Growing brachypetalum

[Ozpaph]

Rick (et al) could you use shade cloth as a lining for the basket, to keep the media in? Drains well. Sphagnum just doesnt seem to stay alive for me.
Could those plastic basket type pots work or would they dry out too fast?

 

[naoki]

1 part hard bark, 1 part treefern cubes, 1 part baked clay, 2 parts polystyrene chunks, 1 part charcoal. (or something like that) Trying to keep all materials the same size. Most of seedlings will not be ready for 18 months but I might try a couple this spring/summer?
I would like to find large size zeolite and diatomite.

Sounds good. Dr. Tanaka seems to be into something called Ceraton (some kinds of Ceramics) (about 30-40% of his mix). He mentions that it is used as aquarium filter material, and it has the property to ?emit? infra-red energy. I dug around a little bit with google, but I'm not completely sure what this material is. He thinks that it may help root growth and reduce rotting. Does anyone knows what this is?

 

[ehanes7612]

well, is there anything that is available that is effective in stimulating root growth for small seedlings?

 

[naoki]

Do you mean natural or synthetic auxin?

 

[Brabantia]

well, is there anything that is available that is effective in stimulating root growth for small seedlings?

Seaweed liquid extract (like Kelpack) is a natural root growth stimulator you can use.

 

[Linus_Cello]

Sounds good. Dr. Tanaka seems to be into something called Ceraton (some kinds of Ceramics) (about 30-40% of his mix). He mentions that it is used as aquarium filter material, and it has the property to ?emit? infra-red energy. I dug around a little bit with google, but I'm not completely sure what this material is. He thinks that it may help root growth and reduce rotting. Does anyone knows what this is?

Do you think it could be these ceramic rings?
http://www.thatpetplace.com/ceramic-rings-pcml-160-220-360-530-filters

Or more probably this (as it helps supposedly buffer the pH)?:
http://www.southernoakaquatics.com/humic.html

 

[Rick]

Rick (et al) could you use shade cloth as a lining for the basket, to keep the media in? Drains well. Sphagnum just doesnt seem to stay alive for me.
Could those plastic basket type pots work or would they dry out too fast?

I just pack the slats with dead sphag. But I don't see any reason to avoid any other plastic or natural netting material to retain the rest of the substrate materials.

Since I've cut overall amount of fert to the 30-50ppm N range and K is way down, I'm having a lot better growth of live mosses in general.

 

[Rick]

I think no more than any other sp. And I think they get most if not all of their Ca/Mg from leaf litter etc, Concolor for eg. has often been found growing in moss on trees. I believe niveum has too. And I've seen pics of malipoense and other ''limestone growers'' growing in tree crotches right away from the rock. To me this says they get their Ca (and everything else) from tree litter, dead grasses and exudates from living plants etc. ( maybe only tiny traces from the rock ) The deep rooted plants (trees) would get Ca from the decomposed limestone soil and as we saw in the tables the other day, a lot of the Ca in leaves is not resorbed but discarded with the dehisced leaves.
Therefore I still believe that brachys needing extra Ca is a myth... Not to say they can't deal with extra as long as it remains in balance with the other usual suspects
IT may be a hangover from when raw and acid bark etc. was/is used without amending with dolomite?
I think keeping your medium pH around 6.5-7 would supply plenty of Ca.

Yes somantics. I think most of the Ca/Mg deficiency symptoms in orchids are from excess K. Brachies (and most plants in general) live in situations where Ca is not restricted. The lack of Ca recycling in dehisced leaves supports that the environment is not restricted in Ca (and most likely Mg too).

But in pots of organic materials recieving nothing but rain or RO water Ca availability is very low compared to the natural world. Since you amend your potting mixes with calcareous materials and (more importantly) use irrigation water that still has some level of hardness, your plants will have access to plenty of soluble Ca/Mg.

 

[Ozpaph]

I just pack the slats with dead sphag. But I don't see any reason to avoid any other plastic or natural netting material to retain the rest of the substrate materials.

Since I've cut overall amount of fert to the 30-50ppm N range and K is way down, I'm having a lot better growth of live mosses in general.

Thanks Rick.

 

[naoki]

Do you think it could be these ceramic rings?
http://www.thatpetplace.com/ceramic-rings-pcml-160-220-360-530-filters

Or more probably this (as it helps supposedly buffer the pH)?:
http://www.southernoakaquatics.com/humic.html

Maybe the ceramic rings are something similar, but they are kind of expensive. I wonder if there is something cheaper. Maybe large ceramic bearings? Dr. Tanaka's description about infra-red emission is a little puzzling. I guess when the material is used in ceramic space heater, it is converting the energy from heating wire to IR, but I don't know if it emits IR by itself. So it sounds a little gimmicky.

 

[Stone]

Rick (et al) could you use shade cloth as a lining for the basket, to keep the media in? Drains well. Sphagnum just doesnt seem to stay alive for me.
Could those plastic basket type pots work or would they dry out too fast?

Go to Bunnings and buy some fiberglass flyscreen. You can cut it with scissors and its very cheap.

