Hormone Rooting solutions

[Izzie]

Great choices in the L tenebrosa and the two Phals, and the C intermedia!

Here's hoping they all do well for you. I've switched to liquid kelp as a rooting hormone after ruining too many spikes with SuperThrive. We're 'rooting' for you!

[Call_Me_Bob]

how do you ruin a spike with superthrive?

[Izzie]

Originally Posted by help

how do you ruin a spike with superthrive?

Using superthrive can occasionally cause flowers to be malformed or crinkled, and fade quickly, especially with higher doses. Doesn't happen to everybody- but I've learned the hard way to cut off the ST as soon as a spike starts.

Liquid kelp is very safe- I've seen people accidentally use it full strength with no bad affects. Some say it works better than KLN or ST.

[Call_Me_Bob]

where do you get this liquid kelp?

[britbloke]

I originally posted hoping someone had some first hand experience trying to stimulate roots with rooting hormones. Here's my very limited experience so far:-
As I said earlier, I painted the base of seedling leaves/psuedobulbs with Oliveria's Cloning solution. Two weeks later I have two, three or four new root starts on each plant and some mounts where the growing tip of the root was not activily growing I'm seeing new green growing tips.
Since I'm about to start a trial potting in Lava-rock/spagnum, it occurred to me that it might be a good practice to paint the base of plants a few weeks before re-potting (especially, if going to a different medium) so that new roots are starting ready to adjust to the conditions of their new medium.
I'm only speculating, so if there's any thoughts out there, I would love the input.
I'm sure this has been asked thousands of times, how do I post pictures here?

[Call_Me_Bob]

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...chidboard.html

this should help

[britbloke]

Hopefully, I managed to upload a couple of seedlings showing the root starts from using Cloning soln.

[Call_Me_Bob]

whats it called again? i might try this. do you think it would work on adults? they look pretty big

[britbloke]

I've been using Olivia's Cloning Solution, which I bought 1 qrt of years ago on the internet. The container suggests 1tsp/gal as a soak and watering solution. I can't find anything on the container that suggests it's got anything more than very low amounts of NPK, but I guess that's not unusually with these solutions. I bought it, because I had had excellent results using it's sister product called Olivia's Rooting Gel (a direct replacement for rooting powder) on cuttings.
I see no reason it wouldn't work on adult plants, my guess is if it doesn't hurt seedlings it won't hurt larger plants. One of the photographs (the small mount) is a NBS Aerangis luteo-alba according to the source, yep I know it's tiny...

[Call_Me_Bob]

they dont actually look that small. so thats a good thing! ill google that hormone thing