scale and new medium

[ericst11]

MY NAME IS ERICST11 AND I DON,T GET ON MUCH BUT I WAS WOUNDING IF SOME COULD GIVE ME SOME ADVICE. HERES HOW IT STARTED I'VE BEEN GROWING FOR 8 YEARS AND HAVE GOT HIT BY SCALE SO I PUT THEM AT BAY AND REPOTTED WITH A SOILLESS MEDIUM OF GEOLITE DYNO ROCK AND PARILITE AND PHYSAN 20'ED MY PLANTS AND POTS AND CLEANED MY GROW ROOM. AND WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE NOWS WHAT KINDA FERTILIZER I SHOULD USE OR CAN I STICK WITH MICHIGAN FORMULA .AND HOW TO KEEP SCALE AWAY. THAX ERICST11.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Scale is rare in orchids. They only attack orchids that are already weak. Treat the cause not the symptom. Grow your orchids into strong plants and you won't have to worry about scale.

If your fertilizer is working stick to it. I recommend 20-20-20 or something close. Make sure whatever brand of fertilizer you choose, get one that's urea free. Epiphytes have a difficult time breaking down and absorbing urea based salts. This causes root burn and/or leaf tip burn.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Oh, and Physan 20 is a fungicide/bactericide not an insecticide.

Never use Physan 20 on any terrestrial orchids, just to be safe. Most terrestrial orchids have a symbiotic relationship with a specific group of fungi called mycorrhizal fungi. This fungi provides the plant with more efficient and effective ways of collecting nutrients from the soil the orchid grows in. Usually the mycorrhiza are found on the roots of a plant. The relationship between fungi and orchid is rather complex. There are sites out there that talk about this if you're interested in looking into this.

[ericst11]

thax for the advice i think i got the scale from having the orchids out doors last summer and have been battleing them by rubbing them down with deluted rubbing alchole. and the physan just to take procausen . what do you think of a 4x8 flood table hand watered with a 400sodium and tow 4ft florecents or do you think i need more light . i'll send picture later to day. maybe you could give me more advice. thax.

[ericst11]

some pics

[quiltergal]

No pics.

I would treat your affected plants with Bonide Systemic granules. I've been using it on a plant I received from a vendor covered in scale. Follow the directions and redose when recommended and you will not only get it under control but eliminated. I don't mess around with scale. It's just too hard to get rid of unless you bring out the big guns. Definitely isolate the infested plants from the rest of your collection.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Your pics didn't post. Go and click on the "Go Advanced" button. It'll bring up a different page for you to type your responses. Underneath there is a section for you to load your pics. There are prompts that tell you if the pics are loaded or not. Resize the JPEGs if you have to.

Anyways...the flow bench is fine.

The lights depend on what you're trying to grow. Standard flourescents are not the best, I recommend Power Compact Flourescents. PCFs create a higher output of light in the same amount of wattage it takes to light a standard flourescent. PCFs come in different Kelvin ratings that determine what the wavelength of the light will be. 5500 Kelvin or 5700 K is a good rating for immitating sunlight. Kelvin ratings higher than this doesn't produce the correct wavelengths needed for terrestrial plant growth. Although it may be relatively a bit more expensive to set up and replace old bulbs, it's well worth it in the money it save in electricity and how much better it'll grow your plants. The standard length of a PCF may not come in 4 ft, usually the longest I know of are 2 feet, although I would check. Hardware stores sell PCFs as do many retail aquarium stores.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

What kinds of orchids are you growing?

Where are you located (that would help with advice on culturing your plants)?

I don't understand what you mean by "...hand water with a 400sodium...". I recommend using RO/DI water (reverse osmosis/distilled water). If you don't already own one, hardware stores sell RO/DI filtration systems and replacement filter cartridges. Some orchids will not tolerate a dissolved salt/mineral content above 0.8 ppm (parts per million).

[ericst11]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

these are a picture of where i grow my orchids

[ericst11]

I grow stanhopeas bulbo's and a assortment of species and the light is a 400 watt hps