Microfeeding Bacteria to Orchids

[Ldrhawke]

Bacteria maybe the good guys in feeding orchids and helping to fight of diseases. I set up a rather unique orchid growing method this year to test out this concept. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Microfeeding cultured bacteria in orchid growing may benefit by feedingn billions and billions of purposely cultured nutrient rich bacteria daily (Biofertilizer),which both efficiently feeds the plants and makes them less susceptible to disease by strengthening their immune system.

My method boost the normal effort of orchids to attract and grow bacteria around their root system. It feeds billions and billions of live new single cell bacteria. I believe this method, or variations of it, will hopefully make it easier for anyone to grow healthier orchid plants. This is not the same as watering with a compost tea. Microfeeding a Biofertilizer of live dense cultured bacteria and is different from organic fertilizers and teas.

Microfeeding is a growing field of research in commercial farming to increase crop yield and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers and chemical treatment of crops. At the same time reducing the damage from nitrogen and phosphate run off into streams and rivers.

Hopefully these comments will stimulate interest and my unique methods in orchid growing, my posts to follow will stimulate interest and discussions.

[Ray]

Yes, there are commercial products out there specifically for doing that. One of the best was Inocucor Garden Solution, but alas, they went out of business in January thanks to greedy investors.

I now use Quantum-Total (identical to Quantum Orchid at a much better price), which has both nitrogen-fixing bacteria to make food from the air and photosynthetic species to boost fuel production for the plant.

They are not enough to adequately feed the plant, so it's still a good idea to fertilizer regularly. Besides, the bacteria use some of the nitrogen to replicate.

[Ldrhawke]

I use your bacteria products, Quantum Total, along with orchid roots, and Actinovate SP; in my process of culturing a very dense diverse micro culture of billions of microbes which I feed the orchids daily.. I do feed the Bacteria culture but only use organic NPK, like milled alfalfa, to keep from having disrupting effects chemicals can have on bacteria and their benefits to the orchids natural immune system. We are on the same page in our thinking. I agree simply feeding bacteria spores is not enough food value for the orchids, but I believe it can be if you feed billions of these little single cell bags of fertilizers made by culturing them.

---------- Post added at 09:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 AM ----------

Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria(PGPB)
PGPB are able to control the number of pathogenic bacteria through microbial antagonism, which is achieved by competing with the pathogens for nutrients, producing antibiotics, and the production of anti-fungal metabolites [7]. Besides antagonism, certain bacteria-plant interactions can induce mechanisms in which the plant can better defend itself against pathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses [2]. This is known as induced systemic resistance (ISR) and was first discovered in 1991 by Van Peer et al [3].

* Beneficial bacteria convert otherwise unavailable nutrients into forms that are bioavailable by plant roots for uptake and absorption.
* Beneficial bacteria for plants produce chemicals and hormones that stimulate growth.
* Bacteria life span is normally less than 24 hours, leaving billions of dead bacteria on leaves and roots to feed the orchids or become food for remaining bacteria.
* Beneficial bacteria help prevent infections from pathogens by coating the root surfaces and triggering systemic disease resistance and are described as biopesticeds.
* When they die, the single cell bacteria act as fertilizer by giving back carbon and helpful nutrients that are now easily to the plant’s roots.

---------- Post added at 09:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:36 AM ----------

Destruction of Micro-Organisms
The synthetic chemicals in the chemical fertilizers adversely affect the health of naturally found soil micro-organisms by affecting the soil pH. These altered levels of acidity in the soil eliminate the micro-organisms beneficial to plant and soil health as they help to increase the plants' natural defenses against pests and diseases. These helpful micro-organisms consist of antibiotic-producing bacteria and mycorrhizal and other fungi which are found in healthy soil. The use of chemical fertilizers also jeopardizes the health of bacteria that fix the nitrogen balance in the soil. These nitrogen-fixing bacteria are responsible for converting the atmospheric oxygen into a form of nitrogen that can be used readily by plants.j

[Ray]

I like that first paragraph.

More work than I care to do, but it sounds interesting.

I am going to disagree with that last paragraph, though, if for no reason that it paints with too broad of a brush.

I retired from Total Petrochemicals, several years after they acquired Elf Aquitaine. If your company makes oil, it's going to have spills. The scientists at Elf discovered that you could use native microflora and fauna to clean it up. We actually did so as part of the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William sound, and later made it into a business unit.

An emulsion was made using a high-nitrogen, chemically-made fertilizer with the cheapest olive oil they could find, adding a tiny bit of soap as the emulsifier.

That was sprayed all over the ground on about a mile and a half of the beach, then ignored.

The nitrogen spurs the native bacteria into a breeding frenzy, and the olive oil is a very easy-to-digest carbon source for them to consume as the populations exploded. When the olive oil ran out, they switched to consuming the crude oil.

In about 6 weeks, there was no trace of the spilled crude on that entire stretch, so the native microbe population died back to normal levels, leaving the ecology otherwise untouched.

[Dorchid]

That is super cool!

