Homemade fertilizer

[violacea]

Yes, Royal. I don't think you are trying to be smarty pants but appreciate what you said. All that has to be considered too.

Just be reminded we are dealing with hardy plants in the early days of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and in the 90-degree-F heat, the compounds in the urine will rot. I have often wondered about the 37 times myself, put forth in the book "Gardening in the Lowlands of Malaya" - a very old book. It is about as scientific as letting leaves rot and putting this under the orchids (vandas, spathoglottis and arachnis, mostly) for compost. Just empirical fact. In those days, hardly anyone comes out of University to take on a horticultural job.

Holttum goes on to create the compost with urine too. One layer leaves, splash with urine, add more veggie material, splash with urine, add burnt wood ash. He's long dead so we cannot ask him. But the topic at hand is what fertiliser can you use without buying the stuff but make it yourself. So we go back to pioneer days.

Incidentally, my Filipina maid tried using urine on the orchids diluted as I suggested and the plants perked up and bloomed, dendrobiums mostly, so there must be something good and right in the recipe!

Be cautioned that we have hardy orchids. I don't want somebody's precious phalaenopses dying on account of taking up my ideas.

For phalaenopses, I have learned to use diluted Gaviota 63 to make leaves. This is a foliar feeder so I squirt the back of the leaves. I get this off the crown for fear of crown rot. When the plant looks healthily growing, I switch to Gaviota 67. Again at the back of the leaves. This is higher in potassium so it stimulates spikes. The spikes appear in the rainy season when the temperature is much cooler.

Somehow, there isn't any other fertiliser here to equal Gaviota so I am wondering what do you all use on your orchids. Or should this be another thread?

For organic feeding, there are brown pasty liquids derived from animal blood that we dilute and water the roots. Dendrobiums seem to go crazy with delight in this medium and throw out multi-spikes.

[Royal]

Originally Posted by violacea

Be cautioned that we have hardy orchids. I don't want somebody's precious phalaenopses dying on account of taking up my ideas.

This is the exception I spoke of in my earlier post. If an orchid is grown in soil or compost, the urea persists and has time to make that "step" and convert to available N. A Phal or any epiphyte grown in free-draining media or on a mount will only be able to use available N because the fertilizer doesn't persist as long.

I do know one reason why your orchids look great -- YOU LIVE IN SINGAPORE!!!

[violacea]

Originally Posted by RoyalOrchids

I do know one reason why your orchids look great -- YOU LIVE IN SINGAPORE!!!

I read that and had a guilty giggle.
Royal, my orchids are struggling to survive. Maybe it is my personality what is so perverse -- the orchids that grow well here are what I am indifferent to. I ignore oncidiums and neglect my dendrobiums. They bloom now and then despite my inattention.

But the orchids I grieve over are my phalaenopses and cattleyas (and all their intergeneric crosses). Let's face it, these are actually subtropical or temperate plants. I cannot get cool nights where I live - min night temp 25 C. Some nights fall to 23 C and I get excited thinking, "My orchids must be happy tonight!"

Sure enough, they throw out spikes soon, and then the hot dry days come, and my house has the wrong microclimate for them, and the stalks are short and the buds are few. Whites seem to do better. And any of the dark pinks, probably due to doritis parentage, since doritis (esmeralda?) can withstand more sun and heat.

Then all those evil weevils come to eat them up. I have snails and red mite. I refuse to use insecticide but try tea-tree oil without knowing the concentrations to use.

There is a supplier of phalaenopses here and going to their farm is like reaching orchid heaven! But the "farm" is a very large room, airconditioned, and with huge fans blowing air sideways into the room. Must cost the earth to upkeep them, so they are sold to us at higher prices. They buy compots and then grow them in separate pots until they bloom.

Dendrobes should do well, if you give them constant love and affection which was what my (late) father-in-law did with his orchids. And the commercial dendrobium growers (run by my husband's girl cousin and her husband) have acres under netting and overhead mist sprayers that come on four times a day!

They are all from three clones. Hardy. Good substance, good arrangement, etc everything a good orchid should be. And there are only three plain colours -- which they sell as Multico White, Multico Red and Multico Yellow. So many of them so that I find them deadly dull. Princess Diana ordered Multico White from their farm for her wedding bouquet. Ho-hum...

The farm is sold off to a friend now, so I don't have access to it. Or rather, what incentive have I to go there and not be recognised and welcomed?

The best orchids I have seen are grown by a girl with terminal cancer. She spent all her last days with them, watering, fertilising, spraying on bug killers. They were so fat and green and perfect without holes or a single flower out of place.

