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Post by yukondave on Feb 10, 2017 14:52:40 GMT -5
So I was on the hunt for something similar to Maxsea here in Canada so I had a friend send me a photo of the ingredient list. To my surprise it lists Urea as the 3rd ingredient. I thought Urea was deadly to CP and that's why people use Maxsea. Has the formula changed?
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Post by lloyd on Feb 10, 2017 16:27:21 GMT -5
That's what it is: a fertilizer but a "natural" one. I dilute it to 50 PPM of TDS before use.
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Post by nimbulan on Feb 11, 2017 11:33:39 GMT -5
The issue with urea is that it needs to be broken down by bacteria before it can be used by the plant (I'm not sure if CP digestive enzymes can process it or not.) If the proper microbial activity doesn't exist in the soil, then it can build up over time and cause problems. If you're not soil fertilizing your plants, it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm not really sure how the idea got started that Maxsea is urea-free. As far as I know it never was.
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Post by H2O on Feb 11, 2017 12:25:14 GMT -5
Yes urea can build up in the soil but it should never really become a problem with proper feeding. Most people use Maxsea as a foliar or pitcher feed and it never gets into the media in the first place. When using it as a soil drench you just have to flush the media after fertilizing (something you should be doing with Nepenthes, Helis, epiphytic Utrics etc anyways)
I only use it at 1-1.5 tsp per gallon as a foliar and pitcher feed once a month so I can't personally confirm how safe soil drenches are but I know many guys that do it with no problems.
If in doubt, start with half the dose and test on a couple plants.
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Post by WillyCKH on Feb 11, 2017 13:15:44 GMT -5
It's also a good idea to change out the water once in a while, if you are growing your plants using the tray method, it can reduce the buildups in soil.
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Post by H2O on Feb 11, 2017 14:10:18 GMT -5
It's also a good idea to change out the water once in a while, if you are growing your plants using the tray method, it can reduce the buildups in soil. Agreed! It never hurts to change water trays out, the higher your TDS the more often. I'm cheap so I wait until winter and the rain does it for me 😆
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Post by WillyCKH on Feb 11, 2017 14:12:34 GMT -5
That's great! Too bad my trays are indoors and don't benefit from the rain haha
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Post by lloyd on Feb 11, 2017 16:13:30 GMT -5
One day, one of us has to take a TDS meter to a bog with CP's and dig down a foot or so to get some really mucky-brown water out and get some measurements.
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Post by Apoplast on Feb 11, 2017 22:09:52 GMT -5
Hi Lloyd - Just so happens I did this in college. In bogs in northern Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan at least, floating bog mats 1m down are 3.5pH and 100TDS, and raised bogs 1m down averaged 3.2pH and 150TDS. Once you get down into the peat dark layer more than 2m down you get something closer to 3pH and 250+TDS. Of course, no CP in bog have roots 2m down (the measurements were taken for another purpose). Essentially, CP probably get slightly acidic water near the surface and quite low TDS. At least in the bogs I have measurements for. Hi H2O - Sure, rub it in that you can leave you trays outside and not have them freeze solid. I think I need to try a CP bog filled with species that should make it through my winter. You know, without all dragging stuff inside bit.
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Post by lloyd on Feb 11, 2017 23:09:47 GMT -5
The water in the bottom of my microblogs has quite a high "TDS" reading. I'm not sure what to make of these readings (as high as 300 or so). There's some clay balls and mineral wool which I think are pretty inert and not leaching any minerals. Otherwise just peat, perlite and 0 TDS water. I suspect that organic acids account for the high TDS. The water is a very dark brown so there's a lot of something in it.
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Post by Apoplast on Feb 12, 2017 17:54:39 GMT -5
Hi Lloyd - Not a surprise. TDS of course is actually a calculated value based on the measured electrical conductivity (or "EC") of the solution. There is a correlation between the acidity of a solution, including humic acids, and the EC as the most mobile cation is H+. Of course the EC of very alkaline solutions is high as well given the mobility of OH-. We use TDS because it makes more intuitive sense than a measure of electrical conductivity, but two meters measuring the same EC will often give you slightly different TDS based on the conversions the company uses.
I don't think CP in bogs ever experience the level of humic acids we expose them to in cultivation using the tray method, especially if your humidity is low. The bulk of the peat moss we use is from lower down in the strata of a peat bog than where CP roots would reach. These lower layers are more decomposed and thus will more easily liberate humic acids as they continue to decompose in our pots when kept wet. The higher layers are comprised lof live mosses, and below that white or blonde peat moss, which oddly doesn't seem as available in North America as it is in Europe. But my guess is that if you grew in shallower layered peat moss, i.e. blonde peat, you'd experience lower TDS because the moss is in an earlier state of decomposition, and hasn't had the acid and salts washed down into it from upper layers.
This is the main reason I long soak my peat moss, for a week or two, before squeezing it out to use as media. I know rinsing peat is a whole debate, and I don't want to start that one up. Certainly, we use peat moss as the basis of most of our "soilless" potting mixes, and tomatoes have no history of growing in bogs but do fine in the peat. My point is just that for plants which have evolved to live in low EC water, we might skew cultivation in our favor by getting rid of the excess humic acid the peat comes with. If you can have top watering from rain or otherwise that rinses your media through, none of this is an issue. But for me, I've found I have to repot less, and drain trays less by reducing my EC of my peat.
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Post by yukondave on Feb 13, 2017 9:56:57 GMT -5
It looks like this thread took on a life of it's own while I was away. Thanks everyone for the clarification on Maxsea, I won't be in a big hurry to track some down for now but I will keep an eye open for it during my travels. Right now I'm feeding with bloodworms and watering with RO water, then periodically flushing everything with distilled water. I'm planning on building an outdoor bog this spring so it sounds like I should plumb in a drain or a well where I can pump the water out periodically.
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