kovachii culture; S/H, pH, and calcium?

[gonewild]

Thanks Lance!!!

Thanks for the suggestion of calcium and calcium nitrate. I have calcium nitrate, how do you add calcium only and how much if using MSU? Is there a liquid supplement? After adding these two I should have most of the cultural requirements met. I hope!

Mix the Calcium Nitrate separate from your MSU. When mixed together with the acidic MSU solution, Calcium Nitrate may react by forming gypsum. If this happens , and it does easily, the Calcium will form a solid and fall to the bottom of your fertilizer tank.

I mix Calcium Nitrate is a separate tank at the same concentration I mix the MSU. That will still give you about the same Nitrogen level and higher Calcium.
So for example I have a 9 gallon tank that I mix 3 tablespoons of MSU to get the concentration I want. In a separate 9 gallon tank I mix 3 tablespoons of Calcium Nitrate.

You can alternate waterings between the two different fertilizer solutions. Or you can just do it every so often and the results are about the same. The idea is to shift the ratios of the other elements to Calcium without altering the ratios between the MSU elements. It seems to be beneficial for a surge in calcium levels to occur every so often.
I would not mix the Calcium Nitrate with the MSU because that will throw off the balance between the major elements of the MSU.
Consider the addition of Calcium Nitrate as a treat for the plants but is not one that they need everyday.

I think you can buy liquid Calcium Nitrate but all it is is Calcium Nitrate dissolved in water. Calcium Nitrate dissolves easily in water so you can mix it yourself. Calcium Nitrate comes in several dry forms. The most common now is a prilled form that is intended to be applied directly to the soil or below the soil surface in its dry form. To make the "prills" the Calcium Nitrate is coated with wax to form little free flowing balls. Unfortunately the wax makes a mess when you dissolve the prills in water. It won't hurt anything but it may clog up a filter or injector. Best to get the plain Calcium Nitrate that dissolves cleanly in water if you can find it.

 

[gonewild]

I have two Pk seedlings. One is doing well and is on it's second growth. The other has sat in 'suspended animation since I got it. Both are grown the same so I have no idea why one is doing fantastic and one isn't. They are potted in small coconut, perlite and treefern fibre with limestone added. Both are grown intermediate, phal light and kept wet. Here are a couple photos. The big one has great roots while the small one only has 'nubs'. (the lower leaf on the big one looks yellowish but it's not)

The answer is simple.....

Genetics.

25% of all the seedlings grow slow and would normally be culled and not offered for sale. P.kovachii seedlings are so rare I think every protocorm was saved in an attempt to increase numbers. Probably most vendors that offer kovachii seedlings are shipping off their smaller less vigorous plants and keeping the best for themselves. The slow growers will likely always be slow and most likely will not have a long life. In nature the slow growers would never survive long enough to grow a first root.

 

[gonewild]

It was in an aircone...I switched to clay in hopes that it might like that. Sorry; I should have put that in my first post.

I think an aircone would have been the wrong way to go. P.kovachii really likes wet feet.

 

[gonewild]

Yep that would be nice; except it's 3/4 at least size of the smallest blooming size Pk I've ever seen. :wink: BTW, has anyone seen a purple Pk, not counting the one at WOC.

Do they come in colors other than purple now?

 

[Kevin]

Do they come in colors other than purple now?

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Maybe they aren't purple at all, but mauve or something like that. What is the 'true' colour of kovachii (never having seen one in person yet)?

 

[suss16]

Lance,

I purchased calcium nitrate (Tiger Brand 15.5-0-0) at a local nursery. It was pretty darn inexpensive... I planned on using it on my orchids, but I was concerned it was not design for orchid use. That may sound silly, but I would rather sound silly than be stupid.

Tony

 

[NYEric]

Do they come in colors other than purple now?

Most I've seen aren't really purple. I need that color guide again!

 

[gonewild]

Most I've seen aren't really purple. I need that color guide again!

I would generalize that they are purple. But I just asked Belinda what color they are and she said Purple-red. She said more red than purple and she is pretty good with colors. So I'll say reddish-purple or purpleish-red. :wink:

So I just looked up a picture I took in Lima and sure enough the flower is both red and purple. The top of the pouch is red and the petals purple.
The color in this image is exactly correct on my calibrated monitor.
So what color is it?

 

[SlipperFan]

I'd call it magenta-red, or red-violet. Having a pigment/artist background, the color I call purple (syn. violet) on the pigment color wheel is half-way between blue and red. The intermediate color between those would be red-violet. On the "light" color wheel, violet (purple) would be called magenta.
Pigment: http://www.reuels.com/reuels/media/jh/jh3451.jpg
Light: http://www.d.umn.edu/~mharvey/colorwheel.jpg

 

[Kevin]

Does the pouch on Pk feel 'velvety'? It looks like it should on that photo. Very impressive!

 

[cnycharles]

Mix the Calcium Nitrate separate from your MSU. When mixed together with the acidic MSU solution, Calcium Nitrate may react by forming gypsum. If this happens , and it does easily, the Calcium will form a solid and fall to the bottom of your fertilizer tank.



I think you can buy liquid Calcium Nitrate but all it is is Calcium Nitrate dissolved in water. Calcium Nitrate dissolves easily in water so you can mix it yourself. Calcium Nitrate comes in several dry forms. The most common now is a prilled form that is intended to be applied directly to the soil or below the soil surface in its dry form. To make the "prills" the Calcium Nitrate is coated with wax to form little free flowing balls. Unfortunately the wax makes a mess when you dissolve the prills in water. It won't hurt anything but it may clog up a filter or injector. Best to get the plain Calcium Nitrate that dissolves cleanly in water if you can find it.

Geez, I'm a grower whose seen the calcium precipitate out of solution and forgot about that fact! (calcium settling out in a stock tank) Usually it happened in concentrated solution with fertilizers that had sulfur in it, but Lance's idea of avoiding putting it in solutions that are acidic coming out of the hose is much easier to remember. Another thing you can do if you really want to have msu mixed with calcium nitrate is to mix both with water separately, then add the two together. Some places have a few injectors nearby, then have them mix together down the line in a mixing tank so that you have even amounts coming out of the hose. Fertilizers at application rates (diluted) are much less likely to have reactions when mixed together; it is usually at concentrated levels that they will react and precipitate.
If you like cool science, you can mix a bunch of calcium in with a concentrated solution that is acidic or has sulfur in it, and you will get an endothermic reaction (one that soaks up energy or gets very cold as a result) and you will see ice possibly on the outside of the container and maybe slush in the barrel, and you will likely see fog. Also in the bottom will be mostly insoluble calcium.

I hadn't seen the prills of wax-covered calcium. The 25 lb or so bags are usually water-dissolvable. You can also buy 2.5 gallon jugs of concentrated flowable limestone, figure out the rate you want and add to water. Also you can buy pelleted lime which is I believe powdered and then formed into pellets. You can just dump some in a bucket of water and let it dissolve after a while and then apply.