There are a lot of orchids that I miss seeing around here because they are passe. Long time ago since I saw species, and early crosses. No Vanda coerulea, Arachnis hookeriana, scented arachnis flos-aeris and the magnificent grammatophyllum speciosum - the tiger orchid. Lots of leaves and takes ages to flower. These can never be commercially grown and so are of no use to the modern money-minded orchid growers. Very sad.

Hence I love this topic -- trying to grow orchids without commercial fertiliser. BlakeeBoo, if you ever succeed, sell me some. The media I use is charcoal and brick but I stick some cubes of asplenium nidus root into the pot. Where did I get these? I have a humongous bird's nest fern growing in my garden and the roots are literally there for the picking. This can absorb whatever urea there is to release the nitrogen.

Okay, you all tell me about your orchids. What are you growing?

[POLKA]

Okay
Here I am, 10 months later after the last posting to this thread.
However, I would like to add my two cents:

The nitrogen cycle goes something like this
1--an organism dies and begins to rot into its component parts, for this case--protein. Or, it excretes waste materials from protein metabolism, including urea.
2--protein, by biological action (with or without soil), breaks down to urea.
3--urea breaks down to Ammonia
4--ammonia breaks down to Nitrates
5--soil organisms convert nitrates to nitrites (maybe this 4 and 5 is backwards), and is able to hold that in the humus.

Now--Orchids are perched in trees, usually. They get what comes their way. Waste products in dilute form slowly, and consistently while moist. Most plants, including most orchids, have enzymes that break down even large molecules like urea. They don't have to have the urea broken down. However, in warmth, urine (urea) turns to ammonia quickly (hence the singapore example above, and works well).

Whether urea, ammonia, or nitrate, orchids need their nitrogen because they reform orchid proteins from the nitrogen components of the molecule. And from these proteins, eventually the nitrogen cycle starts again.

Now--compost tea is excellent for any and all orchids. You can make it at home. Phals especially like the stuff. Catts, dendies, oncids, and grammatophylums too.

I hope I have helped in this matter.
Take care
May all your orchids bloom like crazy
Rex
aka Polka

[orchids3]

Wheather or not to use urea based fertilizers(on Orchids) is a debate I have heard often am not convinced either way. My understanding is that Urea has to be further broken down by bacteria and the rate of breakdown depends on temperature. My conclusion has always been that Nitrates and ammonia fertilizers can be directly used by orchids and require no further breakdown - therefore may be better but only because of the rate fertilizers are flushed out of pots by watering. Urea may not do as much good because it may not stay around long enought to be broken down. Thats my two cents worth.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by orchids3

Wheather or not to use urea based fertilizers(on Orchids) is a debate I have heard often am not convinced either way. My understanding is that Urea has to be further broken down by bacteria and the rate of breakdown depends on temperature. My conclusion has always been that Nitrates and ammonia fertilizers can be directly used by orchids and require no further breakdown - therefore may be better but only because of the rate fertilizers are flushed out of pots by watering. Urea may not do as much good because it may not stay around long enought to be broken down. Thats my two cents worth.

I've been doing some research on this, and it seems that everything is a matter of degree.

Urea can be absorbed directly through the roots, but only at a very low rate. It is pretty good as a foliar feed however, as it moves through the ectodesmata pretty readily. Once it decomposes, the urea breakdown products (mostly ammonia) can be absorbed by the roots. The argument seems to be simply whether that happens sufficiently in an orchid-pot environment.

Nitrates and ammonium compounds are poor for foliar feeding, but are readily absorbed by the roots. Nitrates are known to give more compact plants, for some reason I haven't found yet.

[braveall]

deleted wrong posting

[braveall]

Originally Posted by violacea

I read that and had a guilty
There are a lot of orchids that I miss seeing around here because they are passe. Long time ago since I saw species, and early crosses. No Vanda coerulea, Arachnis hookeriana, scented arachnis flos-aeris and the magnificent grammatophyllum speciosum - the tiger orchid. Lots of leaves and takes ages to flower. These can never be commercially grown and so are of no use to the modern money-minded orchid growers. Very sad.

Hi,

I can empathise with your sentiments about the state of orchid growing in Singapore. I grow mainly fragrant vandas of tessellata X insignis lineage, cymbidium dayanum, finlaysonianum and heat tolerant cymbidiums from pakkret floriculture, and some warm loving phalaenopsis like cornu cervi and amboinensis and lueddemannia hybrids. And of course I have the Chinese new year phalaenopsis that my family bought.

How I wish that more Singaporean orchid growers have a better awareness of the climate and grow indigenous plants rather than imported temperate ones. Just because the imports are novel and a "challenge" to make them flourish and bloom.

Braveall