Your experiences with armeniacum?

[Rick]

For example with bellatulum it has finally sunk in why I kept losing roots or having poor development. Several books I have say its necessary to keep them cool... WRONG! Yes they like cooler nights during the dormant season, but they need to be kept dry at the roots or they rot immediately.When you look at concolor, it's interesting to see that although it grows with bellatulum, it also grows in many other areas and habitats so its obviously much more adaptable than bellatulum and this bares out in cultivation. I think my mistake was watering too much and too early in spring when they (bellatulum) are just waking up (thats always a good root rotting season). You can get a week of warm weather then 2 weeks of winter again.--so easy to make a mistake during that time! But in summer when its really hot, you can pour on the water. So now I feel (a bit) more confident with bellatulum. Now for armeniacum...................

Mike So how do your reconcile Espices semi hydro (constantly wet ) bellatulum culture? She's in Canada and grows under lights, but Candace also grows bellatulum SH in a GH in California. There was a thread that Charles started as a belatulum culture survey, and Xavier posted that root rots in belatulum were precipitated by getting the roots "too dry".

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7531

 

[Rick]

http://www.bryoecol.mtu.edu/chapters/8-1NutrientRequire.pdf

Try this one. With the direction of the conversation in the Phrag fischeri thread (looking at the bryophyte assemblage), and noting in multiple sources the association of slippers with mosses, and noting that moss growth improved after increasing my rate of watering/flushing.

Maybe root rot is more associated with overfeeding rather than watering at the wrong time of year.

Lance Birk noted that bellatulum was almost always associated with mosses (even when it wasn't on limestone).

 

[Stone]

Rick, whenever I noticed root rot in my bells, they were always in a moist condition, in fact I don't really recall ever letting them dry out during the whole winter but its another avenue to look at!
With the s/h thing, I don't understand why, but there is a difference between constantly wet as in s/h and regular watering to keep the medium moist. I realize it sounds crazy but it seems to be the case. Case in point: Last year I got a flask of sanderianums and tried various mixes to get the roots going and all rather slow to develop. Not from lack of water either as I have been keeping constantly damp to wet AND warm. 10 days ago I decided to put one into charcoal/leca mix and sat it in a shallow saucer of water...I checked this morning and noticied a nice white root tip pushing out, WHY???? Maybe it has something to do with the unfluctuating moisture or maybe the lack of organic material or both or some other reason. I suspect that the roots produced in hydroponics is different in some way to those produced in a standard mix.
I know that if I tried to simulate that level of moisture by watering a ''normal'' mix with ''normal drainage, root rot for sure!
My little Phrag kovachii is also doing very well with this system.
S/H is definately intriguing and I plan to experiment more with it. Starting with some of the ''wet'' growers.
I also have 5 bellatulum seedlings to play around with and you've inspired me to try one s/h as soon as I've finished typing this!

 

[Rick]

I tried a single bellatulum SH and actually lost it. But I was still messing with high K fert at the time. Going into winter cool now here in TN and I just checked my newest bell in basket. Damp and cool, and new clean root tips snaking through the moss. Same for my niveum.

About the only paph I had do well SH was a couple of tigrinum, and a barbatum. But they went into SH about the time I was transitioning to less fert/low K fert.

Phrags have done best for me in SH, but since reducing K and fert overall, they have dramatically improved from what I thought was pretty good to start with.

Playing with wet vs dry and myriads of potting mixes have been dinked with for years with very few ever able to get the same results twice. But doing what it takes to grow moss (i.e. what would amount to a starvation diet by most folks standards) is a pretty new concept to most orchid growers.

 

[Rick]

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7524&highlight=bellatulum+hydro

Here's the informal bell culture survey from 2008.

 

[Leo Schordje]

Leo

Are you using the MSU pure water or well water version.

If I recall correctly you have a fairly hard high alkaline water.

Although I think you would see faster growth with less K, I think you may loose the benefit of slightly higher ammonia residuals (better for high alkaline systems) with the other form of MSU.

If you are using RO or dilute well/tap water then by all means you can shift to K lite and should be able to stop the top dressing with lime/ Ca carbonate products.

If you want to keep using a high alkaline system then maybe use K lite at 1/8 tsp/gal with a touch of ammonium nitrate.

Thanks Rick,
I had been using the RO formulation of MSU, I will pick up calcium nitrate and ammonium nitrate and magnesium sulfate to supplement the final use of my MSU. Then on to the K-Lite. Thanks.

 

[Stone]

Well yesterday I put a bellatulum, an armeniacum, a glaucophyllum and a moquettianum into s/h ( a mix of leca and diatomite with a little charcoal ) so we shall see what we shall see
Hey I figure, if it works, then that 's what the plant wants....

 

[Rick]

Case in point: Last year I got a flask of sanderianums and tried various mixes to get the roots going and all rather slow to develop. Not from lack of water either as I have been keeping constantly damp to wet AND warm. 10 days ago I decided to put one into charcoal/leca mix and sat it in a shallow saucer of water...I checked this morning and noticied a nice white root tip pushing out, WHY????

