Kelpmax in Netherlands

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by Fuerte Rav

It all gets a second life in my garden for seedlings, cuttings and new plantings!

Me too! After soaking the orchids I hate to throw out all that kelpax mix, so I water houseplants or plants in the vegetable garden. Such useful stuff to have around!!

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Orchidtinkerer

I got some to try this year too. Used it twice so far.

Not sure what to think yet. Mainly I haven't seen much results. One orchid died - however I was expecting it to die but it croaked it very fast after an application of Kelpak.

Another one that was producing a pseudobulb but then started struggling - sprayed it and within 2 weeks it started producing a second pseudobulb which I was not expecting.

I will be spraying my phals next. I really wasn't expecting any miracles and still not entirely sure the bottle was worth it...

When I mix it up it comes out at 300ppm (4ml/l) which to me seems very high for seedlings for example..

I think that is why the orchid that croaked it did croak as I was only feeding it 60ppm up till then.

Fuerte and Camille, what are your impressions so far?

4ml/L is the preferred concentration for monthly drenching. Anything less than 2 ml/L will have no effect whatsoever.

Foliar uptake is not favored in plants with thick, waxy cuticle layers on the leaves (seedlings have less of that, so take better to foliar application). The only time I use it other than as a drench is as a soak for plants that have little- to no root system, and then I leave the plants submerged for several hours to compensate for the poor uptake.

Don't trust your TDS meter to give reliable results with a complex mixture of complex organic chemicals like those contained in the seaweed juice. I have applied the product at double that concentration without any negative effects.

[ElvinaMagdalena]

Originally Posted by Leilabt

I found this thread few days ago when I was looking for Kelpak as well. Couldn't find any webshop selling it in Europe either so I directly contacted Besgrow as they are the distributor.
They answered really fast saying I could order directly from them so I purchased a 1L bottle for something around 20€. Shipping is not expensive (I live in Belgium and they are based in the Netherlands so that could vary depending on where you live).
I thought I would share this information because I find it not very obvious on their website.
Their email is info[@]besgrow-europe.com
Hope this will help.

Hello, I was wondering as to which specific Kelpak product are you referring to? Is it the biostimulant, the fertiliser, the concentrate or the extract? I have a couple of phals that seem to be too lazy to grow new roots. I want to give this Kelpak thing a try. I am curious. Thank you!

[Ray]

The biostimulant.

[Mirjam]

I'm completely new here and stumbled upon this thread. Don't know if it's still active, but here's what I use.

I use Alg-A-Mic from Biobizz. It is a cold pressed seaweed extract. Be aware that the feeding instructions on the product are for cannabis or other fast growing plants.

I use it at concentrations of 1/4 to 1/8 of the recommended amount with the latter concentration for plants in self watering.

I have excellent results with this. Fantastic root growth and healthy well growing orchids.

[Mr.Fakename]

Interesting. I use the same product monthly, and can't see anything. Maybe 4mL/L is too much.



Recommended dosage is 1-4mL/L, so how much do you actually apply?

[Shadeflower]

Alg-A-Mic was the first fertilizer I started growing with back when I had no idea how to fertilize.
I ended up causing the biggest root burn using 4 ml/l. I was so put off using it I have never gone back to it but they are all roughly the same. Doff which I use at the moment recommends 30ml per 10liters. I use 1/30th of that on top of my regular fertilizer.

I am pretty sure 40ml of Alg-A-Mic per 10l would raise the ppm of the water over 400. If you only use it once a month that should not cause a burn but I think Alg-A-Mic is more potent than it seems. I'm too cautious to use it again but in small doses I'm pretty sure it's the same as any other seaweed extract on the market.

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

Alg-A-Mic was the first fertilizer I started growing with back when I had no idea how to fertilize.
I ended up causing the biggest root burn using 4 ml/l. I was so put off using it I have never gone back to it but they are all roughly the same. Doff which I use at the moment recommends 30ml per 10liters. I use 1/30th of that on top of my regular fertilizer.

I am pretty sure 40ml of Alg-A-Mic per 10l would raise the ppm of the water over 400. If you only use it once a month that should not cause a burn but I think Alg-A-Mic is more potent than it seems. I'm too cautious to use it again but in small doses I'm pretty sure it's the same as any other seaweed extract on the market.

It sounds like it's much more potent stuff than Kelpak/Kelpmax, which is dosed at 4ml/L for orchids. I've been using it for a year and never saw any burned roots. Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep that in mind if I ever try the Algamic!

[Ray]

Potency is hard to compare. It would be like comparing Tetrahydrocannabinol to lysergic acid diethylamide. They require drastically different dosage levels because they do drastically different things!

KelpMax/Kelpak is the most effective natural stimulant known - even more so than other products made from the same species of kelp, but it appears to be more from the polysaccharides and other plant growth regulators than the auxins, for example.

[Shadeflower]

Camille, sry I wrote my number in a confusing manner.

4ml/l is the same as 40ml per 10 liters

I've used Kelpmax seperately but I still don't know the best time to use it is. I'm thinking maybe just 4 times a year, like camille says it is dosed at a very high concentration - 4ml/l of kelpmax had a ppm of roughly 370 in rain water.

All very similar numbers but kelpmax I see more of a booster wheras kelpextracts I use on top of my fertilizer all the time.

I will just add that I have seen good results from the Kelpmax but it is so hard to quantify results as every year orchids get stronger and produce more blooms anyway, their growth is seasonal so only monitoring progress for 2 months is just not long enough and even if one does a side by side expereiment one would need to use more than 2 orchids as orchids can vary in growth without any boosters too.

Even though I have the product on hand, I really have not been able to use it that much yet. The main problem I have is I can't just incorporate it into my fertilizer regime.
To use it I need to switch over to kelpmax exclusively for a week as the ppm would get too high if I just add it so this year I have not bothered to get out the kelpmax yet...