Yet another example of "Less is More" with Feeding

[Ray]

This is Phrag. Will Chantry, moved from flask directly into 3.5" Semi-Hydro pots about 18 months ago. They were watered in with roughly 30 ppm N K-Lite, which was supplemented with 1:250 KelpMax and 1:100 Inocucor garden Solution. Since that time, they have only received RO water, applied via overhead misting 2x/day, in my basement "incubator".

The leaves are a bit mottled, suggesting a bit of nutrient deficiency, but this still managed to grow and bloom. The second image shows the extensive root system, both in the pot and overgrowing it.

 

[gonewild]

Yet another example to indicate that orchids get nutrients from the living organisms more so than from dissolved nutrients or decaying organic matter.

You are giving less fertilizer (none) but at the same time keeping the micro organisms alive and well (Inocur) and at the same time supplying amino acids and hormones from the seaweed.

I don't think the plant is getting a lot less nutrients it's just that you are supplying them in a different form than normal fertilizer.

The mottled leaves are probably a result of low Ca and Mg which may need to come from the media or water rather than the organisms.

 

[Ray]

The plant is growing in LECA, so the only organic matter would be the plant itself, and the kelp and critters, but they, like the fertilizer, were only supplied once.

 

[NYEric]

Don't care about the culture, are they for sale!? :drool:
Yay besseae hybrids!

 

[Happypaphy7]

Culture is everything! oke:

Before I got to the pot in the picture, I thought it was a wild plant! hahaha.

 

[Ray]

Don't care about the culture, are they for sale!? :drool:
Yay besseae hybrids!

Yes, they are. I'm keeping this one, but there are siblings available.

 

[NYEric]

Thanks.

 

[Kawarthapine]

Ray.

With the low Cdn dollar you should holiday in Ontario this summer.

Perhaps a few bottles of Inocucor and Kelp Max could fall off your trailer as you drive by Peterborough!

Oh well, one can always dream.

 

[Stone]

Well to me Ray, I see this plant as being hungry so in this instance less is less IMO.

 

[Stone]

Yet another example to indicate that orchids get nutrients from the living organisms more so than from dissolved nutrients or decaying organic matter.

Not my orchids! I still don't see the reason for starving plants when it's just as easy to feed them well? I'm sorry but I just get the point.
I have a few starved plants in my shadehouse. They are miserable! You get fewer and smaller flowers, shorter spikes, smaller pale leaves and tiny pseudobulbs so why do it?

 

[gego]

Not my orchids! I still don't see the reason for starving plants when it's just as easy to feed them well? I'm sorry but I just get the point.
I have a few starved plants in my shadehouse. They are miserable! You get fewer and smaller flowers, shorter spikes, smaller pale leaves and tiny pseudobulbs so why do it?

I agree, whats the point of raising any living thing if we don't pamper them.

 

[monocotman]

At the risk of opening up a well worn topic, the point is that nobody sets out to starve their plants. It just happens that low levels of feed at every watering happens to work for some plants. Not all. They are not starved. They grow very well!
It works for Ray, it works for me and it works for Bjorn.
David

 

[monocotman]

Low level feeding

I suspect that the 'often' in little and often makes up for the fact that feed levels are 'low'.
It certainly worked for me growing in less than ideal conditions indoors.
The performance of all my orchids improved markedly when I went from occasional higher levels of feed to little and often using rain mix aka MSU.
Of course there may be other factors at work here but the overall improvement was so marked that I stuck with it and increased the orchid collection for a few (10-12 ) plants to maybe 40.
David

 

[garysan]

David, I'd like to know (for conparison reasons) what dose and frequency you use the Rain Mix as I've had rather mixed results with it...

 

[monocotman]

Rain mix

It is not very scientific.
I use the tiny teaspoon provided by Akerne to add one level spoon of the mix in an average bucket at every watering.
It takes the salt pen reading up from about 30 units to around 120.
The tap water reads 300 in comparison.
Beyond that I do not know more.
Bjorn has more details on ppm and it was discussed in one of the innumerable threads on the subject.
David

 

[Ray]

Well to me Ray, I see this plant as being hungry so in this instance less is less IMO.

