Ca and Mg again

[Ray]

I still contend that these ratios are not all THAT important, as we're probably - even at really low fertilizer concentrations - giving out plants WAY more nutrients than they really need, so they are getting "enough" of everything despite the appearance of imbalances or antagonism.

I was concerned about deficiencies using K-Lite, but for what it's worth, I've been using the K-Lite formula exclusively since late November of 2011. I feed at about 35 ppm N 2-3x/week, depending upon the weather. Monthly I supplement with KelpMax at 1:256. KelpMax does have some nutrients in it, including potassium. My plants have never done better.

Most of my paphs, as I have said before, have gone from 1-, maybe 2 new growths per cycle to 3-, 4-, or 5, and they are getting bigger, faster. I had spikes out the ying-yang a couple of months ago, but mice "helped" me get rid of those...

 

[gonewild]

But the leaf tissue data or leaf litter data or throughfall data or Stemflow data or rainfall data or soil data or any other data does not have N at 10 times the K as K-lite does. I think this is an important point. Throughfall and stemflow are the major pathways for K so when it rains, soil water (terrestrial and epiphytic) is heavily charged with K. A paph growing at the base of a tree or in a bamboo grove or even in moss on a rock, which apparently many do, will have access to plenty of K, not in concentration, but in relation to other cations at that time (growing time).
So reducing the N in K-lite will actually get you closer to nature and ..... closer to a ''regular fertilizer. (except for the Ca)

This is where you have to look beyond what is published to date. And you should think ahead and forward from published research.

You either accept current knowledge as definite and grow your plants according to the label or you think of ways to improve and look for adjustments that will make better plants. Science has reached a block wall as far as fertilizer for orchids, it's up to hobbyists to advance by trial and error.

Nitrogen levels don't appear higher in the rainfall and soil data because Nitrogen does not just sit around like more stable minerals. You can't really accurately measure the N content in the root environment because it changes so fast and often.
In Nature nitrogen becomes available to plants on a constant basis from micro-organisms. It does not only come to the plant when it rains, it is constantly converted and released to plants.

The reason to push the N ratio higher in fertilizer formulas is because cultivated plants growing in conditions outside their native habitat do not have the association of the mirco organisms that they have evolved to depend on for nitrogen supply. Fortunately the plants are capable of receiving nitrogen from surrogate sources (liquid fertilizer).

This thread has drifted off topic from the OPs question, but the information does relate directly to Ca and Mg application.

 

[gonewild]

I still contend that these ratios are not all THAT important, as we're probably - even at really low fertilizer concentrations - giving out plants WAY more nutrients than they really need, so they are getting "enough" of everything despite the appearance of imbalances or antagonism.

Ray your contention makes perfect sense. But I disagree, I think the ratio balances are very important.

Nutrient balance and nutrient ratios are extremely important to all life forms. Diet is critical to your dogs health, your birds health, your fishes health, your child's health and your own health. Micro organisms must have a very specific nutrient supply or they don't flourish (starve a cold, feed a fever).

Some how people feel plants are different and just grow. I don't see any reason to believe that plants as living organisms have any less need for the proper nutrient ratios than other organisms.

The problem is "Orchids" is a generic term for perhaps 10,000 different species under cultivation. We want to have one balanced diet that will be perfect for 10,000 different species! Each orchid species has evolved uniquely differently from others and diet may well be a major factor in why one species evolved away from another.

In reality the nutrient ratios are probably the most important factor....and the only one we can't figure out.

 

[Rick]

But the leaf tissue data or leaf litter data or throughfall data or Stemflow data or rainfall data or soil data or any other data does not have N at 10 times the K as K-lite does. I think this is an important point......So reducing the N in K-lite will actually get you closer to nature and ..... closer to a ''regular fertilizer. (except for the Ca)

Agreed, stemflow data has everything very dilute. Recall the history of Klite as a concept trial looking into the K antagonism question (no-one ready to give up their N 2 years ago).

But 2 other points.
1) As Lance points out, between BG algae (in mosses or lichens) or other nitrogen fixing organisms, there is an N pipeline that transcends stemflow.
2) I think need to make a distinction between N as nitrate and N as ammonia. Nitrate is considerably less active and benign in the system, and with regard to K lite use results has demonstrated to not be important in a set ratio with K, Ca, Mg (it's offered well beyound excess and is just a pass through with regard to the plants). If the % of ammonia was increased I'd get more excited about the total N in the fert, and actual plant physiology/ratios issues.

