Several First Rays Announcements

[Ray]

► While we have been a registered nursery for almost 20 years, First Rays is proud to announce that we are now approved and licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to produce our own fertilizers and soil & plant amendments (like stimulants), making us unique in the arena of orchid supplies vendors.

► If you have read the "What do Orchids Eat?" article by Rick Lockwood in the March AOS Orchids magazine, you can buy the K-Lite fertilizer from us, as we are the sole distributor. K-Lite is formulated to closely match the chemistry of rainfall cascading from the forest canopy where epiphytes originate.

► With our recent licensing, mentioned above, we have registered two fertilizer/growth stimulant products, now also approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture:

• SOLO, our proprietary blend of MSU fertilizer and KelpMax plant growth stimulant for general use, and a new version,
• SOLO-e, based upon the K-Lite fertilizer formula and designed specifically for epiphytes.

Both versions of SOLO will be available shortly, as soon as they can be packaged and labeled.

[WhiteRabbit]

Cool deal!

[isurus79]

Congrats! Good to see your hard work is paying off. What kind of a time frame do you expect the packaging and labeling to take? I'll be ordering some fertilizer in the next few weeks from you.

[bballr4567]

Very nice! I need some klite so ill be ordering soon.

[Ray]

Steve, I'm hoping that they will be available by a week from Monday - the 11th.

[Pilot]

Yeeeeah!!! Glad you guys are beefing things up !!! Love your products.

[Brooke]

Ray don't you also have to have approval from the Federal government when selling a combination of fertilizers mixed together? I thought the Feds had to give their stamp of approval for everything.

Brooke

[Ray]

Nope - fortunately.

It's one of those less-than-logical quirks.

Take the SOLO products, for example: by stating on the label that they contain a natural "growth stimulant", it's a "plant amendment" falling under state responsibility. Had I claimed that the kelp extract contained auxins and cytokinins - hormones, that are "plant growth regulators" - then it falls under FIFRA, mandating EPA registration of the firm and product.

[zxyqu]

Ray, that sounds great. I was just reading the AOS article and immediately thought of the K-lite before I even got to it. Probably need to get some more sometime soon. Looking forward to more science based orchid information.

[Brooke]

I thought anything going into the ground water had to be regulated by someone drawing a salary from Big Brother?

Brooke