Yet another example of "Less is More" with Feeding

[Bjorn]

Perhaps this one is of interest?
http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37789&highlight=sodium

 

[gego]

You may be right naoki, obesity in plants does sound strange, and looking at it from that perspective....? Nevertheless my observations can be condensed into:
1) they grow just as fast (or faster?) with low fertiliser levels(e.g. 20ppm N) than with higher nutrient levels (e.g. 100ppm N) and producing just as much - or more biomass
2) seemingly the rate of decease incidents has been reduced.
Of course this does not necessarily have to do with the fertiliser level, since so many other things have changed in parallell - it could be due to other factors like availability/non-availability of some micro-nutrients.
The latter is examplified by the fact that leaf-analyses mostly show rather high sodium levels, sometimes similar to P2O5, but nobody fertilises with it. Probably since its always there? But what if it is not?
just a thought:evil:

I've read that plants pick up Na if K is not sufficient. This principle about balanced charges in the cells of the plant is really something we need to look deeper and understand. That cations should balance with anions to have zero potential in the cells of a plant. I believe this is very important. Seems like plants is always under stress if this condition is not met. Like if K is limited, another cation should fill up its place but it seems like Na is the preferred replacement, why? Is it the # of electrons? protons?

 

[orcoholic]

I know I'm late to the party here, and I certainly don't get all the scientific, engineering stuff, but...

How can "less be more" when the author of the thread - Ray - describes the orchid as undernourished with mottled leaves.

Shouldn't the title be something like "Less is enough if you want to grow substandard orchids"?

 

[naoki]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I wonder if some Paphs can substitute K with Na. But something is in leaf analysis doesn't mean it is great. Some plants accumulate toxic heavy metals in their vacuoles in order to be tolerant of the heavy metal.

Copy and paste from: http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15339&page=7

here is a bit of info from the time when I looked into this info (mostly from Marschner's). There are some plants which accumulate Na in leaves (called natrophiles), but I don't know if there is any orchids which does this. Na is essential for some halophyte (plants growing in brackish area), and beneficial for some.
1. Relatively recently, it's been shown that Na can enhance C4 plants growth (but no orchids are C4).
2. Also if K is limited, some plants (not all plants) can substitute K with Na. So in these plants, leaf analysis can show negative correlation between K and Na. But this doesn't mean that K will cause Na deficiency.
3. Then it was shown that some plants supplied with Na can close the stomata quicker than plants with only K. K is important in controlling the stomata. This indicates that Na could be beneficial in the environment where there is irregular rain fall (and plants experience sudden drought). So there is a possibility that Na could be beneficial for some epiphytes.

 

[Ray]

I know I'm late to the party here, and I certainly don't get all the scientific, engineering stuff, but...

How can "less be more" when the author of the thread - Ray - describes the orchid as undernourished with mottled leaves.

Shouldn't the title be something like "Less is enough if you want to grow substandard orchids"?

Well... Yes you are "late to the party", and apparently haven't read the entire thread thoroughly. However, my years of growing experience led me to state things less clearly than I intended.

There was another thread entitled "Less is More", that proposed that low doses of nutrition were advantageous to high doses. Since I started applying that to my culture, some 5 years ago, I have seen some significant advances in the vitality of my plants.

Then this phrag had the gall to bloom with essentially NO nutrition, which is taking "less" to extreme.

The fact that it did, while plants that I have personally overfed - taking others' advice without evaluating it myself - would not, suggested that the "less is more" concept has validity. No where did I intend to say that "zero is more", but folks want to take things at face value, without thorough evaluation, and I apparently did not do enough to prevent that.