coconut husk chips: good or evil

[Stone]

What I've learned about the stuff is:
1) It can vary enormously depending on which country and batch it comes from.
2) It usually has very high levels of K and low levels of Ca, Mg, and S
3) It should be treated before use (if you what to be sure) by soaking in water until it sinks and change water frequently until clear. Its pH is usually high so it should be amended with gypsum and Magnesium sulphate.
Or ageing by wet/dry or leave it out in the weather for a year seems ok too.
4) You must fertilize much less than with bark if you use NH4 as your N source. and you should use less K.
5) As already mentioned use styrofoam at the bottom of the pots.

 

[SlipperFan]

Interesting observation, katzenhai2 -- and welcome to Slippertalk!

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

One point of interest. I use K-lite on all my orchids. While paphs have shown a real improvement, the epiphytes (Cattleyas, Vandas, Dends, Oncidium, etc) that still grow in CHC are not showing any improvement in any way over the usual MSU I had been using. But, they always did well, so this is not to be taken in any negative way. It's just that my CHC growing epiphytes seem to do well whether there is higher K and P or not.

 

[Rick]

One point of interest. I use K-lite on all my orchids. While paphs have shown a real improvement, the epiphytes (Cattleyas, Vandas, Dends, Oncidium, etc) that still grow in CHC are not showing any improvement in any way over the usual MSU I had been using. But, they always did well, so this is not to be taken in any negative way. It's just that my CHC growing epiphytes seem to do well whether there is higher K and P or not.

Did you repot them after switching to klite?

My mounted epiphytes (especially Phales and Bulbos)have demonstrated significant improvement with Klite too. However I do have a handfull of Catts in pots of straight (old)CHC, and seeing improvements in those has been much slower. I presume the old CHC is already kind of screwed up from the older fert regime, and it may take a long time to clean it up if I only apply weak fert to them.

 

[Brabantia]

@katzenhai 2: are you using the Schwerter 14-7-8 +2 fertilyser? Are you from Germany? What is the ratio nitric nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen ? I can't read these informations on there site.

 

[katzenhai2]

Very healthy looking! Have you had any trouble with root rot?

No, never. Only when the CHC dry out too much and roots will die. Then all the "dead" stuff (dead roots, dead humus/CHC) will begin to rot (as will be the same with bark). If it stays wet all the time there are no problems.

I've used this compressed brick (from ebay 3 years ago) but I doubt its any special:

This is my source of info about CHC. They also say you should supplement Ca and Mg because CHC acting as cation exchanger (as Rick stated):
http://www.ladyslipper.com/coco3.htm

 

[Rick]

This is my source of info about CHC. They also say you should supplement Ca and Mg because CHC acting as cation exchanger (as Rick stated):
QUOTE]

By the way, what is the chemistry of the water you mix your fertilizer in and irrigate with between feedings?

 

[katzenhai2]

By the way, what is the chemistry of the water you mix your fertilizer in and irrigate with between feedings?

I use RO water. I add fertilizer to each watering and never "flush" the substrate.

I've read that "flushing", especially with RO water, could be dangerous. See "Fertilizer" on page 7 and "Watering Paphiopedilum" on page 33 in this pdf:
http://eurobodalla.org.au/fileadmin...012/Paphiopedilum_culture_and_propagation.pdf

 

[SlipperFan]

No, never. Only when the CHC dry out too much and roots will die. Then all the "dead" stuff (dead roots, dead humus/CHC) will begin to rot (as will be the same with bark). If it stays wet all the time there are no problems.

I've used this compressed brick (from ebay 3 years ago) but I doubt its any special:

This is my source of info about CHC. They also say you should supplement Ca and Mg because CHC acting as cation exchanger (as Rick stated):
http://www.ladyslipper.com/coco3.htm

That looks very similar to the compressed bricks of CHC I use. I think it's different from what one buys in bags because this is very loose and fibrous. Maybe that's the difference between what Eric and I used and why he didn't have success with CHC and we do.

 

[Rick]

I get mine in large compressed bails from Robert's flower supply.

Purportedly its from Sri Lanka, which is supposed to be washed better than the stuff from Mexico.
I never use it straight out of the bag anyway, and wash it a lot first with RO water (until that gets minimum conductivity), which is initially very high.

Then some soaks with my well water with mag sulfate added (for divalent cation exchange).

Then one more RO soak.

I still have more than 3/4 of all my slippers in moss/baskets anyway, but I invested in a big bail of the stuff in the past, so I use it up slowly but surely with different "experiments".

