adding calcium

[vjo]

I never even thought about calcium being in bird poop.

[My Green Pets]

My Vandas do get an occasional bird poo on them while hanging under trees for the summer.

But it is rather hit-or-miss.

Ha ha! Get it? Lol.

[orchidsarefun]

I'm supplementing my outdoor orchids with a scoop of denatured chicken poop every 2-3 months.....always a hit ( get it ? ) and the plants love it. No hit or miss, more of a surgical strike.

[tucker85]

[QUOTE=CambriaWhat;765738]Where would an orchid growing in the tree tops find a source of calcium?[/QUOTE

I wondered the same thing. I've done a lot of research on calcium and one bit of information I turned up is that the bark of living trees is loaded with calcium oxalate. Also reading the Bakers culture sheets I noticed that over and over he mentions orchids growing on limestone cliffs or on limestone outcroppings along rivers or on trees growing in areas high in limestone.

---------- Post added at 07:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

Here's a link to an interesting article on calcium deficiency in orchid growing.
http://staugorchidsociety.org/PDF/20...ps-Calcium.pdf

[katrina]

I have also read of theories where orchid roots are absorbing calcium and other nutrients from the bark. Not like a parasite but rather from moisture causing it to leach from the bark when it's wet for extended periods.

I know there has been research done on this w/ferns in the NW and I've read where some theorize the same could be happening w/orchids in their native habitats.

[euplusia]

Originally Posted by CambriaWhat

Where would an orchid growing in the tree tops find a source of calcium?

I think of this question in a greater concept: How did all the nutrients enter the nutrient circle, which feeds the tropical rainforests. Especially the rainforests in the Amazon bassin stand on very poor soil and have nevertheless enormously expanded within the last 30 000 years.
Clearly the nourishment was inputted by the atmoshere. Sources are the earth and space.
Most important is Sahara dust, blown by the wind during and after the ice age. Also ashes from volcanic eruptions and nitrogen from lightnings must be mentioned..
From the space we receive a fallout originating from meteorites (dirty snowballs), asteroids (nickel-iron) and supernovae explosions.
It takes a complex system of microbiological life forms called biological crusts to make the imput available for higher plants, epiphytes and animals.

For us orchid growers I stick with the advice from a friend: Do not try to copy nature, just give the plants what they need.

[Ray]

For us orchid growers I stick with the advice from a friend: Do not try to copy nature, just give the plants what they need.

...and the best way to do that is to copy nature. Maybe not 100% - commercial fertilizer being a LOT easier to obtain and apply than nutrients exuded by trees, bird droppings, wind-blown sources, etc. - but the frequent application of pure water containing only a small amount of nutrition is what they have evolved to expect, so logically, should be the best for them.

And even with that, I am not saying to feed 15 ppm TDS several times a day, nor am I saying that feeding stronger concentrations, less-frequently will harm them, but the closer we can reasonably get to the conditions they experience in nature (during the "good times", ignoring droughts and cyclones) the better the plants will grow.