kelpak and physan 20 in the eu?
 

I've been looking for kelpak in the eu, as i'm in belgium, even mailed 2 different people who have to do with kelpak: someone to contact about kelpak in the eu and besgrow in the netherlands. no reaction despite others having had success with it. Does anyone know how i can get my hands on kelpak? or an alternative in the eu that's almost or just as good as it?

same thing for physan 20...i'd like to add a fungicide that isn't harmful to orchids to my media once ina good while, but i'm unsure which ones are good and not harmful to orchids in the eu

any tips welcome

Besgrow is probably your best bet for Kelpak - you might try phoning them.

I have no idea about Physan or its equivalent, but I recommend not doing preventive treatments of anything.

Fertilizer | Care & Protect | Accessories | Ecuagenera Europe

Here you can order 250 ml or 1 ltr bottles of Physan 20.

the first time i contacted besgrow it took a couple days to get a reply. then, thru the email i just told them how much i wanted, the guy emailed me back with the cost and bank transfer details. it seems very small business like for such a large company. anyways, best of luck!

makes me think i should order some for this year now tho...hopefully all is good over there at besgrow...

lucky, i still haven't gotten a reply.

orchid fertilization
 

Hello everyone, I am a new member of the orchid family. I agree with you from Turkey. I have some phalaenopsis, my phalaenopsis are not blooming like in russia or holland. I need your help with fertilizer. Is Orchids focus bloom and grow effective? I can find it in Turkey.

it's bettee to post your own thread, i'd say


but phals need a temperature drop for a few weeks to initiate blooming. around autumn, place it in a cooler room (lowest i'd say is...16 degrees c or so. def not below 15) and any balanced fertilider (NPK 10-10-10) should be ok. use half the recommended ampunt in ur water and water every few weeks unless it's blooming.

Select the formula with the highest nitrogen content, as that’s the most important fertilizer ingredient.

Apologies to OrchidNut555, but “half the recommended amount” is a meaningless recommendation, as 1) fertilizer companies’ goal is to sell fertilizer, not to help you grow better plants, and 2) the amount of fertilizer is related to the frequency of application.

If you feed every two weeks (the longest I’d ever go between feedings; more frequently is preferred), divide 18.4 by the %N in the fertilizer (round up or down as needed for ease of measuring) - the result is ml/L to mix for about 200 ppm N. If you feed weekly, use half that.

Do so year round and don’t bother changing formulas, as that really does nothing.

1) i don't care about the company's goal, i care about taking care of my plants
2) plenty of people do it this way and have amazingmy good growing and blossoming plants.

what i've been noticing on orchidboard is a sheer intolerance to a different approach and it's starting to bother me. from comments like these (why should i care about a compans goal???) to comments that fel haughtt like "i'm super people have told you moss is a bad media for orchids".
everyone has teiir own way and their own media. it's ok to share your experience and your recommendations and to correct people about misinformation, but tzlling others off...yeah no.

if it works it works. live and let love. i had a period where i forgot about some plants due to mental health and they still blossomed without any fertilizer, and no it was not a stress bloom. people get too caught up in small technicalities and if you dare divert from it, you get corrected....chill out

Wow.
Welcome to First Rays!

i expected a reaction like this. seems whenever someone critises the behaviour of a pro grower, we get hit with how good they are

to clarify: i'm not talking down his skills or implying he doesn't know what he's talking about. i'm talking about pushing his view.

Plenty of people do fertilizer like i said. it works for plenty of people, but the moment you say it here, you get told it's incorrect and you get told what you should be doing instead. it's very condescending. i've seen orchids grown succesfully in so many ways, but people just don't seem to stop critising it if it isn't the way the majority does it. You should know what i'm talking about, i've seen how you grew cattleyas in semi hydro that are looking great but you got a lot of negative comments on reddit. props to you for doing that, by the way.

my point is...his way of growing? totally fine. he did his research and does it the way he does it and it works. that's wonderful and admirable. It just seems that when another approach is named, that isn't his way, that person gets told it's meaningless, etc. it just feels very elitist. not everyone is looking to grow orchids at maximum pro level, besides this person seemed new to orchids..let's just keep it simple then, no? it works, after all.

as long as the plants thrive it's fine, right? People have done that in so many different ways...no need to tell others off. there is no one and done way to grow orchids.

