Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Orchid
I have to respectfully disagree. I've been using seaweed solution with every watering on my Phals for over a year now and have not observed any of the above abnormalities.
On the contrary, I was able to save and reestablish many of rather hopelessly looking Phals.
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It's great if you do not experience any unforeseen effects from seaweed. I suppose it can vary from plant to plant and grower to grower, and most definitely to what brand of seaweed extract that is being used.
In my greenhouse, the effects on the orchids have been mainly basal keikis on the phals. And lots of them. I have several phals with 3-4 crowns now, and I have only one that has flower issues and I suppose that could be from something else.
But I want to elaborate a bit on why I'm saying it's important to stick to the directions and dosages, and that takes me out of my little hobby greenhouse and onto the field or the nethouse where I spend most of my time.
We're commercial vegetable producers and use Kelpak on our seedlings and also to some extent on the crops on the field. We've been using it for years, but it was only last year that we decided to try to use it a bit more often on our seedlings.
It was actually Ray Barkalow in a thread somewhere here on OB that made me realize that the use of seaweed could be the reason for some of our seedling issues.
And when the representative of Kelpak in South Africa recently visited the farm, he confirmed my suspicion. He also confirmed that the seaweed extract could be the reason for the multiple basal keikis on the phalaenopsis.
I hope I'm getting this fairly right...
One of the things important to notice regarding seaweed extract is the auxins:cytokinins ratio. And for our purposes, we prefer a lot of auxins and less cytokinins.
Auxins encourage root growth and activate or trigger the production of the natural cytokinins that exists in the plants.
Cytokinins also help with root formation, but is more important for the leaf formation and whatever is happening over the ground.
An overdose of auxins (and it's pretty easy to overdose with Kelpak because it contains a lot of auxins compared to cytokinins) can halter or stop root growth because the signals the plant receives from the roots encourage it to grow foliage instead as a result of the increased cytokinins production in the system. So an overdose might re-direct the plant's energy from making roots that naturally will support foliar growth to leaf growth limited root development.
In the short run, you get amazing looking plants with very healthy foliage. In the long-run you might be making a plant that is...unbalanced because it makes too much leaves and not enough roots to support the greenery.
In our greenhouse where we're producing our vegetables seedlings, our seedlings looked amazing over the ground, but had very disappointing root balls. They in fact had so bad roots,we could not pull them out of the styrofoam seed tray without pushing from the bottom. This is sort of a measure for a producer and a good indication of the strength of the roots of the plant. They looked great, but in fact they were not strong seedlings.
The problem is, it starts off looking great! The roots are growing, the leaves are nice. All seems to be on track until the plant reaches some kind of critical threshold.
The Kelpak representative immediately gave his own product a large part of the blame for our fantastic looking seedlings with pathetic roots, and told us to reduce the application and not be tempted to add more than the suggested dosage on the bottle or to apply it more often than once every ten days. When the producer themselves tell you to hold back and reduce your consumption of something they're selling, you know there is a good reason for it.
After adjusting our seaweed usage on the seedlings, the root growth is perfect. Our seedlings develop nice, healthy root balls that can be easily pulled out of the seed trays. The foliage on the other hand, does not look so amazing anymore. It's fine, but they're not as happy looking as they were when we overdosed them on seaweed. What is important to us as producers though, is that they're healthier plants that cope better with transplant shock and that they are more resilient, and that have the necessary roots to support their foliage and grow good crops.
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