Using rain water

[Wild Orchid]

Originally Posted by goodgollymissmolly

Having been burned repeatedly by attempting to reason with those on the internet who deny science and apparently lack even a minor dose of common sense, I am intimidated by trying again, but here goes.

Suggesting that rain water harbors pathogens harmful to plants (and especially viruses) ignores the rational fact that plants grow in the wild and always (100% of the time) get their water from rainwater or its aged residue in ponds, rivers, lakes, etc. Have we become so civilized that we believe plants originated in greenhouses, window sills and in basements under lights?

I've posted a link at the bottom regarding this and it is substantiated by other studies like the recent article in the International Phalaenopsis magazine. Bottom line...orchids in the wild are not infested with viruses which eliminates rain water and its derivatives as a culprit in virus transmission. Bacterial and fungal infections do not occur from rain water either. However the foliage wet with rainwater might allow those naturally occurring pathogens to infest the plant. Can you blame the rain water for that?

Cultivated orchids and other cultivated plants do have viruses. So who is to blame? Obviously man is the transmission source. Some blame dirty tools but I have never seen a tool flying around my greenhouse on its own. My tools at least only are propelled into action by me.

I realize that I infuriate the internet population when I say it is the biggest source of misinformation and constantly repeated misinformation ever conceived by mankind, but it is. If you want to actually learn something buy a book which is almost always peer reviewed before publication. Anybody can put anything on the internet, most of it totally garbage.

http://www.apsnet.org/publications/P...80n10_1160.pdf

Common sense also tells us that cultivated orchids would not thrive being replanted in a wild and being exposed to all the elements. My 2

[goodgollymissmolly]

Originally Posted by rlilia

Common sense also tells us that cultivated orchids would not thrive being replanted in a wild and being exposed to all the elements. My 2

I guess I don't see how that relates to the subject here, but since you said it there are people artificially propagating species expressly for possible replacement in the wild. hopefully they are being very careful about viruses.

In the case of hybrids I guess some could make it and others not. Who knows?

Anyway that isn't the subject matter here.

[james mickelso]

I simply stated fact. Viruses are long lived in the wild. I should say plant viruses, but even human borne viruses can be. Bacteria and fungus are indemic in this world and rain simply washes these out of the air. And I said I would use it in a heartbeat and if it rained here enough to wet anything I would collect it but alas it is a desert here. Viruses, bacteria, and fungus are not always orchid specific and caN INFECT MULTIPLE PLANT SPECIES. I've been reading science for far to long to be swayed. That's not to say rain water is bad,. Again I would use it and did so for many many years growing bonsai. At that time I simply laid a large plastic tarp across the yard and collected it at one corner. Usually if it rained for the day I could collect 3 or 4 trash cans full. I then tightly sealed them with plastic and duct tape. But within a couple weeks whatever was left was unusable except to water the grass. The organic sludge and algae/fungus was too much to chance watering 50 yr old trees. And there were even critters in the stuff. Try it sometime. Or get a petri dish with agar and wave it around in the air for a minute or two and then cultivate for a week. Case closed.

[Ordphien]

Can someone explain this complete fertilizer thing to me.
I use RODI water with my orchids since the water here is exceedingly hard.
And am now afraid of killing it.
Could someone please get into detail.

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[DavidCampen]

For RO water you need a nutrient that supplies calcium, magnesium and trace elements in addition to the standard N-P-K. Something like this:
Dyna-Gro. Orchid Pro 7-8-6, 8 oz. liquid concentrate fertilizer
or this:
Grow 7-9-5

Before I started formulating my own nutrient mixtures I used the Orchid-Pro.

[goodgollymissmolly]

You are right James. You need to be using treated water so you don't have to worry about the crazy killers on the loose in nature. The microbes are out to get you and they eventually will. Don't worry about the chlorine or chloramines in the treated water put there specifically to kill those little buggers. I think you would be best satisfied with city water.

And Al you need to get out more. You imply the tropics is some mono climate with heavy rains every day. Actually the tropics (technically the earth area between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn at approximately +/- 23.5 degrees latitude) are extremely diverse. They include rain forests (where rain is largely monsoonal and seasonal), extremely high mountains (such as within 10 degrees of the equator in Peru), over half the Sahara Desert, much of Australia's extremely hot and dry interior, and vast grasslands in Africa and South America. The tropics are lots of things, not some singular climate as you imply.