Subsequently it wouldn't hurt my feelings to cut it back (note that I feed at 10ppm or less N anyway with good results). The amount of live moss in my systems has been increasing dramatically (I also think from reduced K).

At least with regard to nitrate all the excess is more of a pot managment issue rather than a physiology issue.

 

[AdamD]

After reading this entire thread in one sitting I've scientifically deduced that you all have way too much time on your hands. Why can't we agree to disagree? Don't shove your point of view down someone elses throat. This isn't church. We're not trying to convert people here. Do what works for you. Share your experiences and results. Let people decide for themselves what to take from it and what to leave. Please. You're turning people off to your points of view by arguing them so abrasively.

Thanks
The 99%

 

[gonewild]

After reading this entire thread in one sitting I've scientifically deduced that you all have way too much time on your hands. Why can't we agree to disagree? Don't shove your point of view down someone elses throat. This isn't church. We're not trying to convert people here. Do what works for you. Share your experiences and results. Let people decide for themselves what to take from it and what to leave. Please. You're turning people off to your points of view by arguing them so abrasively.

Thanks
The 99%

Don't you watch the news?
The 99% never get what they want (or deserve).
:rollhappy:

 

[orcoholic]

I had spikes out the ying-yang a couple of months ago, but mice "helped" me get rid of those...

It would be very helpful if you could tell us exactly where the ying-yang is located. Is it a high light location or low light? Warm, Int, or Cool. I need the facts, Ray, and nothing but the facts.

 

[Ray]

I agree that there's no need for the rudeness, Adam, but it can still be a fun mental exercise!

Lance - I have no doubt that ratios are important, but if I may extend your human analogy, a person in a grocery store isn't going to eat everything there.

Let's consider just how much of those "groceries" a plant takes up:

This morning, I divided a vanda, and had 5 bare-root divisions. I measured their total root lengths, weighed them as-is, immersed them in 80°F water until the velamen was mostly transparent, and weight them again. On average, they weighed 101 g dry, 107 g "saturated", and had an average root length of 70".

So if I assume 10 waterings per month @ 3 ppm K, plus one at 25 (from the KelpMax), my plants are being exposed to something in the neighborhood of 5 ppm K on average. That 6 g of absorbed liquid, containing 5 ppm K, would carry 30 µg K. If it has absorbed that consistently over it's 10-year life, and has never lost any of it, then the plant should contain 10 years x 12 months x 10 waterings x 30 µg = 36 mg of K.

If I take the dry mass of a plant to be 5% of its living mass, then the plant tissue analysis should show 36 x 20 = 720 mg/kg or 0.72 mg/g. With K being 0.0391 mg/mmol, then that would be 0.72/0.0391= 18.4 mmol/g dry weight.

How does that compare to the tissue analyses we've discussed? The only one I've grabbed (Marschner) shows sugar beets at 2.54.

 

[gonewild]

I agree that there's no need for the rudeness, Adam, but it can still be a fun mental exercise!

Lance - I have no doubt that ratios are important, but if I may extend your human analogy, a person in a grocery store isn't going to eat everything there.

Good analogy...

No the person wont eat everything in the store.
But the proven fact is that because so much is available the person will eat more than is needed and more than is healthy.
And at the end of the month every single food item has been consumed (including junk food) by all the individual persons foraging in the store.
Now imagine each individual shopper as being equal to a single plant in your greenhouse.
Your collection has consumed far more than needed and consumed food that is not a healthy balance of ratios between nutrients.
As a result some individuals (persons or plants) are extremely healthy and some are dieing from dietary excess.

I have to read the rest of your post a dozen more times but it looks like it has some really good info!

 

[Stone]

Most of my paphs, as I have said before, have gone from 1-, maybe 2 new growths per cycle to 3-, 4-, or 5, and they are getting bigger, faster. I had spikes out the ying-yang a couple of months ago, but mice "helped" me get rid of those...

Ray, I can think of no possible reason where a reduction in K like this can lead to a doubling or tripling of adventitious growths.(which I would be very happy to acheive by the way!) If you can I would love to consider the process. If as Rick contends, it is from increased Ca or Mg uptake or less antagonism with other elements, I still fail to understand the process.
I would suggest it may have more to do with your regular use of kelp. Phalaenopsis growers in Taiwan have reported increased shoot division when using seaweed. But their K remains high.

