Quote:
Originally Posted by rbarata
Those are old leaves dying, I think.
I fertilize them full dose in every watering with Rain Mix so I don't think there's a K deficiency.
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I've been using Rainmix for the past 8 months. I've come to the conclusion it is not as good as my previous fertilizer.
Long term my cymbs would end up developing brown leaves. Even my fern developed yellow leaf tips.
I have fed that 2 bloom feeds and because ferns are fast growing that has shown the fastest results but my cymbidium has stopped yellowing. It's still too early to tell if it will green up again but nothing is declining and it's winter so it's a bad time to make good observations.
Admittedly on Rainmix alone there was hardly a problem, once I fed just a little bit more Phosphorous for a month did the plants start showing a serious potassium deficiency which I'm in the process of correcting.
I don't think you have anything to lose by trying it one year rbarata, you too for that matter Roberta.
But at the same time I think we have confused Girl_with an_orchid. dying leaf tips can also be fertilzing too much.
To clarify Rainmix is a low bloom formulation so when I talk about using a bloom booster it essentially turns a low bloom formulation into a balanced feed (low bloom + high bloom = balanced)
Most growers use a balanced feed, you can't go wrong with that. Occasionally you might want to add some bloom feed but generally with a balanced feed like 20-20-20 there is no need. It is formulated to have enough of all macronutrients for all year growing.
Some feeds are specially formulated but I am saying they cannot be used by themselves all year long. That's just from my observations. Lots of people are happy using Rainmix as it is. I am not most people. I actively compare and like I said Rainmix is not my first fertilizer. I think it is a great fertilizer to use for most of the year, I've been really impressed with root growth, it's just in autumn something was lacking and by winter by experimenting with different ratio's I created a severe potassium deficiency here myself.
I can show some pictures but rbarata's is arguably the best potassium deficiency example caused by only using Rainmix I have seen.
You can up the strength of the mix as much as you want, if you do not adjust the NPK ratio then the plant will always absorb the same ratio of nutrients but it needs a slightly different ratio at times.
The way I look at nutrients is like fish in a pond.
You have the macrofish. And the microfish. The pond will always be filled with lots of fish, far more than you could fish in a day. If there are an equal amount of Nitrogen fish to Potasium Fish to Phosphorous Fish then every day on average you will end up fishing an equal amount of NPK fish.
Now if you double the fish in the pond what will happen? You will maybe catch a fish or two more in a day but you will still on average catch an equal amount of N to P to K .
Now lets say one day you really fancy lots of K fish and have had enough of N fish, the only way that would happen is if you only add more K fish to the pond.
Now if you fish you will get more k fish on average.
That is why just doubling your nutrient concentration (with Rainmix anyway!) will not work.
If the plant wants more K, you have to reduce the N and P fish or increase the K fish in the pond. Usually there's always plenty of fish in the pond and doubling the fish will increase the catch by a little but it will not change the ratio of fish you are catching so if during blooming the plant want more k fish for a month but doubling the whole amount of fish in the pond will not solve that problem.
Ps: whether one sees Nutrients as vitamins or food is to me irrelevant. I see water, light, air and nutrients all as food. Without any of them the plant dies.
It's irrelevant if you stick it in a dark cupboard or if you water it plain RO water for a few months, the orchid will not survive. So you can argue about light being more important than nutrients and put it all into a hierarchy but at the end of the day if you provide light but 0 nutrients the orchids die. That's all there is to know whether you consider it essential food or essential vitamins. They are essential. That is why they are called as such whereas cobalt is a non essential nutrient.
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