That sounds really cool did it work very well?

Yes, it worked very well, and there was no solubility issues. Too bad they stopped making it.

Let me give you a little advice - I have, after all, been growing orchids and working in the chemical industry for more than twice as long as you've been alive - before you go spouting science to us, really know what you're talking about, or at least explain yourself better.

For example, what are you trying to say with "those proteins can benefit the plants in a different than the the nitrogen alone"? Not as proteins they can't. Plants really cannot absorb proteins, the make them from the tiny little mineral ions they do absorb.

I know they can't benefit them directly but when certain bacteria break down proteins the results can be beneficial to the plants. The bacteria that breaks them down is present in the guano. So if the proteins get washed away in the next watering then the plant still has the other nutrients and if it gets broken down then the better for the plant. And if you knew that the plant couldn't absorb protein then why did you say that it would mess up the formula? If the protein isn't broken down then it would just act as a filler which some fertilizers use.

I do not apply compounds to my orchid media that require further processing to be of benefit, and that includes any fillers in fertilizers. For the most part, such fillers are the easy-to-disperse solids that the nutrients are soaked up in, and they are intended for lawns and for mixing in soil media, not for orchid growing, which for all practical purposes is hydroponic in nature. Adding such fillers to orchid media will help suffocate the root system.

The bottom line is that most orchids need to have nutrition supplied to them as ions in dilute solution. The simpler the process to supply them, the better.

Kk I understand Ray throughout this forum you have supplied me with a lot of important info and I thank you.

I find this absolutely fascinating. It has to be some organic long-chained molecule, I guess. And it might be able to dissociate in water? Maybe with the help of some other compound that will form a solution in water and then be able to act on the molecule? I share your regret that the business went kaput.

Tell us something about this MSU fertiliser that you mentioned earlier. Can one purchase this? Also why should semi-hydroponic be a term that has TM status?

I'm using a liquid fertilizer thats using N,P,K. It isn't a homemade fertilizer, but it could be i suppose. Just a straight ratio...21.21.21. Works wonders..... Also, when i clean out my fish pond i spray my orchids with the old water..... It's full of nitrogen because of the fish dirt in it. Now that does work wonders....Especially on young plants (acts like a turbo)

I have been teaching Science [Physics, actually] for years amounting to about three times Ray's age. And my students are the best. They go to the top Ivy League colleges in the US. I've written successful recommendations for them to go MIT, Harvard, Brown, Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, and MSU too.

And they all began like BlakeeBoo. And I am impressed with his high intelligence to attempt what he is attempting now, in a project that fascinates me. It is not the results that count but the doing of it, which will educate him. I am rooting for him to have some measure of success. I am used to my students doing projects too, and sometimes in a subject out of my discipline.

I think Blake is asking if nitrogen, carried by proteins, would be absorbed as such, and benefit the plant in a different way than as nitrogen alone, as a single element. And you told him correctly that only ions in solution can go in. Which is what I believe too but know it need not necessarily be true.

I am waiting to see if science is wrong (again!) as so often happens in Physics - what is logical or expected need not necessarily be true! Or there are exceptions that prove the rule.

Medications get absorbed through the skin from skin patches. I don't believe there is osmosis occurring in this case. Somehow, complex molecules can get in between other molecules too. Unless you rely on pores to absorb the medication.

So, can there be diffusion of a kind into roots besides the usual process of osmosis? I am willing to learn. The open mind waits for all its contents to be improved or confirmed or replaced. The open mind can also have a lot of rubbish thrown in too.

Anyway, BlakeeBoo, keep an open mind and keep on asking questions. That is how a scientific researcher always works. The day you stop asking questions is the day you stop learning. I like what you are doing.

[Of course it may not mean you will get right answers, but never mind. You must next query the answers you get.]

Rogerman, you are in Thailand. No wonder things are so easy to grow. It is the cool nights in Thailand I envy. There are so few of them in Singapore.

Luckily the nights are cool at present. Meaning 24 degrees Celsius. That saves my plants from drying up.

I wish it was 24 degrees Celsius in the day here! How I envy my homeland of Acadiana, It was about 18 degrees there yesterday!

Thank you so much Violacea many people have been criticizing without offering solutions it is nice to have some positive encouragement.

I've been reading and any single atom or anything water soluble can be taken in by plants. Then things beyond that depending on the plant. Because of orchids porous sponge like root covering they hold onto anything that touches them until either the chemical is absorbed or broken down to a point where it can be.