And trees in cities are not draining down death on things under them. That's scary bizarre. Having lived my whole life in rural areas I have never seen or heard a first hand story of a raccoon on a roof. I'm sure it's happened, but a fear of runoff containing raccoon poo is not a rational concern. What do think runoff from the rain forest canopy contains. Most of the animals in the forest live in the canopy ...think maybe they poop and when it rains the poop washes down to nourish plant life. Is that a possibility?

Your false and hysterical environmental ideas are actually bad for recruiting people to environmental causes because they see this silly stuff and don't want to be associated with it. Let's see about your concerns with asphalt shingles. Tens of millions of houses in the US have been built and re-roofed in the 20th century with asphalt shingles. The average life expectancy at birth for humans in the same period has increased by 30 years. This hardly supports a position that chemical crum (as you call it) has poisoned the water.

All that said, I thank you both for your contributions to this thread because it proves what I said about internet information at the beginning.

[Ordphien]

Originally Posted by DavidCampen

For RO water you need a nutrient that supplies calcium, magnesium and trace elements in addition to the standard N-P-K. Something like this:
Dyna-Gro. Orchid Pro 7-8-6, 8 oz. liquid concentrate fertilizer
or this:
Grow 7-9-5

Before I started formulating my own nutrient mixtures I used the Orchid-Pro.

Oh dear... my fertilizers are certainly missing something...
I do water once a month with a half solution of my tap water and RODI water.
Is this beneficial?
If not I'm on the hunt for more fertilizer.. and I spent so long finding one that was urea free.

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[Ordphien]

How long would it take before an orchid showed ill effects from using the wrong fertiliser with RODI water?

[goodgollymissmolly]

Ordphien,

I'm not sure where your post expressing your opinion on my postings went, but I saw it once. I have absolutely no problem with what you said. You expressed the opinion that my posts were too severe (my words) for your taste. That is a perfectly acceptable point of view which I have no argument.

To clarify...you expressed an opinion on a matter of opinion. To use that too often utilized expression, "Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but no one has a right to their own facts". You rightfully expressed an opinion.

The difference between what you said and some other things here is that some people made up false facts. I've said enough about them and I'm not going to say more. However, in my opinion, it is not the correction of false information that makes someone a bad guy. It is the posting of nonsense as fact that is the wrong thing to do.

So if someone looks bad because they posted nonsense it is their fault for posting nonsense. They are the bad guy, not the person who made a valid correction. That just MHO.

[ALToronto]

Yove never seen a raccoon on a roof? I guess you've never been to a Canadian city - or else you've never looked up. And that's a big problem for rainwater collectors - raccoons are the only meat-eaters, in the cities or the wild, who poop above the ground. Profusely, I might add - their diet consists of a never-ending supply of waste food from compost bins. And Toronto accepts meat waste in its composting program, so they've developed quite a taste for spoiled hot dogs.

Sure, rainforest rain contains traces of poop from the canopy - but it's poop of vegetarians and insect eaters, birds, bats and lizards, perfectly safe to use as fertilizer. Dilute raccoon poo will kill dandelions.

And don't underestimate degradation of asphalt shingles - maybe I notice it more because my business is in the construction industry. The reason they have a limited lifespan is because the asphalt tar which holds the stone pebbles together slowly evaporates and washes out with rain, and then guess where it ends up. Metal and concrete shingles have an unlimited lifespan, and if your roof is covered with either, and you don't have brazen raccoons in your area who can climb a vertical brick or stucco wall, I hope that you collect rainwater for your orchids.

As for tree leaves, they certainly contain molds - my husband cannot bag leaves in the fall because he's so allergic to them. And yes, city trees do get viruses - ever heard of Dutch Elm Disease? It wiped out all the elm trees in Toronto back in the 1960s - 1970s. Less virulent pathogens attack from time to time, and Toronto residents get alerts about them from the city.

Everything I wrote is from my own personal experience. It's different from your experience, but that doesn't make it invalid.