ON555 - My apologies. My commentary was not meant as an attack, it was meant as a different view. I had hoped the apology up front would make that clearer than it apparently did.

Over the time I've been growing and participating in these forums, I've seen some remarkably odd-, and some down right ridiculous ideas about what proper culture should be. Other than disagreeing, I don't believe I said yours fit either of those.

Thank you for your valuable comments. I decided to buy orchid focus bloom and will use it with HB101.

For the record, OrchidNut555 and I have “buried the hatchet” in private conversations.

Let’s move on.

Let us know if you're able to buy Kelpak in Europe from Besgrow I have a house in Europe and visit frequently. It would be great to know of reliable ways of getting the product there.

As for Physan 20, it is a quaternary ammonium product with the following concentrations of active ingredients:

- n-alkyl (60% C14, 30% C16, 5%C12, 5% C18) dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride......10%

- n-alkyl (68% C12, 32% C14) dimethyl ethylbenzyl ammonium chloride......10%

In the US there's a generic version of Physan 20 manufactured by Southern AG called SA-20 Disinfectant.

The only product I've found in the EU that contains quats labeled for plants is a French product named "KleenGrow."

My understanding is that most European companies stopped using quats as the EU imposed a very strict limit on the maximum amount of residue of 0.1 ppm. Being practically impossible to stay under this limit in commercial agriculture, the use of quats seems to be out of favor in the EU. However, I've found some cleaning products that seem to use quats as their active ingredient.

I would certainly use a product that is labeled for plants only.

I also will say that after using Physan 20 for a long time, I haven't seen any benefits compared to using household tricks like cinnamon and alcohol.

In my opinion, Physan is really better suited as a disinfectant for the growing area than as a curative, and prior to using that, I simply used one cup of liquid chlorine bleach per gallon.

I was skeptical at first, but I am now convinced that regular treatment of plant probiotics will go a long way toward preventing most infections.

I emailed you a few weeks ago regarding a Phal that developed Erwinia after an inappropriate watering and an unusually humid and cold night. I treated by soaking for 24h in Quantum and even though the plant has seen better days (I cut half of its stem off), it's still alive and doing *fine*

So I would agree with you that Quantum or Inocucor can actually work, and based on the strains they contain, which have been studied against Erwinia, I would even argue that they can potentially serve as treatments and not just prevention, at least for Erwinia.

I haven't had great results with Liquid Copper Fungicide, however, I keep it as a last resort

It's worth pointing that I have two orchids that have never been in touch with a fungicide, ever, only Quantum, Kelpak, and regular waterings. They are the best in my collection.

Concerning the area disinfectant use: I use a warm mist humidifier in my grow tent. Lately I have noticed what seems to be algae growth in the tank. I cleaned the tank completely using a bleach solution, but the growth has returned much quicker than before. Do you think Physan 20 would be more effective in stopping this growth? Or am I just going to have to put up with it coming back and doing periodic cleaning of the tank?

I think chlorine bleach would be more effective for cleaning the humidifier.

Many algae secrete a chemical matrix which keeps chlorine and other things away from the cells, and helps algae adhere to things. I suspect it would keep quaternary ammonium compounds out, too. It can be very difficult to get rid of wall algae. Talk to pool owners.

I suggest really scrubbing your tank for a long time with a higher concentration of bleach, and leaving it soak for a while. If it's glass you can bake it in the oven at 250 F / 120C for an hour.

A question... is the tank clear plastic? If so, can you somehow cover it, to minimize the light that can get in? Light accelerates algae growth. If the tank is opaque, of course, this suggestion won't help.

howdy! probably should have been more clear with my reply... im not sure how long you waited for them to get back to you.

hopefully they are still selling it!! good luck! and please report back and update us if-when you find it

Thanks. Unfortunately, it's plastic. I'll just increase the frequency of cleaning it.