Triacontanol: The Rose Grower's Secret

[SundayGardener]

In the past I have used alfalfa meal outdoors, but also once a year I buy a 50 lb bag of alfafa pellets (sold as horse food in pet supply stores), to add to soil and compost. (I found that the combination of horse manure and alfafa pellets really cooks). The pellets are a lot cheaper than the meal so I'm wondering if they have the same qualities of the meal...

[thefish1337]

Originally Posted by SundayGardener

In the past I have used alfalfa meal outdoors, but also once a year I buy a 50 lb bag of alfafa pellets (sold as horse food in pet supply stores), to add to soil and compost. (I found that the combination of horse manure and alfafa pellets really cooks). The pellets are a lot cheaper than the meal so I'm wondering if they have the same qualities of the meal...

alfalfa pellets work from what I've read online in regards to vegetable gardening. you can also brew alfalfa as a tea with molasses and then water in with it. I personally don't think its a good idea to have that much organic matter breaking down in the root zone of my orchids so the tea is probably the better organic route. some people have reported rots due to the use of purely organic and many of the people testing purely organic have been putting the fertilizer in tea bags/pantyhose or porous containers and placing that on top of the orchid pot so that when you water the fertilizer is leached. you could try that with the alfalfa pellets. purely organic is precisely milled, so you might get better results if you put your alfalfa pellets in a coffee grinder. given triacontanol's insolubility it may be better to deliver it as "dust" to the roots instead of depending on the delivery rate of a pressed pellet or alfalfa meal chip.

---------- Post added at 09:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:58 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Ray

Nice work. Can't wait to hear of your results.

Interestingly, I see accelerated node branching with regular use of KelpMax, too. It does not contain triacontanol, but the "soup" of stuff in it might have similar effects.

yes I have seen that as well. I plan to test the combined effects of triacontanol and kelpmax as well once I finish my initial testing. its very possible the combined effects of purely organic could be from both kelp and triacontanol.

[thefish1337]

Here is my currently running experiment. I have two mericloned seedlings of Cattleya schilleriana 'Maui Seas' AM/OS so I think this will be a good comparison. If the effects are beneficial I will expand the treatment group to more of my collection. I performed the first treatment to 'plant B' on 2/19 and I will apply the triacontanol weekly for a month and assess any qualitative and quantitative effects I can easily measure. The plants have nearly identical numbers of leaves and pseudobulbs and are in active growth.

Plant A:
1 actively growing root tip
1 actively growing lead



Plant B:
1 recently matured bulb
2 actively growing root tips