Mark this date for Basket culture.

[Heather]

Not Paphs! Dends, cats, and bulbos. But now he's thinking aboutpaphs, and shared my link to this thread on their FB page. Awesome!

I know people don't always like Facebook but it is a good marketing tool.

 

[Rick]

The Kovachii Plunge

Ok got one of Glen Decker's kovachii seedlings in today. It's going in the basket.


Good roots. The leaf span is a bit over 9 inches,and overall looks pretty healthy. This basket is using limestone gravel, sand, and cichlid sand.


The color is kind of lime green and I think it should be darker. I put a pair of green handled channel locks behind the plant for color comparison.

 

[NYEric]

Add mg.

 

[Rick]

Add mg.

Got a shot this morning:wink::wink:

 

[NYEric]

Not you, the plants! oke:

 

[Rick]

Not you, the plants! oke:

I also got his last sangii seedling for sale, and its not on my kitchen stoveoke:oke:

 

[NYEric]

I also got his last sangii seedling for sale, and its not on my kitchen stoveoke:oke:

!! Wow! Ruthless!

 

[Mathias]

Ok got one of Glen Decker's kovachii seedlings in today. It's going in the basket.

The leaf span is a bit over 9 inches,and overall looks pretty healthy. This basket is using limestone gravel, sand, and cichlid sand.

Maybe sphagnum is a bit to acidic for kovachii. Do you think the limestone gravel will compensate for that?

 

[Rick]

Maybe sphagnum is a bit to acidic for kovachii. Do you think the limestone gravel will compensate for that?

The actual pH of drainage water from the baskets has been coming in at a bit over 6. It might be the general high aeration of being in a basket or the other components that have gone into the mix, but I'm not seeing the ultra low pH values that sphagnum is famous for.

There are many other plants like bulbos that are not famous for acid tolerance that I've had in sphagnum for years that thrive. Several other Paph species like sanderianum, henryanum, and rothchildianum that come from either limestone cliffs or over ultramorphic serpentine are absolutely thriving in the first six months of this project.

Bark mixes can also become very acidic in relative short periods of time. CHC usually slower but still capable of low pH. I haven't seen much for kovachii requiring totally inert alkaline substrates, but I intend to be vigilant.

 

[Rick]

I took a water sample from 2 of the sanderianum baskets that I started in January 2011.

pH = 7.06
conductivity = 250 useimens/cm
hardness = 48 mg/L as CaCO3

Did my best to go slow and get first flush.

 

[Jim Toomey]

As to the Kovachii mix:
check out Alfredo Manrique's website and what he says about PK culture: http://www.phragmipediumkovachii.com/PKculture/PK-culture.htm

Quoted from his site:
"PK culture: As with most Phrags, water quality is critical when growing PKs. We recommend keeping the media evenly moist all through the year, using RO or rainwater. The media must be open and very porous.

We use 1/4" crushed granite stones up to 50% of the mixture, plus chopped tree fern, charcoal, perlite and a small amount of fir bark. 5% of the mix is based on
crushed seashells and eggshells.
PK culture (continues): This mix will last up to 2 years.
It is highly recommended to add the sea and eggshells
as a very fine powder to be scattered over the media
every 2 months.

The fertilization program is weekly using a 15-5-15
formula and calcium nitrate or magnesium sulfate
dissolved in water in a concentration of up to 300 ppm.
We have been testing other fertilizers the last 4 years.
In the future we will release our findings here.


Good ventilation has proven to be a key factor. Light mustbe n the medium range, less than what Cattleyas require. Midday sunlight must never reach the leaves."

Check out the photo gallery, the eighth photo down shows a PK in a basket, with a pretty chunky mix. There are more interesting photos all of the way down, so look at them all!

 

[paphioboy]

Thanks for the link, Jim.. I didn't realize how huge PK flowers are until I looked at the last pic (human hand vs flower in situ)...

 

[Rick]

I remember that first article by Manuel on the feeding and substrate for kovachii. It's written a little funny so not sure exactly what he is doing, but on the presumption he is feeding his 15-5-15 fert at a rate allowing 120 ppm N and spiking in either calcium nitrate or magnesium sulfate to 300 ppm each:

His final feeding rate on the calcium nitrate days would be:
171 ppm N
40 ppm PO4
120 ppm K
73 ppm Ca
No additional Mg into a mostly inorganic potting mix with calcium/magnesium continuously available only after slow dissolution

His final feeding rate on the mag sulfate days would be:
120 ppm N
40 ppm PO4
120 ppm K
60 ppm Mg
240 ppm SO4
No additional Ca into a mostly inorganic potting mix with calcium/magnesium continuously available only after slow dissolution.


If that's what he's doing?? On that presumption he's getting pretty close to the general plant leaf foliar conditions I've been harping about lately.

 

[Rick]

I found some big roots crawling out of a basket.

Its a P. barbata. This is the mother plant that went into the basket after breaking off the stolon with its roots and new growths. It had a nub or two of roots left when it went into the basket.

A different angle shows a total of 3 roots poking through the slats.

The stolon with the roots and new growths went back into a pot with live moss and hydroton balls.
I did all this about the time I started the reduced K feeding with extra Ca. The new growths have grown at a fantastic rate and are very dark and stiff leaved compared to the plant they originally came off of.

Now that the mother plant has some good roots, each new leaf has been getting darker and darker.

 

[paphioboy]

Very healthy barbatum...

 

[Stone]

Nice job Rick! I think baskets are the wave of the future for paphs!

 

[likespaphs]

any thought if net pots would afford similar benefits?

 

[Rick]

any thought if net pots would afford similar benefits?

I don't see why not. I think the reduced feeding is just as critical as the aeration benefits of the basket.

 

[Rick]

Some more updates on multis. Clumping, rooting, spiking.

Roth update June vs December.



The two smallest growths popped up shortly after going into the basket back in January. The biggest start is now bigger than the parent growth, and the parent growth has a new growth coming out of it where it looked like it had crown rotted.

The supardii's seemed a bit slow at first but now:
roots poking out all over.
Three new growths (new button showing on oldest growth)
Flower sheath

 

[Justin]

The roth looks a lot happier. I've noticed the smaller roth plants can often be harder to get to blooming size. What's the parentage?

Have any of your supardii bloomed yet? I grew a flask out and the biggest ones are now BS but still single growths...am wondering if they might bloom this spring.

Have you noticed supardii tends to have more fungal infection than other species? I think it's generally an easy species (easier than say, stonei) but mine always had a lot of black spots...but from just a few months i think that may be changing with the new low-k feeding program.