Mike
One thing I've been fundamentally changing over the recent years in my understanding of orchid culture is to try o) to figure out the chemical context for what plants need/do. This includes all the physical parameters like light/temp/humidity/rainfall. Since plants don't have eyes/ears/noses/fingers..how do they know when its raining, sunny, hot?

I think its pretty cool that a lot of seasonal orchid blooming occurs in Australia (or South Africa) during the same season/opposite time of year that it happens in the US. And the plants can't read a calendar.

It's also weird that a lot of orchids seem to bloom about the same time of year when growing under lights in a basement (with a fixed light schedule) as when they bloom for someone in a GH (with varying day lenght cycles).

So what I'm trying to figure out is what is it that we do that produces a specific chemical environment that gets plants to grow correctly.

In this case, what does increased or decreased water availability do to the chemical environment around the root that either stimulates growth or rots the roots?

 

[Stone]

Yes we all need to stumble through our mistakes to arrive at the solution (hopefully). It's great to have a forum like this for info. exchange. A few years ago it would take much longer to find these ''secrets'' by trial and error or leafing through irrelevant books.

 

[JPMC]

I find that for armeniacum, they prefer a slightly acidic mix which is weird for a species that is calcareous. They are at their best when the mix has started to break down as oppose to fresh at least in my experience and plants.

I believe JPMC armeniacum doesn't get any winter rest or dry period. In fact when he did. The flowers buds have blasted. Hope he will chime in when he sees this thread.

I'm sorry that I did not see this thread last month. I was dealing with hurricane Sandy at the time while trying to fly back home to my armeniacums (and others).

From reading this thread and my own experiences with this species it seems clear that it is tolerant of many environments and intolerant of many others. It seems to be intolerant of a constant set of environmental conditions. I have noticed some similarities between armeniacum and other species that come from that part of the world (i.e. the northern paphs from China). The theme I have noticed with this group of plants is that they seem to want a "continental" climate with seasonal variation. For me, the seasonal variable that seems most important is temperature. Not just cooling in the winter (I rarely go below 60 F) but a hot summer with temps. into the 90's F. Specific to armeniacum, I had no success at all until I moved them into a basket lined with sphagnum. In this environment it is the fastest growing plant (let alone paph) that I have if you don't count moss and algae.

 

[eggshells]

I actually followed JPMC instructions for me and so far I would like to report that its been doing very well. I had some feeding mishap a while ago but that was corrected now.

I planted this summer 2 growth plant ( I hope I wont jinx this ):

 

[Dido]

Looks great keep fingers crossed for you

 

[wjs2nd]

Very cool. I can't wait to see what this looks like in a few more years.

 

[Stone]

Thanks for the replies!! very interesting. I will also try the basket thing and maybe a shallow pan/bowl with a rounded base might also work.

 

[Leo Schordje]

back to armeniacum specifically, I think I see a pattern here. Regardless the myriad systems that do work for their growers.

For all the methods, roots are protected a little from heat. Be it potting in a plastic pot, then slipping that into a larger empty clay pot. Shade keeps the sun off the plastic, roots stay cooler. Moisture evaporating from the clay after watering also cools the roots. In basket culture, air movement and moisture evaporating around the outside of the basket, keep the roots a little cooler. Semi-Hydro tends to use a coarser, more open mix than a conventional potting mix for the same size pot. This open mix, plus the constant moisture means evaporation will keep the roots just a bit cooler than the leaves.

So I think the take away is to make sure the roots are protected from heat higher than what the leaves experience. Also the idea that they are 'continental' climate plants is dead on. Warm humid summers. Cooler winters, but not necessarily cold, with water available, because they come from mountain areas with clouds, fog, and dew, enough to keep the mosses moist even during a dry spell. So not drying them out hard between watering.

 

[NYEric]

Nice progress Eggshells!

 

[Marc]

I actually followed JPMC instructions for me and so far I would like to report that its been doing very well. I had some feeding mishap a while ago but that was corrected now.

I planted this summer 2 growth plant ( I hope I wont jinx this ):

How do you actually water this? Spray it with a hoze or do you soak it in a bucket? Or do you have one of these nifty things for watering hanging baskets?

 

[Stone]

Well I don't understand why the hell my 2 little seedlings are being so ****'n stubborn in getting their roots growing...I must be doing something fundamentally wrong. They will put out a little root and then it just rots or browns off!!!!!!!!!! Then I get browned off..So frustrating!!!
So today I threw caution to the wind and put them both into a basket lined with moss and fern fiber in a mix of bark, charcoal, styrene granules and a little diatomite and moss. ( I must say they look ridiculous and it goes against every instinct! ) Then I watered them in and told them in an aggressive yet encouraging way, that if they didn't do something very soon, well then they could all go and get stuffed.

 

[cnycharles]

I was just reminded a few days ago when looking at this thread, that I had tried to grow a bunch of armeniacum seedlings in chunky coconut husk chips years back. They also may have done the drying off or browning off of new roots because the top layer dried out or the humidity was too low, though the inner layer was staying wet. it could be that your humidity for this media is too low or you need to be watering more; maybe misting the top layer more often...

 

[eggshells]

How do you actually water this? Spray it with a hoze or do you soak it in a bucket? Or do you have one of these nifty things for watering hanging baskets?

I just bring the basket into the sink and just water.