K-Lite Testers: What do you grow, and have you made any observations?

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Ray

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I ask because I just had a user contact me about cattleyas and nobile dens growing outside in Florida.

They often tolerate the 40's before being brought in, but the observation was a reddening of the edges of older/lower leaves (possibly indicative of P-deficiency), and apparently premature loss of lower leaves.

The question was "can the low mineral levels lead to lowered temperature tolerance?"

I am close to 1 year of exclusive use of the formula on a wide variety of plants - paphs, phrags, a variety of vandaceous types, cymbs, catts, phals, oncids, etc. - and I have seen no negative effects.

Thoughts? Comments? Possible alternate explanations?
 
One observation I've done so far is that since I've been using K-lite I haven't seen any orange rot / erwinia. Yay :D
 
The question was "can the low mineral levels lead to lowered temperature tolerance?"

Thoughts? Comments? Possible alternate explanations?

If you are talking to about lower mineral levels within the plant tissue then I would say the answer is, No.
Speaking about plants in general and not just orchids it has always been my experience that plants that have had fertilizer withheld prior to winter tolerate colder temperatures better. A plant that is "hardened off" compared to a plant that is in a state of active growth resists temperature extremes better.

Probably the K-Lite has kept the plants in a more active state of growth so the lower temperatures may have more of an effect.

On the Dends you refer to perhaps the change they see is actually more normal for the species going into dormancy?
 
My catt's and what few dendros I have are doing fine, but they are in the GH and not getting down below 60 so far.

Is the K lite being used with a tap or well water rather than an RO, rain, or otherwise soft low alkalinity system?

I took a really great growing/blooming doritus pulcherima to a show recently, where it experienced a significant temp and humidity drop. In less than 2 weeks its dropped almost all its flowers, and several lower leaves on different growths. Off all the plants I took to the show, this one showed the strongest effect.

How was the growth over the summer?
 
I grow out doors and have nothing neg. to report. I do have one plant... Rhyncholealia glauca that does have red pigment around the edges of the older leaves and are yellowing but that's because I keep it in full sun. It's going into spike as we speak.
 
It's been just about a year I've been doing low K. No ill effects at all. Can't say I am that much better either, but as long as it has no negative effects I will keep up with it.
 
I can't speak for outside growers, but in my greenhouse K-Lite has been
a blessing. I grow Phal. species and primaries with a scattering of hybrids and Paphs. (mostly Brachy) and a few miscellaneous orchids and other stuff
like a Bearss lime tree and everything is doing especially well. Not a laggard to be seen at all. I'm very impressed with K-Lite.
 
,
but the observation was a reddening of the edges of older/lower leaves

K deficiency usually manifests as discoloration then scorching on the margins of the older leaves. But whether this is the issue with the Dens..? I would guess that if they are growing in lava or pumice or similar, there might not be enough K to balance the N in fast growing plants. But reddening margins on the old leaves can also be a symptom of with low Mg.
 
Here is another response from the grower:

"Thanks for getting back to me. BTW I saw the post on slippertalk - no problem with any of my Dens or where you combining different people? (No, just my poor memory adding that...)

To answer the some of the questions from there, I water mostly with rain water, supplement with tap water. But my tap water comes out of the faucet at avg. of 6.8pH. Mineral content of the tap is very very low.

Also, yes the plants new growths are hardened off for the most part. The majority of them do their growing in summer. Growth this past summer was better than previous years.

Also, its not the edges of the leaves turning red, it's the whole leaf. Not that bright red you get from high sun, but a dull red.
"

With 10% Mg in the formula, I don't see how it could be a deficiency in that, but I hope to get a report back later.
 
It's not inconceivable that magnesium is deficient if Ca is boosted well beyond what is in the K lite, either through calcareous pot amendments or from the drinking water.

pH 6.8 say's nothing directly about the mineral content of water. What is the TDS, or more specifically the hardness of the tap water?

I would give it a shot to supplement a bit with epsom salts.
 
Had another bit of off-line feedback:

I exclusively used k-lite for almost a year. Everything grew fine through spring and through summer. Not any better than regular MSU but equally as well. I usually don't have to many things spiking in summer so everything seemed fine. Toward the end of summer I noticed things slow down on growth just as they should have been picking up. I noticed a good amount of leaves getting a yellow green cast (a sign of potassium def.). Then not to many things spiking. I have some phrags that bloom every year better than the last. This year the bloomed but kept blasting buds (multiple plants). When they started spiking they started dropping older leaves quick. I fed with a normal fert and in two weeks the same spikes were blooming. Now my plants are blooming and back to green. There are so many variables it could have been a lot of things like my water or mix. I do flush a lot, before every feeding and during the week so maybe they just weren't getting enough fert because of that. But I had not changed anything else but k-lite. Same water, mix, light and temp from year to year. On another note my Den. nobile are not setting buds this year, they had already in previous years. They are dropping a lot of leaves.

I have a few comments of my own.

1) I have used the K-Lite fertilizer for right on a year now - using it exclusively at 50 ppm N at every watering. I am experiencing none of the problems this person passed along. In fact, my plants seem to be growing significantly better as fall has come along, and many of my complex paphs are in-bud/in bloom now and look great. A couple of plants that had not bloomed for year are doing so again - although I attribute that to not overdosing them, rather than the formula, itself.

