Amazing New Fertilizer

[professor plant]

David-
What would you suggest for fertilizer's for someone that waters with distilled water, miniatures and paphs for the most part?

I have no problem if I used different ratios or fertilizers all together for different plants, if it produced healthier orchids.

I thought I was correct about the rainwater mention. I grow alot of epiphytes and my logical response would be that these plants grow with a totally different ratio of nutrients then plants absorbing some river water.

I have known many people that grow all types of plants and they each claim a certain fertilizer is best. They may differ considerably, even when growing under the same conditions. I think this is most apparant with people involved in marijuana cultivation, where unfortunately a majority research is being done.

If you have some suggestions, I'd like to hear your opinions. You seem to argue on a very factually driven basis and I appreciate it.

[DavidCampen]

Originally Posted by professor plant

David-
I thought I was correct about the rainwater mention. I grow alot of epiphytes and my logical response would be that these plants grow with a totally different ratio of nutrients then plants absorbing some river water.

For epiphytes it is neither river water nor rainwater. In a tropical forest the bulk of the nutrients are held in the canopy and recycled within the forest. Rain provides only a little input, most nutrients for epiphytes come from decaying plant material in the canopy.

Here is a paper looking at stemflow in a tropical forest. It shows K and Ca concentrations to be about equal.

Or you can look at analysis of minerals in the plants - again calcium and potassium amounts are within a factor of 2 of one another. By these benchmarks many commonly available water soluble fertilizers are deficient
in calcium, magnesium and sulfur especially if only RO water is being used. There is no support for the k-lite formulation having nitrogen and calcium levels 8 times that of potassium.

Edit:
I forgot to give the link to the stemflow paper:
http://ican.csme.utah.edu/wp-content...ordan-1980.pdf

[goodgollymissmolly]

Ron,

Masdevallias always look pretty in the early spring when growing new foliage. Your anecdotal observation is simultaneous with this spring growth.

Wait until late summer to evaluate this stuff. That's when masdies suffer yellow leaves and fungal spots. My masdies are given as good a position in the GH as I can provide....right against the cooler wall. At this time of year they are pristine. Typically in late summer and fall they are pretty bad looking (I live in the south where the cooler works poorly in the late summer with high humidity).

Interestingly, 16 months ago I switched 100 plants to Orchid Gallery cool pots and the foliage looks much better based on that one year+ of observation. I changed nothing else, including the MSU fertilizer and rainwater. One season is not sufficient to prove anything, but it's encouraging.

I agree with David. AOS made a serious mistake in publishing the K-Lite article without a disclaimer that they do not endorse the product and it's weak scientific backing. The only evidence of success are some anecdotal observations from a few people. I know two superb growers who have been using the K-Lite for over a year. One had problems that his anecdotal observation noticed. The other has seen no change at all. Both grow multiple genera to perfection and have awards to prove it.

I was disappointed that AOS published the article because it lacked any scientific statistical rigor to back up the claims. No statistical evaluation of control populations was presented. Unfortunately the man on the street is a poor observer. When presented with change many see it as positive if it was presented that way. Reference the famous GE experiment where they turned out half the lights and productivity went up defying conventional wisdom.

K-Lite may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but until someone performs a statistically designed, controlled, and evaluated experiment to confirm it, it remains a theory. I think AOS understands it made a boo-boo because the following month Orchids published an article by the education committee on conventional fertilization that never mentioned K-Lite. Claiming potassium is rare in nature is questionable because it is the seventh most abundant element on earth. Phosphorus, on the other hand, is only the 11th most most abundant but it isn't cited as rare.

I thought about contacting AOS about my concerns with the K-Lite article and decided they already had enough problems. I also like Greg Allikas and the publication committee members with whom I am acquainted. So I ignored it. Some people are going to believe in chemical magic no matter what I do anyway so why fight it.

If you want to keep up with fertilization theories the pot literature is the place to look. Those folks really believe in better things for better living through chemistry.

[ALToronto]

I will offer my services as a statistical designer of an experiment on the efficacy of different fertilizers. We'd have to get a number of same-age, same type plants from the same source and get a few volunteer growers. Test K-Lite against two other fertilizers in greenhouse and home conditions, in 3 or 4 different media. Any takers?

