Quote:
Originally Posted by miss.jakyak
I have it on a schedule of 5 days in water (the 3 big roots pointing downwards), 2 hours in fertiliser (concentration: 1 teaspoon per 500mL water), 2 days of drying out. All the small roots pointing up are new!
Do you think it's time to repot it though? Maybe the hydroponics have done what they need to do?
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That strikes me as a very odd schedule. Consider that an active ebb-and-flow hydroponic setup will expose the roots for a matter of minutes, then drain, exposing the roots to air, with that cycle repeated several times a day. It doesn’t take the velamen on a root but a matter of seconds to become saturated, and the absorption process after that is much slower. I would think that a daily hour soak would be more appropriate, but that plant seems OK from a hydration standpoint.
Now, as to nutrition. After 5 days in water, the roots are SO saturated that they are probably unable to take up but a tiny fraction of the fertilizer. You’d be far better off adding fertilizer to the water before you start the soak phase. The velamen layer is like a sponge, able to absorb a lot more when dry than when saturated.
“1 teaspoon in 500 ml” tells us very little to help you address the issue. What is the fertilizer formula? 1 teaspoon of Dyna-Gro 7-9-6 is a lot different than a teaspoon of Miracle Grow 30-10-10. Under your current 5 days wet/2 days dry schedule, I’d recommend 25 ppm N. If you divide 2.3 by the %N in your formula, the result is ml/L to mix with the water. Using my two examples, that would be 2.3/7= about 1/3 ml/L for the Dyna-Gro and 2.3/30=0.08ml/L for the Miracle Grow.
As to potting it up, be aware that changing to a standard medium after having been grown in water is likely to result in some root loss, but as expensive as that root system is, it’ll probably bounce back fine.
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