a better feel for the overall picture.

I can think of a few things that might help. Mostly its a matter of what something is NOT doing rather than something doing bad (until I dig it up and find the roots went nowhere).

A couple of bad shape loosers did actually die (no pics). A couple of rootless faireanums never did start.

But mostly thngs like the roth where two pieces potted. One takes off the other just sits there. Adds a leaf, drops a leaf. So I get nervous and dig it up to find just a bunch of root nubs going nowhere.

 

[SlipperFan]

Rick, you mentioned shredded leaves. Somewhere, I read that oak leaves are best. But there are different kinds of oaks. I wonder if that would make a difference.

Someday I'd like to try growing a paph in ground up oak leaves and either diatomite or PrimeAgra. Someday I'll get brave.

 

[Brabantia]

You have very nice plants Rick. And one more time: thank you very much for sharing your culture method and observations.
The major limitations for that most of the amateurs use your method is the space occupied by the baskets and the opportunities they have to hang these. It seems to me that a good drainage to the pot bottom (crocking,) and a few holes in the pots walls should give the same results?
About the substrate used: can we use turf mousse mixed with bark and a few perlite or dolomite stones?

 

[Brabantia]

You have very nice plants Rick. And one more time: thank you very much for sharing your culture method and observations.
The major limitations for that most of the amateurs use your method is the space occupied by the baskets and the opportunities they have to hang these. It seems to me that a good drainage to the pot bottom (crocking,) and a few holes in the pots walls should give the same results?
About the substrate used: can we use turf mousse mixed with bark and a few perlite or dolomite stones?

Sorry, not "turf mousse" but peat mousse. That is what I get when I re-sieved peat with the sieves having meshes of 5 and 10 mm. I obtain small peat balls having a diameter between 5 and 10 mm (1/4" to 3/8"). I like the peat because its hight cation exchange capacity.

 

[Rick]

Rick, you mentioned shredded leaves. Somewhere, I read that oak leaves are best. But there are different kinds of oaks. I wonder if that would make a difference.

Someday I'd like to try growing a paph in ground up oak leaves and either diatomite or PrimeAgra. Someday I'll get brave.

My front yard has a giant scarlet oak, 2 big white oaks, and a good size black locust. Everything grows over karst/limestone. The leaves are all mixed up, and I don't sort out to the individual species. I also have some cherry and dogwood that might make up a smaller percentage. If I go to the backyard, then I'd end up mixing in some poplar and walnut leaves too. But I just grab what ever is on the ground and shredd it with a blender.

 

[Rick]

Sorry, not "turf mousse" but peat mousse. That is what I get when I re-sieved peat with the sieves having meshes of 5 and 10 mm. I obtain small peat balls having a diameter between 5 and 10 mm (1/4" to 3/8"). I like the peat because its hight cation exchange capacity.

The high cation exchange seems to be the crux of the problem for long term use, so I'm decreasing the organic materials (moss) and increasing the inorganics(dolomite gravel).

I think live moss will actually be superior, and whereever it grows the plants apear better. There seems to be a good correlation between the presence of live mosses and when the roots are breaking outside of the baskets. It could be that the live moss is a good indicator of good substrate/water chemistry that is compatible with good root growth. So I always try to seed some live moss with every pot and basket. It's a trend, but not a rule that when the live moss is doing good so are the orchid roots.

 

[Rick]

It seems to me that a good drainage to the pot bottom (crocking,) and a few holes in the pots walls should give the same results?

I actually ran some side by side pots of some species set up with identical substrates, but in pots versus baskets. The pots were the aircone pots and some I added more holes too. The baskets were definitely superior in short tem to the pots when moss/gravel was used as the substrate.

However I have had a handful of potted plants in bark or chc mixes that are doing as good or better than a few of the basket counterparts. A couple of spicerianums and a couple of hookerae. But these only started coming around with Klite too.

I would also say for a better comparison I have some compots of "matching" plants that I split a few out into baskets (my keepers) and then the rest into pots of bark/chc mix with drainage crocks. This included a compot of lowii and a compot of mastersianum. The "keepers" are way ahead of the rest and the differences are increasing daily. The potted guys are about average for what I expect now with Klite.