I used to do design of experiments for a living, so it will be statistically valid.

[Ray]

Let me begin by stating that I really have very little stake in the K-Lite concept, other than the small investment I have in purchasing it from the manufacturer to make it available.

I don't think the AOS endorses anything they publish, nor do they publish other stuff to compensate for prior publication. They are looking for content. Maybe I'm being a skeptic, but the only things is ever heard of getting an AOS endorsement are Gro-Mor fertilizers, and I speculate that was a financial concern.

Yes, potassium is abundant in nature, but not in throughfall or stem flow, which is where epiphytes get the majority of their nutrition. Trying to tie the contents of the biosphere with that available to the indigenous flora or fauna is flawed because it is too broad. If it WAS a valid assessment, then the human body ought to be loaded with silicon and aluminum, the two most abundant mineral elements on earth, and relatively speaking, we have very little.

And tissue analysis is also of little value, as availability and accumulation are not a one-to-one correspondence there either.

Personally, I think the development of the formula shows remarkable creativity. The ability to take concepts from two disparate situations and combine them into what MAY be useful is the hallmark of true brilliance, and is the source of many breakthroughs. I am not claiming K-Lite is in that category necessarily, but I think it may very well be. If nothing else, it opens up new thinking.

My own background is inorganic materials science (glass and ceramics), and potassium has some interesting parallels in those systems to that identified by Rick in the fresh water mollusks he works with on a routine basis, and that's what led me to at least consider his arguments. Are those parallels correct? Who knows? I have not heard any arguments that convince me they are wrong, nor have I seen any drastic changes in my plants that suggest that, so maybe...

It's called "open mindedness". Maybe some of you have heard of it.

Now then, turning another way on this, I think that viewing it as a "super-formula" without having years of experience with it is a bit naive. Maybe when testing a fertilizer on an annual like corn, the experience of a single, brief growing season is valid. Any plant that can go from a seed to many pounds of mass in a matter of a few months is bound to display indications of its nutritional regimen. Plants as slow growing as orchids are not likely to show much for a while. I'm about 17 months in, and cannot claim to see anything that suggests it is better or worse, and I find that to be a positive, since the idea is to avoid long-term issues, not to make any short-term growth gains.


Ray Barkalow
Sent using Tapatalk

[DavidCampen]

Originally Posted by Ray

Yes, potassium is abundant in nature, but not in throughfall or stem flow, which is where epiphytes get the majority of their nutrition.

Potassium is abundant in stemflow and throughfall. Potassium levels in stemflow and throughfall are about the same as calcium levels.

Trying to tie the contents of the biosphere with that available to the indigenous flora or fauna is flawed because it is too broad. If it WAS a valid assessment, then the human body ought to be loaded with silicon and aluminum, the two most abundant mineral elements on earth, and relatively speaking, we have very little.

So the human body is not loaded with aluminum and silicon even though the environment is because these elements are not essential to the human body. So by the fact that orchids contain higher levels of potassium than the environment we can make an inductive argument that high levels of potassium are important to the functioning of orchids.

It's called "open mindedness". Maybe some of you have heard of it.

"Open mindedness" can also easily become credulity.

I can connect you with a number of inventors who have perpetual motion and free energy devices. They only need a little more money to complete development. If you invest it will be only a matter of months until you are fabulously wealthy.

[ALToronto]

This discussion reminds me of infant formula ads that claim that their product makes babies gain weight faster than breast milk. And it does - it's part of the reason why we have so many overweight kids.

[DavidCampen]

Originally Posted by ALToronto

This discussion reminds me of infant formula ads that claim that their product makes babies gain weight faster than breast milk. And it does - it's part of the reason why we have so many overweight kids.

My goodness, doing a critical analysis of someone's claims is not nice, we should keep an open mind.

[orchidsarefun]

David - what fertilising regime would you recommend ?

[SJF]

This shouldn't be getting so nasty. We should have more respect for each other. There is a way to disagree without insulting another.

There is enough ugliness in the world right now. Can we please keep it from the OB?