2) The cross I made is still holding two slowly-plumping capsules, so I see no issue there.

3) Personally, I do not see this formula as "adding" anything, so I would not expect to see an improvement over the MSU formula. Instead, it is intended to forestall - and maybe prevent - issues associated with the accumulation of potassium.

4) The comment that "I fed with a normal fert and in two weeks the same spikes were blooming." suggests very strongly to me that the original problem was not nutrient related - plants simply don't respond that quickly.
 
I would really like to get a comprehensive water quality analysis of their irrigation water and know whether or not there are amendments to the potting mix.

General "paleness" is not the usual symptom of K deficiency.

I would be more concerned about nitrogen and Mg deficiency first.
 
I would really like to get a comprehensive water quality analysis of their irrigation water and know whether or not there are amendments to the potting mix.

General "paleness" is not the usual symptom of K deficiency.

I would be more concerned about nitrogen and Mg deficiency first.

I agree.

I noticed a paleness in a few plants a while back, but it corrected itself when I resumed watering (and feeding) more frequently. I suspect that now that I am feeding at a very low concentration, compared to previous years, there is little excess in what I apply, suggesting that a reduction in frequency can cause an overall deficiency, not specific to the formula.

Quoting Bill Argo's comments to me early in this trial:

"As these plants grow, watch out for 2 things.

Potassium deficiency - you will see an edge burn that starts on the lower leaves and works its way up the plant.

Phosphorus deficiency - The growth will stall, and the plants will either take on a dark green cast, or they will have a reddish color in the older leaves.
" Not paleness.

Again - if you think of feeding as a way to provide "calories", and the low concentration is a "low-cal" diet, it is obvious that it is important to keep up the "meals" provided. I would have to ask folks to provide concentration and feeding frequency in their analyses.

I am still not convinced that the current K-Lite formula is the final, correct one, but I have not seen issues.
 
Looking back at Bjorns results with urea or ammonium nitrate addition resulted in some pretty fast "greening up". Also advocated by Xavier in the European market where the water is notoriously hard and alkaline.

Here in North America, Wendy, Leo, and Cheyenne had good results with MSU, and they either have very hard water or/or lots of calcareous pot amendments.

The only paling I've seen in my plants occurred in pots/baskets were I had lots of Cichlid Sand, or where potting mix TDS (including alkalinity) went too high. Flushing with my RO shifted things back to green pretty fast. There are also several folks here in middle TN that are doing some form of low K work around and seeing great results. One grower that has really weird very low TDS/hardness/alkalinity well water is seeing exceptional results. His collection is predominantly Catts and Stanopheae types.

The present K lite is made for RO/rain water. If we need a second formula for the high hardness/alkalinity folk, I would look at changing the nitrogen component.
 
Just an observation about watering immediately

before fertilizing: what's the use of fertilizing if the outer coating of the
roots has already absorbed the water? I don't advocate completely dry
conditions before fertilizing, but if the velum can't absorb additional moisture it seems to me that fertilizing at that time could produce a deficiency of several key components of the fertilizer. Makes no sense to me.
 
I haven't used K-lite for that long, but I've noticed some issues which might have to do with some deficiency of some sort. I've noticed yellowing of leaves, and what I believe might be potassium deficiency, and a high amount of bud blasting. This, on the other hand, could have to do with me being a newbie to Paphs or it could have something to do with what Rick says in the quote below here in the bold part:

Looking back at Bjorns results with urea or ammonium nitrate addition resulted in some pretty fast "greening up". Also advocated by Xavier in the European market where the water is notoriously hard and alkaline.

Here in North America, Wendy, Leo, and Cheyenne had good results with MSU, and they either have very hard water or/or lots of calcareous pot amendments.

The only paling I've seen in my plants occurred in pots/baskets were I had lots of Cichlid Sand, or where potting mix TDS (including alkalinity) went too high. Flushing with my RO shifted things back to green pretty fast. There are also several folks here in middle TN that are doing some form of low K work around and seeing great results. One grower that has really weird very low TDS/hardness/alkalinity well water is seeing exceptional results. His collection is predominantly Catts and Stanopheae types.

The present K lite is made for RO/rain water. If we need a second formula for the high hardness/alkalinity folk, I would look at changing the nitrogen component.
I do not use RO/rain water, so I think I should switch back to my original 20-20-20 fertilizer, or maybe mix it with K-lite ('cause I think the Ca, Mg are good for my chids).

My tap water has rather low dH-levels, 2.9 - 3.1, but pretty high pH-levels, 7.8 - 8.4. Conductivity are 15 - 17 mSm (which is pretty low for tap water I've heard).

Oh, BTW, what does TDS stand for?
 
@abax:
Ionic species can enter the root already impregnate with water by the osmosis phenomenon. Osmosis is a natural phenomenon that creates a balance (isotonicity) in pressure between liquids and solutes inside and outside the cell. Water and ionic solutes will pass in and out of cell walls until an equilibrium is reached and the level of solutes in the water surrounding the cell is the same as the level of solutes in the cell. When the water surrounding the roots disappears (the roots are drying) salts concentration in the cell (in the root) increase. This is the reason why the roots can be burned when this concentration increase at to hight values.
 

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