Using K-lite (or any orchid fertilizer) on Tillandsia
 

So I made some frames of wood and mesh and I am going to hang some of my tillys on them to be able to enjoy them a bit more then huge bottlebrush tree in the yard where they flourish

I realized that in cultivation people soak them which I’ll not do. I’ll hang them somewhere they get rain but without the tree runoff I fear they will be hungry

Can I spray them with my same orchid fert? I don’t know about them mechanically with their trichomes and roots for only holding...

Thanks in advance!!

There's someone on Off Topic thread who grows TONS of Tillies. Might wanna check through his/her thread...

Avoid dyed fertilizer and avoid copper. Most bromeliads are very intolerant of copper. Pineapples are an exception.

i have been ruthlessly hijacking kg5's thread and i felt bad, but you are right....they are very well informed and always DO answer me :biggrin:

thanks E.S.- i will look at the contents of the fert to see if there is any copper

---------- Post added at 12:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 AM ----------

copper is .038% so i will stay away from that and just use rainwater until i find something suitable for tillys


thanks for that heads up E.S.

FWIW, I use low-dose K-Lite on my "Epiphyte Tree" and the tillies are doing fine.

I've been told dust in the air provides most minerals to them, and nitrogen can be a limiting factor. There have been special fertilizer formulations sold for bromeliads but I don't know of any now.

I've used ammonium sulfate solution, about a teaspoon / 5ml of granules per gallon / 3.78 liters, on Tillandsias at my mother's house. I fertilize them when I visit, 6-8 times a year (until March of this year.) It made a noticeable difference when I began doing this. I don't have any here because our summer nights are usually too hot for them. More than 1-2 nights above 85 degrees F / 30C and they suffocate and die.

I'm sending an inquiry to Tropiflora about what they use for their bromeliads. I'll report back.

many many thanks!

Just an editorial comment here - I think that "copper toxicity" is a matter of concentration with anything.

I certainly wouldn't spray them with a copper-based fungicide, but I suspect the amount in most fertilizers is of no consequence.

For example, Phyton 27 is 5.4% copper and is applied at 1-2 teaspoons/gallon. At the lower concentration, that means you're applying a solution that is 0.007% Cu.

K-Lite contains 0.038% Cu and for 100 ppm N, is used at about 2/3 tsp/gal, resulting in a solution that contains 0.00003% Cu, some 213x less.

Sweet. Thanks Ray.

I am pretty sure I have sprayed them with my Klite mix in the past too but I was mostly trying to get educated about their feeding needs

If ES finds a great product from them, amazing, otherwise I’ll just use half strength Klite

In the USA there is a Tillandsia fertiliser called Epiphyites Delight. Do not seem to be able to buy it from Australia. It is the only non urea fert that I can find.

Fertilization: A mist every week with Epiphyites Delight or Epsom salts during the growing season will help the plant.


The info below comes from "A resource by Lloyd Godman"

( Epiphyte’s Delight fertilizer was developed for a special reason. Nitrogen promotes foliar growth. If you have Tillandsias, Orchids, or other epiphytes and you feed them, take a look at the nitrogen content. If it’s high in urea, the plants can’t use it because the urea needs a bacteria in soil to break it down into ammonia and nitrates. Since the epiphytes don’t have any soil they can’t break down the urea. It was for this reason that we had Epiphyte’s Delight formulated. It contains only ammoniacal and nitrate nitrogen which is immediately accessible and usable by the plants.)

The thing about urea may be wrong. It has been discovered many plants, including at least some orchids, are able to take up and use nitrogen in the form of urea. I don't know about bromeliads.

Bromeliads have a root system but the very most of Tillandsia do not so the urea is being wasted. Urea does not seem to hurt Tillandsia in my limited experience.

Using a fertiliser called HSO-22 orchid food. N22.2 P8 K12. Urea 14% and other nitrogen that Tillandsia can use is 7.6% For Tillandsia am using this fert at 1/4 strength per 1 to 2 weeks & 4-6 weeks in the colder months. It is the best fert I can find in Australia. Use another fert for our Staghorns as they have root system that make food. So urea will work for them.

Using K-Lite on your Tillies should be fine (especially at half strength). I believe Ray hit it on the nail head - "I think that copper toxicity is a matter of concentration with anything".

Quite a few tilly growers use 2 popular commercial fertilizers: Epiphyte's Delight (Paul Isley: Rainforest Flora, Inc.) and Grow More Bromeliad (Tillandsia) fertilizer.

Guaranteed analysis on Epiphyte's Delight (17-9-26)
5.5% ammoniacal nitrogen
11.5% nitrate nitrogen
9% P205
26%K2O
boron .02%
copper .05%
iron .10%
manganese .05%
molybdenum .0005%
zinc .05%

Guaranteed analysis on Grow More (17-8-22)
6.4% ammoniacal nitrogen
10.5% nitrate nitrogen
.10% water insoluble organic nitrogen
P205 8%
K20 22%
iron .10%
manganese .05%
zinc .05%
*does not list copper (although the copper content could be so low they did not list it).

I make a DIY fertilizer using a blend of synthetic salts for macro nutrients, along with a blend of micro nutrients/trace elements, for my Tillandsia. This allows me to have the ability for tailoring a specific formula, and to isolate specific individual nutrients. The macro ratio (N-P-K) is around 15-7-24. Micro nutrients/trace elements also include copper (about .1% Cu). My formula is heavy on the potassium, which through my experience, has been a positive with my growing conditions.

Late note: an interesting read ‘And then there were three’: highly efficient uptake of potassium by foliar trichomes of epiphytic bromeliads

Wow. Great info guys. Thanks! Off to read that article

UREA It's all a matter of degree. Plants can directly take up nitrogen as nitrates, ammoniums or urea. In orchids, root uptake favors the first two over urea, while the converse is true for foliar uptake.

