Well yeah, and has anyone here really had a problem getting enough nitrogen into their orchids?



-Keith

Hylian, I researched addition of nitrogen via various ionic solutions. The answer to the question you asked, and most likely other questions you haven't asked, can be found by reading the paper at this link

http://www.myorchidcare.com/orchid-f...ertilizers.pdf

-Keith

K-Sci, note that this is a very old thread. Hylian had last login in 2013.

Oops, I thought the thread started recently. Oh well, other people may have similar questions. I found the topic interesting enough to on a research binge. I learned that I and a lot of other people are full of $hi+ when it comes to the topic of fertilizers.

- Keith

It might be an old thread Roberta but it wasn't K-sci that dragged it back up, it was Nominder.

By posting that urea is freely absorbed by orchids..

Something I questioned and ignored since switching to an urea free fertilizer after all the hoopla did actually give me great results.

So there is Nominder posting a link stating that it doesn't matter, orchids unlike other plants can absorb urea and can even absorb it 3 times more.

This made me wonder, why would an orchid need 3 times more Nitrogen and is it maybe detrimental to make an orchid absorb 3 times more N than it would in Nature?

Again I just ignored it and figured peole can make their own conclusions like me.

K-Sci on a mission to improve his plants which is great to see another grower on has now posted this link which was a bit of an eye opener for me - the most important bit was the last section on slow release fertilizers.

The beginning on fertilizers affecting the PH all made sense but it mentions a table to compare the ammonical N to the Alkalinity of the water (measured in a lab) and then one was supposed to work out how much to use based on the other as seen in a supposed "TABLE" but I could see no table to find that information so it all made sense to me but after reading the 2 pages I had no additional practical information I could apply to growing my orchids and am thinking, ok I learnt something new but what good has this new knowledge brought me?

I might start testing my pot runoff water ph :D

Lets not forget in the past 8 years a lot of new people have started growing orchids, me included..

There is a lot to read about fertilizer - in fact, a huge amount to read - in the free information section of the First Rays Web site. Most orchids don't need much fertilizer.

A hobbyist will have a hard time telling the difference because there are only a few plants. Commercial growers, to whom time is money, do lots of research to figure out how to get their plants to grow and flower as fast as possible. We hobbyists don't have the control over all the variables that commercial growers have, so it generally isn't too important for us - just use some.

Hi,

The link I posted is a research paper and I think that work is confined to Phalaenopsis. Just wanted to share that information.

I am not an experienced Orchid enthusiast but I have experience in a bit of science. I do not think every article (even wrote by experts) need not be true for every case. People do experiments, they talk about their experience. They are not conclusions. One research shows Phalaenopsis absorbs urea directly. That was the link I shared.

Understanding nature is complex and scientific thinking may not work in certain cases. I mean to say that we one could be easily missing the logic of a scientific experiment in some situations. I still think orchids could be grown with organic fertilizers and I am yet to experiment with that. (If a microorganism breaks down urea, then some organisms can break down organic matter too)

People have a bad experience with slow-release fertilizers and they have their own vlogs. I know people argue for and against coconut husk as a good potting medium. Most of our conclusions are personal experiences and they can not be generalized I believe.

An orchid farm in India said they use a particular fertilizer for their orchids and they sent me the Amazon link. When I enquired the seller, he said the product contains urea.
And, people in India use mineral and organic fertilizers alternatively but I am not sure how that could work. If a chemical fertilizer makes the potting mix sterile, any organic fertilizer won't work. Again, we don't know what they miss, or what I miss.

The context is the most important thing I believe.


PS : I do not have a soild opinion on Urea though :)

All orchids can absorb all three forms of nitrogen, both through their roots and through their leaves. The “minor detail” folks seem to ignore is how well they do so.

Nitrate and ammonium-based nitrogens are absorbed extremely well through the roots. Urea-based nitrogen is relatively poorly absorbed that way.

In contrast, urea is the preferred source for foliar uptake, while the others are poorly absorbed through that route.

That does not mean that we should be OK with foliar feeding with urea, as we must consider barriers to foliar uptake.

Many orchids have developed thick, waxy cuticle layers on their leaves, an evolutionary adaptation intended to slow water loss. Phalaenopsis, cattleyas, and cymbidiums are good examples of that. Unfortunately, a waxy layer that slows water loss also slows uptake. The waxy cutex gets thicker with age, so seedlings might be able to take advantage of foliar uptake better than can mature plants.

Then we should consider leaf orientation, too. A plant like a cymbidium, having more-or-less vertical leaves, will tend to shed liquids and direct them down to the root system, so that ought to tell us something…

I believe Roberta responded to my post because I addressed the missing OP directly by name. I appreciated that and it never occurred to be in any way offended. Thanks Roberata! :)

Now, back to the topic at hand, which is a very important one, though we all, IMO, have a tendency to overthink it. There are two overriding principles that are very important to know about fertilizers.

1) Some is better than none.

2) Too much is worse than none.

I very highly recommend the information at firstrays.com. I like Ray's approach, which is consistently based on science, but I'm surely biased because, like Ray, I'm a scientist.

That said, the history of science has shown far more science to be wrong than right. Further, science has been corrupted by political interests that try to leverage the cultural power of science to advance political agendas. The news media taints the science further because they, too, have an agenda, plus they nearly always get the science wrong. Their most common error is to represent correlation as showing causality. Oops, I'm off topic again.

For those who like data, here is where you can find links to the other MSU fertilizer articles that go with the link I gave previously.

FEED ME! MSU Orchid Fertilizer - Michigan State University Formula - rePotme.com Orchid Supply


Disclaimer: This link is not an endorsement of the FEED ME! fertilizer. I know nothing at all about it.


-Keith