Can you drain off the water and perhaps squeeze a little out of the moss (not all) and then rehydrate with 100ml water? This would give an indication of the repetitiveness of the results.
Top Dressing Moss with Calcium Carbonate
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Rick
Well-Known Member
Maybe in a couple of weeks. I'm out of town next week, and need to actually get some paid work done before hobby time in the lab.
But I would expect similar rates of parameter change until the sand is all gone or the acid content of the moss is exhausted.
Thanks Rick.
I dont use moss but do add Argonite to the bark/charcoal/perlite/CHC mix.
I'm going to do some pH and tds testing this weekend.
I dont use moss but do add Argonite to the bark/charcoal/perlite/CHC mix.
I'm going to do some pH and tds testing this weekend.
It would be a good idea to complement your tests. If the results are nrar rhe same them you can expect a lot of reaction every time you water. If the results are far less then the sand won't have a great effect to buffer the moss. But perhaps still enough?
Also would be good to see what happens if you leave out the moss and just pu sand and water together.
Stone
Well-Known Member
Amen, brother Stone, amen!
same here!
Isn't that what we're working toward?If only lots of science equalled lots of healthy orchids
I know that as I have eschewed the "tribal knowledge" in favor of understanding the science that underlies it, I have become a better grower.
Stone
Well-Known Member
In theory, lots of studying and reading and researching should lead to better growing techiniques and it does to a small extent however I believe that even with all the study into nutrients etc which I've undertaken recently and at hort school years ago, I still find myself relying on the ''instinct'' built up over the years when making a decision as to how to treat a particular orchid. Its one of those nebulous things that can't really be explained well because it involves so many tiny and constant observations and adjustments to get everything right. I'm sure anyone who has been growing for 20 or 30years will know what I mean? WE have some excellent growers in our club who woudn't know the difference between nitrogen and soap! The science is an important part of it of course but in the end a very small part I think. Once you have the basics down, the rest is mostly academic but still interesting.
It reminds me of the time I was working in my old man's engineering shop. We were charged with food producion machine design, manufacture and maintainence. We were old-school working mainly on past knowledge but the owner's son fresh out of engineering uni decided that our approach was wrong and he had all the answers. In reality he had no idea what he was talking about when it came to the practical side of things and eventually had to p**s off and let us get on with it.
So the theory only takes you so far in my view.
Rick
Well-Known Member
I agree Ray
After getting the "fundamentals down" and still not satisfied with the results of the "tribal knowledge" I would have probably lost another 5000 plants searching for the 1% of plants that work within the constraints of the tribe to claim success. Looking into the fundamentals of epiphyte ecology and chemical environment has made a huge difference in my entire collection, that I wouldn't have been able to sort out for decades waiting for the plants to adapt to me.
What defines science and research is different for everyone. I use hunches based on observation and comparison. I use books/internet. I makeup little experimental tests to glean ideas for new directions or corrections.
Science to me does not mean I only learn from someone else books/teachings on only the subject of interest. My first hunch on the potassium issue was from my work with freshwater mussels. Then a paper on rice culture moved the idea to plants. It just snowballed from there.
Now I'll tweak around on pot management for a bit. I find it funny though that I can mess with one of the "sacred cows of the tribal knowledge" by serendipity, and folks comes out of the word work demanding rocket science results and verification. I end up learning/relearning a lot through these challenges. It's sometimes gratifying that at 55 I haven't forgot everything I've learned, and not all of it is obsolete either!
A
ALToronto
Guest
There is a big difference between someone with no experience and someone with experience in another field. Breakthroughs are not made by people who are confined to tribal groupthink, but rather knowledgeable people from outside the tribe who don't harbor any prejudices.
Sometimes experience means making the same mistakes over and over, and not knowing any better. It's why we have so much crappy concrete making up our buildings, bridges and highways.
Rick
Well-Known Member
There's a bunch of angry out of work machinists that have been replaced by computer controlled, laser guided....robots that those idiot, college taught, no-it-all's came up with. No accounting for individual stupidity, but some of those scientific malcontents periodically come up with something that actually produces better results than the status quot.
Technology is moving at breakneck speed. I just heard that robots are being developed to tend row crops. Then we won't even need horticulturalists.:sob:
D
DavidCampen
Guest
Are you referring to the paper by Shaibur that you referenced in the AOS article? That paper did not test a KCL concentration below 700 ppm while the concentration of all the other nutrients combined was about 1/2 of that level and the concentration of any other single nutrient was at less than 1/10 the amount of potassium or chloride. So at best, this paper only shows that KCL becomes toxic at a concentration of 10 times that of any other nutrient.
Additionally, the paper failed to perform any experiments to differentiate between potassium toxicity and chloride toxicity. You have criticized and discounted papers people have presented here that showed the necessity of potassium levels closely matching the levels of other major nutrients because the experiment failed to control for the effect of the anion, so by the same reasoning, the Shaibur paper should also be discounted.
As for freshwater mussels. Many ocean organisms would not survive in fresh water so by the same analogy from fresh water mussels to orchids we find that orchids should be watered with a 3% sodium chloride solution
There were many other errors in the reasoning you attempted to present in the AOS article and as a result the article fails to present any scientific rationale for your potassium toxicity thesis.
K
keithrs
Guest
I just curious how soaking moss in water and adding aragonite shows relistic buffering capabilities, when most run large amounts of water through pots with a small amount of Ca ammendment to the mix. Are you saying that if you soak moss in X amount of aragonite that it will buffer it's low pH? Or are you saying that adding X amount to moss as a top dress will buffer 100 ml of Ro water to X level?