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

OK Dot....now I understand. when I talk about CHC, I'm referring to Coconut husk chips and chunks. The powdered stuff is cocopeat. I have used both. I have had paphs do OK in a 50/50 mix of cocopeat and perlite, but root growth is very minimal. I think I tried a phrag in it once...it hated it even more than CHC chunks. I only use cocopeat on Ludisia and Cymbidiums. The latter seems to really love the stuff. Interestingly, I find orchids handle cocopeat better than non orchid plants.
Rick- since I've been using K-lite for over a year now, some of these plants have been repotted during this time. No change in growth. But, as I said, these plants have always grown well for me.

 

[SlipperFan]

No, definitely not the powdered stuff. The compressed bricks are definitely chips, only more fibrous than the chips I've seen sold in bags.

I did try the cocopeat on some zygos, which did fine for about a year then started to deteriorate. I don't use that anymore.

 

[keithrs]

The "powder stuff" is coir or coco as the hydro guys call it.

I love CHC!:drool:

I also get great roots with it. I added a worm or two to every pot I use CHC in. Worms are great at keeping root rot away and helping to keep the pot aerated as the media breaks down.

On a side note.....Has any one used the "mulching" CHC? I just bought some and it going through its 5th wash as we speak. My next soak will be with Ca/Mg. I picked it up for $8 for 2 CuFt. That's not bad!

 

[katzenhai2]

[quote="SlipperFan]That looks very similar to the compressed bricks of CHC I use. I think it's different from what one buys in bags because this is very loose and fibrous. Maybe that's the difference between what Eric and I used and why he didn't have success with CHC and we do.[/quote]
Interesting. I only used these bricks and never tried the loose CHC in bags. I remove any fibre from the chips when I'm ready with washing them so only pure chips are left. That is one hour of work to get manually rid of it but its worth IMHO.

I've once tried to let the fibre in the CHC and repotted some paphs but it seemed not so aerated than only chips (although only some single fibre are left in the substrate). The difference is overhelming and the paphs seems not so happy about it. Root rot seemed possible.

 

[Cheyenne]

I bought a piece of chicken wire type screen at the hardware store that has about 1/4 inch squares and mounted it to a wood frame. After I rinse the CHC and let them dry I shake them out on the screen and the fibers fall through and leave the chips.

 

[katzenhai2]

My CHC looks like that after washing:

After manually remove the fibers the CHC are on the left and the fibers/peat on the right:

Maybe I should try that "chicken wire type screen" or buy a bag with non-compressed chips and have a look for no fibers. Otherwise its lot of work...

 

[SlipperFan]

I'd never do that...

 

[Rick]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.


For the talk I will need photos... Anyone have a good photo of a well grown plant in CHC they could "lend" me for the presentation? A good photo of root development (before & after) might be nice.

I think this plant is pretty well grown. I've had it since 2001 and its been in some form of CHC mix since probably 2002.

The mix is fairly loose, and I didn't want to take it out of the pot, but I dug away some to show some roots at the top.

This plant hasn't been repotted since May of 2008! I used it in a potting demonstration for our society meeting back then, and looked up the old newsletter. There is a pic of me holding the plant up (roots showing). The pic is not that great, but you can see how much bigger the plant is now compared to then.

Back in 2008 I was still using a lot of oyster shell. I'm sure it was mostly washed out a couple years later. It was considered a pretty nice plant back in 2008, its given me at least 1 bloom every year I've had it. But low K has improved it drastically. I used to loose about every 3rd new growth to Erwinia each year. Maybe in 2005/6 it lost about 1/2 its growths to Erwinia. With low K started 2 years ago the leaf length increased by more than 20%, and haven't had a case of Erwinia since. I still haven't focused on flushing the crap out of this pot. EC was probably >1000 when I first checked it, but with 1 good flush got it down to about 600. I haven't checked it in months.

I can send you the pdf of the newsletter if you like (pm me your email address).

 

[cnycharles]

I tried chc for a while and at first things seemed to be okay, but then would go downhill. .. and I was never a big overfeeder of my orchids or anything like that. the only thing that really liked my mixed chc media was my paph delenatii. and unfortunately I repotted it into the next wave of things and it has declined. I have to unbury my boxes that have potting media in them so that some things can get changed

 

[emydura]

I used it for a while as well, but I found it too inconsistent. Some things did well in it but a lot didn't. I found overall the root growth not to be great. Roots would be initiated and grow for a bit and then suddenly die off. I ended up just going back to bark.