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Post by canuk1w1 on Oct 4, 2014 14:51:02 GMT -5
I've been futzing around with various stuffs since early in my CP career. Recently, I've settled on a combination of botanicare liquid fertilizer and DBW.
In one of FirstRays newsletters, Ray discussed switching his feeding technique from fertilizer with each watering at a concentration of 150ppm - 200ppm and a pure water flush every three or four feedings to prevent salt buildup, to fertilizer each watering at a concentration around 60ppm. The rationale being it's closer to what the plants see in nature where the plants are watered by regular rain runoff that collects a variety of organic matter but doesn't persist i.e. a steady, low stream of nutrients. The same applies to epiphytes.
I decided to adopt a similar approach. I'll mix a 1/2 strength batch of plant food (any type now really) then dilute it down to around 100ppm and I'll use this for orchids and tropicals. For CPs I'll take about a half cup, add a half teaspoon of powdered DBW, mix and use this brew for foliar feed. This doesn't burn 'dew leaves, "works" in pitchers (no adverse affects so far) and is proving safe on the VFT seedlings. For 'dew seedlings, I still use a pure water and DBW mix - sparingly, I had a really bad time with mould the first go 'round feeding them. I have some "spare" dielsiana and coccicaulis seedlings sprouting so I'll try the high test on them in a loose side by each comparison.
Utrics don't seem to like this stuff though. I tried it on a larger leaf wot promptly dried up in two days. Trying to get my hands on water fleas for those puppies!
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Post by roraima on Oct 4, 2014 16:06:29 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing the fertilizing tips and recipes!
Right now I'm loving the results of regular spray application of dilute orchid fertilizer with a pure water flush every few weeks, I'm surprised how much fertilization some of my CP really seem to like. Bonfield (Cole) was the person to introduce me to this technique.
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