[Ldrhawke]

I am quite familiar with the use bacteria to eat oil spills. What I am saying is that using chemical on orchids to kill bacteria may not be the best idea.

I often design things that take a little work just so I don’t have to do repetitive tasks after. I am a retired engineer and hold patents on biologically treating waste treatment plant waste.

The microfeed system I have designed for my orchids will hopefully eliminate maintenance. All I need to do now is little more that push a button on my iPhone, or set it on auto. Now that the bacteria culture is established it only requires keeping the culture fed every couple of weeks, aerated, and heated. All it took was adding select bacteria to seed it to start. Water level is automatically maintained in the culture tank from rain water collected in the gutter over it. I do add a little Dolomite now to keep the pH of the culture tank from getting too acidic and encouraging black mold from the roof to grow.

It is far from a proven concept, but I am pleased with the results so far.

[jcec1]

I'm interested to know what outcome you expect from this experiment?

Do you have a control group to compare results?

[Ldrhawke]

I only started in the orchid growing hobby about seven years ago. I have lost more orchid plants than I will ever admit, many because they are not being able to withstand cold snaps growing outside in northern Florida. But even more by following the widespread belief the bacteria is bad for orchids and following advice on a thousand ways to kill it, using every know chemical know to man.......”tongue in cheek”. I find my experience not to different from many other orchid hobbiest.

I live in a condo at a marina now, with limited space. My deck is only 6’ by 15’ so I designed a growing system that only has a 2 foot square foot print, taking up little space but able to mount 28 cattleya plants. I like the flowers. The recommendations on how to water orchids is almost as varied as the number of chemicals you can kill the bad bacteria as amplified in the hobby.. So I decide to automate a watering system than can vary from once a week to multiple times a day, for any length of time so I could judge how the plants respond and control it from my iPhone.

I had built a somewhat similar design before built out of pressure treated wood and mounting the orchids on slabs of wood or cork 6 years ago, but the fungus and bacteria eventually destroyed the structure. Some of the orchids did well others not as well. (see attached). Not being able to easy move them inside during a cold snap was their demise.

The new design is all plastic. I use plastic pots that can easily be removed in cold weather and set inside. The orchids are grown in a large chunky cork media in the pots.

Then I made the mistake of reading numerous articles and research papers on the internet like the attached on Microfeeding. The more I though about it the more sense it made. 99.9% of bacteria is not only good but there would not be life as we know it without it. During this period of the WuFlu scare you would never know bacteria is beneficial to plants and animals.

With very few modifications to my existing design it was easy to test out bacteria and orchids having a symbiotic relationship. One of the keys was knowledge I had gained in my field of work in accelerating and densifying bacteria growth to feed the orchids. Each little dead bacteria cell that dies on the orchid leaf or root system is a tiny bag of nutrients in a form readily useable by the orchid.

I am not trying to prove anything. I am just applying what we already and to making it easier to grow orchids. Hopefully! How will I know it works? If I have 28 blooming disease free orchids this fall.

A lot of new research is now being done in the field of microfeeding to increase crop yields and reduce pollution from agricultural chemicals. I have read hundreds of similar research papers as posted below.


Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria - microbewiki

Tapping the 'plant microbiome' to improve farming and plant health

Microbes: Our tiny, crucial allies

[estación seca]

I'm not clear on what the term "bacteria" means to you. You might be including fungi in this, blue-green algae, and perhaps other organisms.

In biology bacteria (which is the plural of bacterium) are one-celled organisms lacking a nucleus. Some bacteria have chlorophyll in their cells and can carry out photosynthesis. They have been in the past been assigned to a separate life kingdom, Bacteria.

Archaea are one-celled organisms lacking a nucleus that have very different chemistry, DNA and RNA from bacteria. They have been in the past been assigned to a separate life kingdom, Archaea.

All other organisms have nuclei to hold their genetic material. Fungi are one or multicellular organisms with nuclei that have very different chemistry from plants and animals. They have been in the past been assigned to a separate life kingdom, Fungi. Plants have nuclei and also chloroplasts to carry out photosynthesis. Chloroplasts are thought to be the descendants of photosynthetic bacteria engulfed by single plant cells in the past, which became symbionts inside the plant cells. Plants may be unicellular or multicellular. They have been in the past been assigned to a separate life kingdom, Plantae.

If you're referring to microscopic organisms as a group, the common terms are "the microbiome", or "microorganisms." Many are beneficial for plants. Orchids have been considered to be obligate symbiotes with fungi because almost no orchid seeds contain endosperm, food, and unless developing orchid embryos are infected with fungi, they cannot survive to adulthood. Nowadays this can be replaced by lab tissue culture techniques, and that is how almost all orchids are started from seed.

[jcec1]

Thanks for the details of your setup and reasoning behind it.

I grow indoors and the only time I ever have to use chemicals is against red spider mite, I've yet to have an orchid succumb to either bacterial or fungal disease, but i don't grow outdoors.

Outdoors I'm well aware of have a rich microflora and use copious amounts of homemade compost which I guess is the outdoor equivalent of what you are doing here.

Hope it works as any decrease in chemical use is a good thing.