Immature orchids take up foliar urea faster than more mature plants, as a waxy cutex gets thicker with time, slowering water loss and uptake.

Copper in Gro-More Not being listed could be due to 1) there is none, 2) its concentration is extremely low, or 3) they don't guarantee the content.

In plant products like fertilizers and additives, you usually are not required to state what's in it, you are only required to state what you guarantee (and test for) is in it, which can have a significant impact on registration status.

Good to know, Ray
So it not being listed is not guarantee about it NOT being included

Nice thread DC. A lot of good info coming out with copper, the nitrogens & K-lite


Hi estación seca. Very interesting

Very interested estación seca about the info on urea. Did it come as a written message or was it a verbal message?

Would really like a link if it was a written message. Maybe I am stressing over nothing concerning urea?


Hi wisdomseeker. Thank you for the info.

Grow More Bromeliad (Tillandsia) fertilizer. Looks like I can not buy it in Australia. But I will keep looking.


Hi Ray. Thank you for your info! Especially about copper amount can be so small in a fert or fungicide spray it is really nothing to worry about.

You can find air plant fertilizers on Amazon. I got a spray bottle of it (17-9-22) with a gift someone gave me.

I can't remember where I read that about urea. It was long ago. Even farther back, the first time I read orchids could not utilize urea, I didn't believe it. Urea is a tiny, relatively unstable molecule and plants have amazing chemical synthesis / degradation mechanisms.

Their adaptability never does cease to amaze me.

This is a 12-year old study, and not a particularly good one from what I recall, but it does prove Phalaenopsis can absorb urea through roots.

As I said earlier, it's a matter of degree. Humans can absorb moisture through the skin, too, but it won't slake your thirst like taking a drink!

oh cmon, Ray, you know you love that hot sauna feel over a cold drink any day!!

lol

NO thanks...and those people who have the mister setups on the patio...you are just getting wet folks

Pamela Koide Hyatt owns Bird Rock Tropicals, a specialty bromeliad nursery in Encinitas, California, on the coast just north of San Diego. She hybridizes Tillandsias. She leads ecotours to see bromeliads in habitat. She uses a custom fertilizer formulation for bromeliads, prepared for her by Total Gro, telephone in US 800-433-3055:

Attachment 145942

20-10-20
(No Dye, No Boron, No Copper & No Zn)
TOTAL NITROGEN...............................20%
12.0% Nitrate Nitrogen
8.0% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
AVAILABLE PHOSPHORIC ACID (P2O3)....10%
WATER SOLUBLE POTASH (K2O)............20%
IRON (Fe).....................................0.100%
0.10% Chelated Iron Fe)
MANGANESE (Mn)...........................0.050%
0.05% Chelated Manganese (Mn)
MOLYBDENUM (Mo).........................0.010%

DERIVED FROM: Ammonium Phosphate, Potassium Nitrate, Ammonium Nitrate, Iron EDTA Chelate, Manganese EDTA Chelate, Boric Acid and Sodium Molybdate.

POTENTIAL ACIDITY: 425 lbs calcium carbonate equivalent per ton. (193kg CaCO2/907kg)

Elecrical Conductivity Readings
EC FACTOR - 166.7
EC(mmhos/cm) x 166.7 = PPM Nitrogen

The back of the package contains table showing dilutions for various settings of various automatic injectors.

Amazing! Have been searching & searching for a no urea based nitrogen fertiliser for my Tillandsia and could not find any. So I tried Bunnings and again no fert with no urea.

So I went to a farm product store we call a produces store here. They are in good farming country.

And guess what it was hard to find a fertiliser that has any urea in it. So I got a choice to pick from a number of differing ferts that suited me and my plants. Have a N11 P1 K7 S16. Will use it as 5g per 15ltrs. Vegtables need 25g to 50g.

What does the sulphur as sulphate at 16% do to my Tillandsia?

Thanks ES! That’s awesome

I don't know. I've used ammonium sulfate on Tillandsias. They grew and flowered.

---------- Post added at 08:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 AM ----------

A 25# bag from her fit exactly into a large fixed price priority mail box.

Had a look at Sulphate and thought that some of it would fit in here nicely.

Supplies of Sulphur (Elemental or Sulphate)
Plants take up sulphur in the sulphate (SO4) form. The sulphate form is water soluble, and being an anion, is readily leachable. The elemental form of sulphur needs to be broken down into the sulphate form before becoming available to the plant.

Below taken from "WikiDiff"

Sulfate is a related term of sulfur.
As nouns the difference between sulfur and sulfate is that sulfur is (uncountable) a chemical element (symbol s) with an atomic number of 16 while sulfate is (organic chemistry) any ester of sulfuric acid.
As verbs the difference between sulfur and sulfate is that sulfur is to treat with sulfur, or a sulfur compound, especially to preserve or to counter agricultural pests while sulfate is (chemistry) to treat something with sulfuric acid, a sulfate, or with sulfur dioxide.

As a adjective sulfur is of a yellowish green colour, like that of sulfur.

From Extoxnet (Extension Toxicology Network)

Copper sulfate is a fungicide used to control bacterial and fungal diseases of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. Some of the diseases that are controlled by this fungicide include mildew, leaf spots, blights and apple scab. It is used in combination with lime and water as a protective fungicide, referred to as Bordeaux mixture, for leaf application and seed treatment. It is also used as an algaecide, an herbicide in irrigation and municipal water treatment systems, and as a molluscicide, a material used to repel and kill slugs and snails. Copper sulfate is a naturally-occurring inorganic salt and copper is an essential trace element in plant and animal nutrition (5, 6, 7, 13, 16). It is available in the following formulations: dusts, wettable powders, and fluid concentrates (17).