I'm not discrediting the research here.... I just can't see how it relates with real world orchid pot environments with ammendments and large amounts of water running threw it!?!
Maybe I missed something in the last week or so..
I'm not discrediting the research here.... I just can't see how it relates with real world orchid pot environments with ammendments and large amounts of water running threw it!?!
Maybe I missed something in the last week or so..
Rick
Well-Known Member
No You brought up the right question.
Compare the water retention effects in a pot of moss versus the amount of water retained on a vertical mount.
The static moss example is extreme compared to the mount. But moss/bark/chc in open draining pots are somewhere in between.
Weigh a pot before and after watering. The difference is the amount of water retained that will be in that pot for (?) 3 hours? 3 days? That retained water is equivalent to what is in my capped bottles.
There are 2 things exerting effects on the water. The moss is releasing acid, the aragonite is releasing a base.
So can you develop a strategy to cope with that retained water chemistry for your individual pots? We generally don't want the pH to fall below 5.5, but we also don't want a lot of alkalinity and TDS to build up in the pot.
Do you use less buffer, water more, add buffer only to incoming water and water more. Now you have some numbers to go with the Italian cooking we do with our pots. It really is like a pot of spaghetti sauce with acidic tomato getting adjusted to taste with spices and seasonings to get things "to taste". But in this case we are trying to read our plants to do the "tasting" of our potting mixes. Usually by the time we find out the sauce has turned to poison, its too late.
Compare the water retention effects in a pot of moss versus the amount of water retained on a vertical mount.
The static moss example is extreme compared to the mount. But moss/bark/chc in open draining pots are somewhere in between.
Weigh a pot before and after watering. The difference is the amount of water retained that will be in that pot for (?) 3 hours? 3 days? That retained water is equivalent to what is in my capped bottles.
There are 2 things exerting effects on the water. The moss is releasing acid, the aragonite is releasing a base.
So can you develop a strategy to cope with that retained water chemistry for your individual pots? We generally don't want the pH to fall below 5.5, but we also don't want a lot of alkalinity and TDS to build up in the pot.
Do you use less buffer, water more, add buffer only to incoming water and water more. Now you have some numbers to go with the Italian cooking we do with our pots. It really is like a pot of spaghetti sauce with acidic tomato getting adjusted to taste with spices and seasonings to get things "to taste". But in this case we are trying to read our plants to do the "tasting" of our potting mixes. Usually by the time we find out the sauce has turned to poison, its too late.
Rick
Well-Known Member
Yes the Shaibur paper looked at very high K levels, but the main interest in the paper was the drop in Ca and Mg in plant tissues with increasing K (not absolute K toxicity values). I have other papers on other plant species (all non orchids) that demonstrate K toxicity at lower levels, but they did not show any physiological mechanism. I also have a paper from Cornell that worked with orchids and saw the same ratio changes in K /Ca/ Mg leaf tissue content as the Shaibur rice example, but at K levels from 50 to 300 ppm. However, I didn't have that paper until after the article went to print. Other papers also work other anions associated with K as the source, so chloride can be ruled out as the active agent in the Shaibur paper. The point of the Shaibur paper was that as K goes up Ca/Mg go down. Apparently this has been well documented by horticulturists (including those working with orchids) for quite some time using K salts with various anions. The rice paper was the first I came across and gets credit where credit is due.
I think your expectations of what researches should be including in their experiments exceeds what can practically be done in a given amount of time and budget.
Rick
Well-Known Member
?? Most orchids aren't found in the ocean, but are found in proximity to freshwater bodies (that often have mussels in them). Hence the mussel is the "canary in the coal mine" analogy. Or were coal miners out of their minds for trusting a pet bird with their lives. The concept of environmental relevance is implied in the mussel analogy but I guess you are not getting that.
There are a few orchids that live in proximity to oceans, which I also brought up. Namely the brachies. Ocean water is 2/3 sodium chloride. But only has about 350 ppm of K, 450ppm Ca, and over 1000ppm Mg, yet experienced orchid growers say that Brachies are "extremely salt sensitive", and must be watered with pure water with very low feed rates. So are the brachies sensitive to all salts, or are they sensitive to an ion imbalance? How is it that feeding relatively low amounts of a high K fert (with very low Ca/Mg available) is bad for brachies, but they can get hit with 3% seawater and do just fine? So explain what's wrong with that one.
Rick
Well-Known Member
DavidCampen;416875 There were many other errors in the reasoning you attempted to present in the AOS article and as a result the article fails to present any scientific rationale for your potassium toxicity thesis.[/QUOTE said:I went out in the GH and told my plants that they were actually dead and didn't know it.
They don't believe me.
Maybe I better slip them a potassium mickey before they realize they are orchid zombies and come out of the GH to suck the potassium out of my brain. :evil:
D
DavidCampen
Guest
So you really are defending your freshwater mussel to orchid analogy as a principal justification for your potassium toxicity thesis. That is absurd. And then you add "Or were coal miners out of their mind for trusting a pet bird with their lives". More irrelevance.
Then start growing your plants in ocean water and tell me how that works out for you.
Your AOS article is riddled with errors and illogic.
Rick
Well-Known Member
You sound like a movie critic.
Come back and tell me about it when you have a specimen size Paph emersonii in bloom using your logic.
