Question about additive to fertilizer

[William]

I was at a local show yesterday and I heard something about a new thing called Inoculaid. I guess you add it to your plants and its sort of a wonder food. Anyone heard of or has anyone used this?

[Ray]

Never heard of it, but you can lok at this: Inoculaid.com - Welcome

I will have to state, however, that I have found that if you are doing a decent job of growing your plants to start with, additives are of little help, and if there is a shortfall in your culture, they only help for a short period of time.

[William]

Thanks for the info Ray. It was told to me by a seller at the show. Her orchids were great and she mentioned that the more plants she had with the most blooms, the more she sold. It made sense but as you say, it may be a short lived fix. Anyhow, I was just wondering.

[Ray]

It (almost) never hurts to try something new!

[Andrew]

I'll preface my response by saying that I'm very much open to the benefits of microbial inoculants. I haven't used that product but I've used fungal inoculants containing Trichoderma and Glomus species before but not on orchids. Both work well and the plants do seem to grow better and seem less inclined to get disease (Trichoderma is particularly good). One gripe about the website that Ray posted; I can't find anywhere that states what is in it. Not all microbes work with all plants so as they don't specify what is in Inoculaid it's hard to make judgements on the expected benefits.

If you are going to try it be aware that microbes can be very sensitive to phosphorus. You may find that any benefits of adding microbes to your media is negated when you kill them off with a high does of phosphorous from a blooming fertiliser. I'd be inclined to recommend using a low P organic fertiliser but who knows if what is in Innoculaid will actively break it down to a usable form?

[PitcherASAMD]

Hey Andrew,
I took looked up this product online and found in one of their PDF documents alot more information about the product. They say it contains no nitrogen, phosphorous or potassium. So that's good. I could have sworn I found in the literature where it gave two microorganisms that were in the product but of course now I can't find it! It says that the microbacteria convert the sun into sugars that the plant can use but I would be concerned b/c too much "sugar" could promote growth of bacteria and such right? Kinda like with Diabetes where the excess sugar in a diabetics body puts them at a much greater risk for infections. Just a thought anyway.
Katie

[Ray]

Sugars are relatively large molecules - too large to pass through the roots' cell walls, so i don't see how them being present external to the plant is a benefit.

If, on the other hand, they are trying to say that the microorganisms do such conversion inside of the plant there might be a benefit, but isn't that what photosynthesis is all about?