There ya go, missing the point again, Mike. (And apparently you're not alone!)

I absolutely agree that this is not the ideal situation. It came about from neglect, not by plan. My point is not that this is "good", but it is an example of how relatively successful these plants can be, even with such poor resources, lending support to the concept that "less is more". "Nothing" is certainly not "more".

My normal pattern is 25-35 ppm N at every watering - and they are probably better referred-to as "floodings" - which can be 3 times a week, supplemented monthly with KelpMax and Inocucor Garden Solution.

 

[gonewild]

Originally Posted by gonewild View Post
Not my orchids! I still don't see the reason for starving plants when it's just as easy to feed them well? I'm sorry but I just get the point.
I have a few starved plants in my shadehouse. They are miserable! You get fewer and smaller flowers, shorter spikes, smaller pale leaves and tiny pseudobulbs so why do it?

I agree, whats the point of raising any living thing if we don't pamper them.

The above quote is not my statement

 

[gonewild]

I agree, whats the point of raising any living thing if we don't pamper them.

Not my orchids! I still don't see the reason for starving plants when it's just as easy to feed them well? I'm sorry but I just get the point.
I have a few starved plants in my shadehouse. They are miserable! You get fewer and smaller flowers, shorter spikes, smaller pale leaves and tiny pseudobulbs so why do it?

Something is screwy in the above quotes, it crediting me with someone elses statements.

Mike you are correct you miss the point.
1. I am not suggesting that orchids need to be fed low rates of nutrients.
(Actually quite the opposite.)
2. Orchids do not grow and bloom with zero nutrients. Yet that is what Rays example tends to imply.
3. What I said is that when the natural living organisms are present in the growing media there is a supply of nutrients produced by those organisms and that replicates Nature.
4. I think it is a mistake to use field data that measures stemflow and nutrient levels based on dissolved salts to determine that orchids don't need high levels of nutrients.
5. In Nature my theory is that living organisms supply high levels of nutrients in chemical forms that science has yet to recognize as the nutrient source for epiphytes.
6. The use dissolved salts is a substitute nutrient supply that orchids can access as a backup when the preferred complex compounds are not available.
7.The environment has to be near perfect for the nutrient producing living organisms to exist and produce the nutrients.
8. High levels of salt fertilizer applications suppress and prevent the living organisms to populate the orchids environment and thus the need to supply high levels of dissolved salt nutrients frequently.
9.Not all environments that don't get fertilizer manage to support the nutrient producing living organisms so in those environments orchids that don't get fertilizer do grow well.
10. In some environments the living organisms populate and thrive and in this place orchids can grow and bloom very well without ever being fertilized by fertilizer applications.

Obviously in your environment you need to apply fertilizer for the plants to grow. In other growers environments that have thriving organism populations they don't need to apply much ferilizer (Ricks baskets) because their living environment is producing the nutrients the orchids need.

Here in Rays thread "Less is more" his plant grew and flowered without being fertilized with fertilizer.... That is because he populated the closed environment with micro organisms that produce nutrients and then he never applied salt based fertilizer that would have killed the nutrient producing micro organisms.

And as has been said Rays plant looks hungry, just like a wild Phrag growing in Nature.

So "less is more" is not about starving plants. It means applying less salt nutrients can enable more natural complex nutrients to be produced.

fyi... I grow using high levels of salt based fertilizer. :wink:

 

[gego]

Its all relative. To say just less or more doesnt mean anything. 30 ppm average everywater 3x a week is not less but may not be optimum if using the right stuff.
Just a side note, those who can afford use nitrates but back in Asia, this stuff is expensive so they use what is available and cheap like animal poop and thier plants are healthier.

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[gego]

Somebody already stated this here, feed the critters the right stuff

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