Here's the mastersianum compot

Some lowii from a compot

This is one of those comparisons for Slipperking. This roth was divided into 2 equal size divisions. You can see the one the right has not grown and never developed decent roots. Leaf span is 12". Plant on the left is now multiple divisions with a span of 18".

 

[Rick]

BTW Rick, the second from the right mastersianum seedling in basket also got me nervous since it was always wobbly in the moss, and never sent roots out the side like the other 3. So even though the tops looked good, I pulled it up and found nothing but small short root nubs. So changed out the mix.

This is also one of the baskets that I analyzed the water content of the old moss from.

 

[SlipperKing]

These last PICs I find very informative Rick. Especially the old moss analysis.

I find the same evidence to be true here in regards to live moss/ plant health vs. old dead moss and plant health.

 

[Stone]

Rick, how old are the plants in the first pic of the last set you posted? ( the mottled ones)

 

[Rick]

Rick, how old are the plants in the first pic of the last set you posted? ( the mottled ones)

The mastersianum seedlings are almost 29 months out of flask. The largest seedling has a 12" span.

 

[Cheyenne]

You said the ones in the baskets were the "keepers". Does that mean they were the bigger and more vigorous seedling to start with?

 

[NYEric]

Are the basket plants getting more light than the potted ones?

 

[weiweidc]

Rick
Cam you tell us what is the mix you used in the baskets? How often do you water?

 

[Rick]

You said the ones in the baskets were the "keepers". Does that mean they were the bigger and more vigorous seedling to start with?

Out of flask they were all about the same size, but 2 jumped ahead of the rest (the two on the right) while still in compot. The other 2 in baskets came on later, with the smallest in the basket (on the left) came out of the compot at the same time I moved all of the rest into individual pots.

So on the one hand yes the baskets (in this case) are somewhat selected towards the more vigours seedlings to start with, but given that they are all the same age you're seeing about a 3X difference in size between the older baskets and the smallest potted plant. Which I think is a pretty big exageration of effect for normal within group differences.

Probably another thing to keep in mind that this method was not intended as an optimization project as much as an alternative to problems like root rot and reppoting issues. Without Klite feeding many of these would have flopped without regard for how they are potted. The basket growing actually started a few months prior to Klite and early on in the basket project a lot of these basket plants stopped growing until changing the fertilizer mix.

 

[Rick]

Are the basket plants getting more light than the potted ones?

They are all within a foot of each other on the bench so the environmental differences should be minimal.

 

[Rick]

Rick
Cam you tell us what is the mix you used in the baskets? How often do you water?

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18566

weiweidc Try going through this link first. Since this has been a long evolving project you may need to read the whole thing to get your answers.

 

[Mrs. Paph]

If you try leaf litter, you may want to double check if walnut leaves would be ok - walnuts have a substance that inhibits the growth of plants around them. I think I remember it being in the roots, but not sure on that. Interesting experiment and comparison shots! Keep the pictures and info coming!

 

[Rick]

If you try leaf litter, you may want to double check if walnut leaves would be ok - walnuts have a substance that inhibits the growth of plants around them. I think I remember it being in the roots, but not sure on that. Interesting experiment and comparison shots! Keep the pictures and info coming!

I doubt if I'll be messing with the walnut leaves Mrs Paph. But I think its actually the shell hulls that are something to worry about. Maybe the roots exude something that keep other trees from coming up near them, but I mow anything down that trys to get more than a few inches high under our walnut tree. The grass and other weeds under our walnut do just fine, and I've had orchids mounted on plaques of walnut bark that did fine too. The oak and locust in the front yard are more than enough to keep me in stock of leaf litter.

 

[Mrs. Paph]

Good to know about the mounts - and yes, it would make more sense for the substance to be in the shells and or roots so that other things wouldn't take too much of the water and nutrients right around the tree. I've also grown things like roses and tomatoes not That from from a black walnut tree and grass grew fine, so they don't ooze massive amounts of the substance in any case lol