 

[Stone]

In Nature nitrogen becomes available to plants on a constant basis from micro-organisms. It does not only come to the plant when it rains, it is constantly converted and released to plants.

True but the N is not stolen from the microbes etc., it becomes available from release or leaching or as the microbe dies and this N is also included when measurements are taken

The reason to push the N ratio higher in fertilizer formulas is because cultivated plants growing in conditions outside their native habitat do not have the association of the mirco organisms that they have evolved to depend on for nitrogen supply.

Not true. There are huge amounts of a large variety of organisms in the pot, on the plant and in the roots including N fixing algae and bacteria and even mycorrhiza.

 

[Stone]

But 2 other points.
1) As Lance points out, between BG algae (in mosses or lichens) or other nitrogen fixing organisms, there is an N pipeline that transcends stemflow.

As I metioned above, it seems these organisms are omni-present wherever there is moisture and food.

2) I think need to make a distinction between N as nitrate and N as ammonia. Nitrate is considerably less active and benign in the system, and with regard to K lite use results has demonstrated to not be important in a set ratio with K, Ca, Mg (it's offered well beyound excess and is just a pass through with regard to the plants). If the % of ammonia was increased I'd get more excited about the total N in the fert, and actual plant physiology/ratios issues.

I don't know how passive the nitrate might be. True it is not held but it remains in the medium water until flushed and I would assume it would get taken up in the ratios available. Whether it all gets converted and used by the plant is is another matter. I think I recall Xavier saying that a big proportion of the N in some of the leaves he got tested was nitrate and therefore not utilized by the plant to form proteins when compared with natural plants which seem to get closer to 50/50 N03/NH4.

 

[Stone]

After reading this entire thread in one sitting I've scientifically deduced that you all have way too much time on your hands.

Maybe but its better than sitting in front of the tube getting wasted.

Why can't we agree to disagree? Don't shove your point of view down someone elses throat. This isn't church. We're not trying to convert people here. Do what works for you. Share your experiences and results. Let people decide for themselves what to take from it and what to leave. Please. You're turning people off to your points of view by arguing them so abrasively.

You're taking it way too seriously. We are just talking fertilizer which happens to be interesting to a lot of growers. WE ARE sharing our experiences and results. WE ARE letting people decide for themselves. Whats the problem with argument anyway? I just don't see all the ''abrasiveness'' you are talking about. No one is forcing anyone to eat 6 raw bigs on toast!

 

[DarioU]

NH4 is an antagonist of Ca. How do you consider Ureic N as NH4 N? Is the rate N as Nh4 / N as NO3 really Ureic N + NH4 N / NO3 N?
Thank you to all.

 

[Stone]

NH4 is an antagonist of Ca. How do you consider Ureic N as NH4 N? Is the rate N as Nh4 / N as NO3 really Ureic N + NH4 N / NO3 N?
Thank you to all.

NH4 is strongly antagonistic to all cations and NO3. Urea is converted to NH4 within a couple of days so you can probably regard it as ammonium. Phal trial by Wang found best growth with 50/50 NO3/NH4 or higher NO3 up to about 75% I think.

 

[gonewild]

True but the N is not stolen from the microbes etc., it becomes available from release or leaching or as the microbe dies and this N is also included when measurements are taken

No, N is not "stolen" from the microbes. (did I say it was?)
In fact microbes manufacture N specifically, for a reason science has yet to define. Perhaps N is a waste product or it is specifically designed to be produced and excreted for other organisms. The reason is not important but the point you miss is that plant species have evolved (or were created) in direct close relationship with specific micro organism species to receive N as a nutrient source directly from the specific organisms.

N is produced and released as a process of the micro organisms living life process on a constant basis not only from leaching or the death of the organism. This is well documented and known to science, it's not just an idea.

Not true. There are huge amounts of a large variety of organisms in the pot, on the plant and in the roots including N fixing algae and bacteria and even mycorrhiza.

Yes but as I have said several times each plant species have evolved in relationship with certain species of micro organisms. When you remove that plant from it's natural environment you separate it from it's natural micro organisms. It may not be able to obtain the perfect nutrient balance from surrogate N suppliers.

