'Dragon's Blood'

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I stored mine at room temp for several years. All the red stuff eventually precipitated out and settled to the bottom. I bought some fresh stuff on Amazon but it hasn't arrived yet. The red precipitate is soluble in alcohol, but the consensus seems to be not to use alcohol.

Do not ever mix DB with alcohol. Just stir or shake to mix in the sediment back into suspensiom. Even without the sediment the clear liquid works as does the sediment as a paste. Store at room temperature. As yet I have not encountered a shelf life that prevents the intended use on plants, in fact aging is important.

Thanks for the tips! Good luck with yours True North. Like I said, my DB from Amazon seems to work just fine. I have only had to use it a couple times though, and not on anything that was very far gone.
 
This is a photo of the effect of Dragon's Blood. The plant had a SERIOUS infection in the crown of the leaves. I applied DB and kept the area relatively dry. A couple weeks later you can see a new growth to the left of my thumb. I am not selling the product, just letting you know how it works. YOu can see the plant was in trouble.
 

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Nice options. Who was the first to start using this remedy on orchids? Apparently you can even buy the slowing growing plant itself, from which the sap comes from heheheh.
 
A good question.

The key to any "rescue", is promptness of detection and treatment. Nothing repairs damage, and even if the cure stops the ailment cold, the plant needs resources to tap into to recover. Plus, when you consider that most of the ailments our plants get come about because of shortcomings in our culture, no chemical treatment corrects that, so the plants might still be stressed.
 
I used Dragon's Blood on some of my other larger Orchids. It did a good job drying up the diseased parts. It did not stop the progression of the disease for very long. That is probably due to the cause of the disease was not removed. I am only cautioning people to use it sparingly on small phrags because it "dried up" the whole orchid and it died in one day. The disease was not within the entire orchid. It would have died slower. Sorry about not being more detailed in my post.
 
I used Dragon's Blood on some of my other larger Orchids. It did a good job drying up the diseased parts. It did not stop the progression of the disease for very long. That is probably due to the cause of the disease was not removed. I am only cautioning people to use it sparingly on small phrags because it "dried up" the whole orchid and it died in one day. The disease was not within the entire orchid. It would have died slower. Sorry about not being more detailed in my post.
I really hope you don't get the impression that I'm picking on you, but you seem to be missing some details.

When a plant is diseased, the entire plant is diseased, not just the parts that are showing symptoms. Yeah, the damage has progressed more where it is visible, but the disease is certainly not isolated to that part. If we have the flu and get a headache, that doesn't mean the pathogen is only in our heads.

I would also caution you not to lump all products into one when you praise or damn them. There are dozens of different "dragon's blood' products available, ranging from pure, unadulterated Croton lechleri sap, to dried resin from a variety of other trees, to oil- or alcohol-based dilutions, and they do not all perform the same when applied to plants.
 
What Ray said is correct. If the Dragons Blood is processed incorrectly it may not work well. Pure sap from Croton lechleri will not harm tender seedlings. If it is from a standard commercial source it probably has additives like alcohol to "stabilize it" and make it more suitable to mass marketing. The pure aged sap is alive and stabilizing kills it.
 

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