 

[Stone]

Sounds good. Dr. Tanaka seems to be into something called Ceraton (some kinds of Ceramics) (about 30-40% of his mix). He mentions that it is used as aquarium filter material, and it has the property to ?emit? infra-red energy. I dug around a little bit with google, but I'm not completely sure what this material is. He thinks that it may help root growth and reduce rotting. Does anyone knows what this is?

Its some sort of porous ceramic material ( I think natural) with a High CEC. something like zeolite. Don't know about the light energy though. Sounds a bit StarTrek. Although I think I recall Spock growing some paphs once.

 

[Stone]

Yes somantics. I think most of the Ca/Mg deficiency symptoms in orchids are from excess K. Brachies (and most plants in general) live in situations where Ca is not restricted. The lack of Ca recycling in dehisced leaves supports that the environment is not restricted in Ca (and most likely Mg too).

But in pots of organic materials recieving nothing but rain or RO water Ca availability is very low compared to the natural world. Since you amend your potting mixes with calcareous materials and (more importantly) use irrigation water that still has some level of hardness, your plants will have access to plenty of soluble Ca/Mg.

Putting excess K to the side for a moment, my point was/is that some authors still seem to think that brachypetalum need more Calcium than other paphs because of the limestone habitat. But really there is no evidence to suggest that they need any more than insigne or spicerianum.
Solubility of limestone is 0.015grams/Lt. so just imagine how dilute the consentration would be from the rocks in the habitat during the wet! Adding big chunks of limestone or whatever to your mix would be next to pointless. and certainly if your using Calnitrate, adding any more is totally unnessasary. Yes keep your K on the lowish side..

 

[Rick]

Yes the big rock in the potting mix is just for aeration, and neutral surface. Not much different than adding styro peanuts or pottery shards. But that's why I add a dash of the fine aragonite sand. That stuff really does slowly dissolve.

I checked my well water again today, since we finally got enough rain to raise the local creek levels.

I live on essentially a limestone hill here in TN. Groundwater starts at roughly 50 to 80 ft. I live on the top of the ridge. Spring fed creeks pop out all over starting at about 50 ft below the ridge, and get bigger and more continuous the farther down grade you go from my place. Anyway today's analysis.

Conductivity = 600 useimen
Hardness = 380 mg/L as CaCO3
Alkalinity = 114 mg/L HCO3
pH = 7.3

I had a previous sample analyzed for calcium and magnesium content separately and found the Ca:Mg ratio is 13.5 to 1. So if I used it to water at full strength the plants would see almost 140 ppm of Ca and 10ppm of Mg under present conditions. But even when I water with 10:1 RO/well water the plants get a 14 ppm dose of Ca (that's hardness of 34.7 by the way if you are using soft water in comparison). So lots more than when I was using nothing but RO.

I also measured Na and K, and there was only 3ppm of sodium and K was non detect at 1ppm.

 

[Rick]

That 14:1 Ca to Mg ratio I think is not especially helpful. Depending on the type of limestone you are over (more dolomitic) you get closer to a 1:1 ratio. And ocean water has about 4-5 times more Mg than either Ca or K. So those coastal brachies would see a lot more Mg in their lives than if they lived on Tennessee cliffs.

I add a dash of epsom salts on the sunny days to compensate.

That got a lot of my cliff dwellers fired up before I started low K.

I have a paper on leaf litter ion concentrations of plants over serpentine geology. (High in Mg, and low in Ca). A few of our favorite Borneo slippers (rothschildianum most famous) are found over this type of geology. Somehow the plants manage to scrounge the Ca and K from somewhere to end up with essentially the same ion ratios as plants over karst limestone, and whatever the Panamanian forest was over in that paper you found!

I think its pretty crazy that the wild undomesticated plants all over the world, on all types of geology, end up with similar levels of NPK Ca Mg.

 

[Stone]

I think its pretty crazy that the wild undomesticated plants all over the world, on all types of geology, end up with similar levels of NPK Ca Mg

So does that mean I can throw a handfull of horse sh*t on my pots and let them sort it out?:rollhappy:

 

[Ozpaph]

Go to Bunnings and buy some fiberglass flyscreen. You can cut it with scissors and its very cheap.

excellent idea!

 

[keithrs]

Maybe the ceramic rings are something similar, but they are kind of expensive. I wonder if there is something cheaper. Maybe large ceramic bearings? Dr. Tanaka's description about infra-red emission is a little puzzling. I guess when the material is used in ceramic space heater, it is converting the energy from heating wire to IR, but I don't know if it emits IR by itself. So it sounds a little gimmicky.

ceramic balls

Folks on here told me it was a gimmick.

 

[Rick]

So does that mean I can throw a handfull of horse sh*t on my pots and let them sort it out?:rollhappy:

Actually a lot a folks get great results from this strategy for non orchids for sure.oke:oke: I think Paphioboy is doing something pretty close to this presently with his orchids


K seems to be a klinker in the works since its rare in the environment and the selective (rather than passive) aspects of plant nutrient uptake gets screwed up when otherwise rare or uncommon nutrients are presented in super un-natural concentrations.

In some ways that's a basic premise of toxicology 101.

 

[keithrs]

So does that mean I can throw a handfull of horse sh*t on my pots and let them sort it out?:rollhappy:

I spray worm **** on my plants.oke: