Water Release Curves for Growing Media Ingredients
dale92539 Riverside Co SoCal
8 years ago
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dale92539 Riverside Co SoCal
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agodale92539 Riverside Co SoCal
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Vanda growing in water
Comments (30)In my experience though, I have seriously had stuff ROT in S/H during the winter...despite repotting when in active growth (in the spring). So this entire thing about roots that are actively growing rot less, I dunno..there's some truth in it....maybe when the plant is actively growing, it's immunity and ability to fend off infections is better? I think there are some orchids that have natural dry/wet cycles (ie catasetums??)...while dends and phals generally don't in the WILD, the home environment in winter (at least my home..biggest problems are LIGHT and WARMTH...put next to window for optimum light = cool drafts, even with plastic lining etc...) does not favor growth, thus putting these normally non-resting plants into a sort of 'pseudo-rest' where growth is sluggish. Seriously, winters for me are merely periods where I ensure nothing dies too much before spring comes. No joke. (I'm too poor to invest in sodium halide lamps, and anyway my mom would totally freak if I installed one in the living room.) Since this is obviously not what these plants are adapted for, I'm thinking that they are somewhat weakened during this phase...add cool and wet conditions, and you get a wonderful breeding ground for fungus and some cooler growing bacteria. Anyway, I definitely agree about there being different kinds of roots...which IMO is in itself a problem.. Because on the one hand, you have a bunch of lovely water-roots that grew during the hot summer..on the other hand, you have a sluggishly growing plant that doesn't really appreciate the water much. As a result, if you withhold water, the water-roots shrivel and die setting the plant back. However, if you maintain the wet conditions you had during the summer, the water roots rot because of what I hypothesized above. Anyway, I think experiences of S/H can be applied to this method of growing in pure water as well...I mainly use my S/H hydroton for improving drainage in my sphag-grown orchids now. It's working for one of my catts and thats it...my phals in S/H survived 2 years but have been going downhill, so I've repotted most to sphag and they are so much much happier. Every spring, I find that all those roots they formed during the previous summer have rotted away...maybe I'm watering too much in winter..who knows. I like to stick to what works best. I guess this method would be useful if you had all your other conditions in good shape, for the entire year. And if you're in the northern latitudes, unless you operate a fan, a heater, a humidifier and several artificial lights (ie have a GREENHOUSE), I really doubt this method would be successful....See MoreQuestion on growing indoors in soiless media
Comments (1)Most advice I've seen on feeding is it is safe and recommended to use slow release every so many months or when repotting (whatever the manufacturer recommends) and/or a weakened water soluble fertilizer used every week or every watering when the plant is actively growing. PH is another matter. I have never seen any strong recommendations on that. Neutral would be the safest bet but a lot of species begonias might grow in slightly acid soil while others are growing on limestone formations. So I suppose it depends on what you are growing. Most begonias seem very adaptable. I've never seen any begonia article concerned about EC levels (there may be some article out there but I've never seen one). Flushing the pot every once in a while or repotting should remedy any salt build up. Humidity seems to be one key factor for some exotic begonias. Drainage is another key factor (too wet leads to rot)....See MoreWater Release Curves for Growing Media Ingredients
Comments (10)Water Tension Some Semi Technical Musings As described in misc posts, water in a media and the plant is under tension. Gravity trying to pull it downward, and Adhesive and Cohesive forces trying hold it in place(drainage occurs until equilibrium is reached). There are osmotic forces also, but will exclude those now. This is very simplified but, if your dealing with a total amount of energy or force occupying a space or total area. In a circular plane or circle around the point source of this force. The energy density or magnitude is proportion to the area the force is occupying. Since the area of a circle is Pi*r2 , thus at any point from the source the force proportional to distance squared ( The area defined with the point on a circumference around the source). So doubling the distance reduces the magnitude by 4. This is a long way of saying the force holding the water is proportional to the square of distance from the particle. Thus with a pore, the force on water in the center, is less than the water near particle surface. So it seems that the pore sizes should approx follow the same proportionality. The tension following the square of the pore radius. Thus a 1/8” pore should have approx 4 times less tension than a 1/16’’ pore. Thus the pore radius tension curves show follow a f(x)=x2 function with a derivative of 2x....See MoreCactus roots & soil ingredients that retain water
Comments (12)Hi, AR. Thanks for the kind words. I don't get snippy about what people use for a soil because I don't care beyond the fact that I'd like everyone to get all they can from their growing experience. I do care when, during the course of a conversation, misleading or erroneous information that has the potential to limit your experience is claimed or inferred to be true. I'll argue those points with gusto, for no reason other than the fact I think it's important for (the collective) you to have accurate info if you're to make good decisions. I think it can safely be said that the number of plants that would do well in soils in which they naturally occur would be somewhere between very few to practically none, with the overwhelming number of them crowding each other for space at the 'practically none' end of the comparative scale. Putting mineral soils in a pot changes the way water physically behaves in them due to the fact it eliminates the wicking effect of soils deeper than pots. I said all that to say it hardly matters a whit, what type of soil the plant prefers growing in situ, 'cause it ain't gonna like it in a pot. Also, I don't think you should be thinking about trying to use the fines left over from screening Turface as a significant fraction of a soil for plants that happen to be vulnerable to ill effects caused by wet feet. You can increase water retention w/o introducing a perched water table by screening the ingredients to a size large enough to ensure the medium can't hold perched water, but also increasing the volume of ingredients that hold water INSIDE of the soil particles. IOW, screened ingredients equaling 4 parts Turface 3 parts bark 2 parts grit will hold a lot more water than the standard 1:1:1 screened parts by volume w/o sacrificing any notable amount of aeration or drainage, and it won't invite a perched water table to take up residence in the lower reaches of the pot. Al...See Moredale92539 Riverside Co SoCal
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