Give me an oppinion about this fertilizer
 

Hello, my friends

Please tell me something about it:

Akerne's Rain Mix

According the shop where I bought it I can use it with all orchid genera, year round, a coffee spoon per 2 liters (0,5 approx. 0,5 gallons).

Also, can I use it in this time of the year with: dens, cymbs, phals, cambrias and paphs?

Thank you

I seem to recall reading the numbers on fertilizers are calculated differently in the US and Europe. Any Eastern Atlantic continentals/islanders here?

Hi rbarata

Is you coffee spoon (0,5) equal to one half cubic centimeter?

If so, and assuming fertilizer numbers are provided on the same basis in your country and mine, I might use the same 0,5 in 4 liters of water. The ratios of NPK seem about right. Calcium and magnesium are expressed as CaO and MgO; I am not sure if those numbers are "equivalents" similar to the P2O5 and K2O in fertilizer numbers or if the fertilizer actually contains those oxides; you might want to check the pH of the fertilizer solution, made with your water. A pH near 6.5 ± 1.0 is fine for most orchids.

To be more accurate on dosing, maybe Ray (another member here) can direct you to his online fertilizer calculator.

MSU forumla fertilizers, like the one you're considering, work well for me. I think the addition of calcium and magnesium is very important for orchids. The dosage seems a little high if your growing orchids indoors. I'm not sure how much a coffee spoon is but if it's like the spoon that I use for coffee, you may want to try about half that amount. You can experiment until you find the dose that works best for you.

How much you should use should be based primarily upon how often you feed.

For example, I feed at every watering, so keep my fertilizer concentration low - 25 ppm N. For the "Rain Mix", at 13%N, that would be 0.19 g/L.

If I only fed one time a week or so, I'd likely go with 75 ppm N, or 0.57 g/L (1/2 would be OK).

Please, I beg of you, can we keep discussions of fertiliser to modern SI units, ie grams or ccs per litre?

Assorted spoons and measures are driving me mad. "Well you use 17 barleycorns to the Babylonian cubit which works out at about three nose lengths per furlong....."

Coffee spoons, soup spoons, desert spoons, tea spoons or a good old fashioned ladle that I can beat my brains out with when it all gets too much. ;)

A coffee spoon here in Portugal is 2,5 ml which seems to be the same in the US (1/2 tea spoon).
The dosage in the box says 1/2 gr/l (0,02 oz/0,23 gal => 0,086 oz/gal).

Since I don't have a clue about this matter, I'm thinking about using it half of this dose every 15 days.

I'm also interest to know if I can use it in any stage of my orchids (dens are still growing but soon they'll rest, cambria is now spiking, phals and pahps are growing). Is there any rule?

---------- Post added at 06:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:54 PM ----------

Yes, I agree too. Sooner or later we all will have to use it, so why not start now?:biggrin:

If you look at most American cartoons, the characters have only

eight fingers total

(3 fingers plus a thumb on each hand.) So I suggest we switch to base 8. The rest of the world can continue with base 10.

Hehe...ok, lets not digress from the main theme.
So, for simplicity sake, coffe spoons are equal all over the world...:D