Soaking Cork-Mounted Orchid with Dilute K-Lite

[galguibra]

Back again with another mount question! Since getting a tall/narrow enough collapsible bucket that'll fit my C. intermedia's cork mount without needing a crazy excess of my distilled water, I've recently started soaking it every ~1-2 days, depending on how dry it's looking and how patient I'm feeling. I also still mist it every day since it always dries out at least once even with a soak, and the orchid seems to have appreciated the increase in watering.

Initially, I was only ever soaking in distilled water and then misting with dilute ~25ppm N fertilizer a few times a day as needed, because I didn't have any fertilizer with a reasonable nutrient ratio for orchids and didn't have the time to be mixing it up fresh from components every day. Making a concentrate and diluting it to use in the spray bottle just made a lot more sense.

Recently, though, I decided to try out using K-lite—both for the lower phosphorous/potassium and the convenience of being one-part—and I was curious to know if it would make sense to add it to the soaks, or if I should stick to distilled water and only fertilize when I mist, especially since I have to water the mount multiple times a day.

I have a milligram scale at home, so I figured I could just fill the bucket up with 3L of distilled water and add 600mg of the K-Lite to hit that 25ppm N target. Would it be too much fertilizer to be both soaking and misting with nutrients on a regular basis at that concentration? Obviously the length of the soaks (what would you suggest: maybe 30min?), how long it takes for the solution to evaporate afterward (not much, unfortunately), etc would all affect how much is actually absorbed, but I mostly just wanted a sanity check on the frequency/duration/concentration.

I was also wondering about the pH of K-Lite in distilled water at those kinds of low concentrations, since I'd rather not have to use pH Up and add a bunch more potassium/alkalinity. If anyone who's used it has any thoughts about deciding to pH it or not, I'd really appreciate that too!

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[Ray]

I would more likely soak in the K-Lite solution and mist with pure water.

Don’t worry about the pH of the liquid; it’s not important. At 25 ppm N, the true TDS will be only about 190-200 ppm, which is nothing that would be damaging to the plant. Plus, the more dilute the solution, the closer the pH will be to that of the water.

[galguibra]

Originally Posted by Ray

I would more likely soak in the K-Lite solution and mist with pure water.

Don’t worry about the pH of the liquid; it’s not important. At 25 ppm N, the true TDS will be only about 190-200 ppm, which is nothing that would be damaging to the plant. Plus, the more dilute the solution, the closer the pH will be to that of the water.

That makes sense, thanks! How long of a soak would you recommend, though, and does temperature matter outside of being not actively cold or scalding hot? I could pretty easily warm some of the distilled water up to ~80-90°F in my electric kettle before mixing it with the K-Lite. That I mostly ask for my C. aclandiae since those like it warmer, although I figured warm soaks in general might help stimulate growth so long as the orchid isn't cool-growing.

[Dimples]

I’ve always used the rule of thumb: (outside of individual species exceptions) if you would wash a baby’s hands in the water, it’s a safe temperature for plants.

[Ray]

Soak until the velamen is all saturated - probably 15 minutes, max.

I have often wondered just how fast nutrient ions are absorbed and moved into the plant, and whether a long soak is appreciably better. I recently read a study that showed that, after a single paint brush application to roots, the tagged nitrogen isotope showed the most “penetration” into the other parts of the plant between 4 and 8 weeks after the application.

That suggests that saturating the velamen is the important step, as that provides the “charge” that begins moving into the plant, but that, once it enters the vasculum, it takes a long time to get distributed.