Now finally you state that N fixing algae, bacteria and mycorrhiza are present in huge amounts in the pots. Why do you deny these organisms are absent in Nature? All three of these life forms provide N as living organisms not only on their death. They live and release N to plant roots constantly and this N does not show in soil or rainfall analysis reports.

 

[gonewild]

Ray, I can think of no possible reason where a reduction in K like this can lead to a doubling or tripling of adventitious growths.(which I would be very happy to acheive by the way!) If you can I would love to consider the process. If as Rick contends, it is from increased Ca or Mg uptake or less antagonism with other elements, I still fail to understand the process.
I would suggest it may have more to do with your regular use of kelp.

The difference is that a lot of people have been using kelp for years and not reported the extreme improvement in growth until it was combined with low K. but at the same time people using low K and no kelp see the extreme improvement. This eliminates kelp as the improving factor.

Ray... did you use kelp before k-lite?

Phalaenopsis growers in Taiwan have reported increased shoot division when using seaweed. But their K remains high.

So that could be interpreted to mean that extra kelp will help offset the negative effect of excess potassium.
Since you refer to cell division I assume you are speaking about invitro tissue culture as opposed to growing plant culture?
I recently linked to a research paper that showed basically Phal hybrids did not respond differently to low or high K levels. The only notable difference was that with zero K the plants died. but as k was increased from very low levels to very high levels not increase in growth was observed. So basically they just decided growers should continue to use the mid level rates. But these studies are looking for maximum rate of production in the shortest amount of time. Grow the plant from seed to bloom in a year and ship it to market. High K levels aid in this growth speed. But as we all know the mortality rate of mass produced Phals is high..... and the "Low K theory" is lending evidence that high K levels may be responsible for decreasing the lifespan of orchids. No commercial Phal grower wants their plants to live a long life, they need them to die so people will buy another one.

 

[Ray]

Ray, I can think of no possible reason where a reduction in K like this can lead to a doubling or tripling of adventitious growths.(which I would be very happy to acheive by the way!) If you can I would love to consider the process. If as Rick contends, it is from increased Ca or Mg uptake or less antagonism with other elements, I still fail to understand the process.
I would suggest it may have more to do with your regular use of kelp. Phalaenopsis growers in Taiwan have reported increased shoot division when using seaweed. But their K remains high.

I never claimed it was from the K-Lite - I simply stated that since using K-Lite and KelpMax, that's what I'm seeing. I agree that it is more likely an effect of the KelpMax chemistry, but I don't have any proof that it's either of them, or both.

 

[gonewild]

Mike.... in the spirit of discussion....

Once you accept that living micro organisms provide most of the Nitrogen for orchid plants you will begin to understand the "low K theory".
I know you don't accept this but just pretend you do.
Then study the effect of potassium on micro organisms and you will see that certain levels of potassium are lethal (toxic) to many micro organisms.
Does it not make sense that high levels of K will possibly kill the micro organisms growing around and on orchids in a greenhouse?

Without micro organisms to provide nutrients for orchid roots to absorb it becomes necessary to apply heavy doses of liquid fertilizer to make up for the missing organisms.

It may be that potassium excess is not toxic directly to the orchid plants but indirectly it creates a toxic environment. Same result just different way of wording the" low K theory"

Now Google....nitrogen fixing organisms orchids..... and accept that living organisms play a major role in nutrient supply for orchids.

Just in case GooglePeru has different search results than your Google here are a few selected directly related to this topic articles.
(Maybe you can find something in them to prove me wrong)


http://www.dli.gov.in/data_copy/upload/INSA/INSA_2/20005a13_515.pdf

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/48/5/705.abstract

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501306000942

https://www.uni-jena.de/unijenamedi...o_pharm/allg_bot/ls_plantphys/B_Symbiosis.pdf

http://www.canadianorchidcongress.ca/Ingrid/micro.html

http://www.google.com.pe/url?sa=t&r...zZmtDRb2jgy70zEEQ&sig2=0kq4rP9w-bowYU6b4TFrCQ

 

[gonewild]

I never claimed it was from the K-Lite - I simply stated that since using K-Lite and KelpMax, that's what I'm seeing. I agree that it is more likely an effect of the KelpMax chemistry, but I don't have any proof that it's either of them, or both.

Ray when did you start using KelpMax?
Have you used it also in combination with MSU?