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Originally Posted by Shadeflower
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.
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I recommend using it in three different ways, depending upon the need:
- Once a month @ 1:250 for routine application.
- When repotting a plant, water it in with that same solution, then again the next two times it needs water. After that, go to the once-a-month schedule.
- For plants with no roots, do a complete immersion in that solution for several hours, then pot the plant up and follow the “repot” regimen.
The manufacturer’s new technical director is an orchid grower. He and his OS started out by following my recommendation, but have experimented with a dose of 1:100 (10 ml/L, or 2.5x my normal rate) one time in the spring to “kick start” growth, and have been very impressed with the results.
Don’t let the TDS concern you. For one, TDS meters are notoriously inaccurate. I had two different ones, and when measuring a 100 ppm N MSURO solution, which has a
true TDS of 740 ppm, the two meters gave about 375 and 480 ppm readings.
Secondly, when you’re concerned about root burn due to highly concentrated fertilizers, it’s because they are solutions of ionic mineral salts. KelpMax is mostly organic compounds, not salts.
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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.
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Great observations!
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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...
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As I said above, I think you are needlessly concerned about the apparent TDS. I have placed ex-flask seedlings in a 10% KelpMax solution before potting them up, and saw no damage.
That said, maybe you might consider selecting a “straggling” plant as a guinea pig and try the 1% treatment as an experiment.
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