It appears that the light fertilization has stopped the older leaves from dropping off. My hunch was right – the rapid growth in recent weeks probably induced a nutrient deficiency.
On a different note – I got some new crypts in recently! I’ll update with pictures tonight.
Some observations over the last few days…
1) Root growth has increased dramatically.
2) Quite a few plants are exhibiting a disturbing behavior – older leaves are yellowing and dying off. Since the plants are growing at a fairly good clip, I can only assume that maybe there is now a nutrient deficiency. Yesterday, I sprayed a very very dilute mixture of ‘Miracid’ on most of my plants and to specific pots added some root tabs. ADA Iron Bottom and in some cases Seachem Flourish tabs. Hopefully I didn’t over do it.
I’ve been growing crypts for a little while now, but last night I noticed something a little different. While in itself, this is nothing remarkable, but since I’d never seen this in the past with crypts, I thought it may be worth noting.
New roots are coming in with a a little fuzz around them. I’ve noticed several plants doing this. Hopefully its a good sign.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading online regarding general plant health. I came across an article mentioning Mycorrhizal fungii. They’re fungii normally found in nature living smbiotically with the roots of plants. These fungii product fungal threads which coat the roots, sometimes penetrating the root cells even and tapping into the plants nutrients while benefiting the plant at the same time. Some plants as far as REQUIRE these fungii in order to grow properly. In the presence of these fungii, root mass nearly doubles, the plant has increased phosphorus and nutrient uptake. Plants with mycorrhizal fungi are less susceptible to diseases, both of the roots and the rest of the plant. Some of the effects must be due to improved nutrition of the plant, while others may be related to substances given off by the fungi, natural antibiotics which keep disease organisms at bay.
If you look online, you’ll find plenty of additional information and pictures, but
let me share atleast one ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture with you…
Redwood seedlings with (right) and without (left) mycorrhizae.
Photo credit:
Mike Amaranthus, USDA
Where can I get some?
Well – its found in nature. So almost any undistrubed natural area should have some in its soil. BUT before you run out and start digging, read on.
There are MANY kinds of mycorrhizal fungii. Some help provide resistance to pathogens, others improve nutrient uptake, while others help with drought resistance. You best bet is to buy a commercial mix of a wide range of mycorrhizal fungii.
So – I’ve bought a commercial product. It should be here next week. I’ll be setting up a series of experimental pots to see what kind of effect, if any, these fungii have on crypts. I’ll keep you posted.
[EDIT]
Looking around some more I found the following article on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza
Note the picture:
Ectomycorrhizal beech
New beech leaves, Grib Forest in the northern part of Sealand, Denmark.
This looks like the environment in Jan’s backyard in Emmen. Take a look at the pictures from ECS 07 in this blog. Coincidence? Probably. But, maybe, just maybe I’m onto something.
Some additional clues from the Wiki article. There are generally two types of fungii – ectomycorrhizal and endomycorrhizal. Endomycorrhizal are found in 90% of plant families. The beech trees have Ectomycorrhizal fungii – which are found in around 10% of plant families, including members of the birch, dipterocarp, eucalyptus, oak, pine and rose families. Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. Dipterocarpoideae: the largest of the subfamilies, it contains 13 genera and about 475 species. Distribution includes the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, India, Southeast Asia to New Guinea, but mostly in east Malaysia, where they form the dominant species in the lowland forests. North Borneo (Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak) is the richest area in the world for dipterocarp species.
To date, I havent used any laterite ammendments in my soil mixtures. Thinking back to the basics, I think I’ve mistakenly overlooked this simple additive that has good potential for enhancing growth. I’ve ordered some Laterite – I’ll try it out in a new mix with some longicauda and some ideii to see how growth is affected.
Its time to repot anyway. Overa period of about a year, the leafcompost / aquasoil
mix degrades and gets mucky. Plants seem to not grow as rapidly any more. In the pots I’ve recently repotted, I’m now using ADA Aquasoil Amazonia exclusivly. It should hold up better. So far the plants are responding well. When my Laterite arrives, I’ll add that to the ADA and see how the plants do.
I don’t know why I didn’t really think of this earlier – but Sphagnum moss has a natural ability to acidify water. We all know that peat moss (granulated) has the ability, albeit short lived, to lower the pH down to the 4’s. What about LIVE moss? A little reseach online shows promising articles. Live Sphagnum removes nutrients from water, to the point of water quality being like distilled water. It also actively remove Ca++ ions and releases H+ ions, acidifying the water down to the 3’s and 4’s. Best of all – it grows well in the conditions we want for our blackwater crypts! A few months ago, I’d taken a few handfuls from a bale of long fiber sphagnum – dead as can be. I soaked it in water, then layed it out in a tray with a dome. Humidity quickly rose to 100%. There was no standing water per say – but everything was sopping wet. I put the tray under a flourecent light fixture, and soon the dead moss started taking on a greenish hue. A few weeks later – I could make out little green heads of live sphagnum starting to grow. A few months later – I had a huge mat of live sphagnum! I’ve taken this matt and broken it into several segments, and stuffed it into my crypt tank, in between the pots of crypts, with the moss just above the water level. We’ll see what happens! I’ll record the TDS and pH of the water as it exists right now in that setup and report back. Hopes are high.
In the almost 1 year now, that I’ve been keeping crypts emeresed, I’ve tried out several different substrate mixtures.
Mix #1
Leaf Compost + Aquasoil
This is my most successful mix to date for both blackwater and freshwater crypts. It consists of leaf compost + Amazonia Aquasoil in a 3/5 ratio and most plants in this mix have done really well!
Mix #2
Leaf Compost + Aquasoil + Fagus leaves
I tried this mix out on a few crypts that were not doing so well in Mix @#1 – namely C. pallidenerva. Unfortunatly, the plant didn’t like this mix either. Its still alive, but just barely. In addition, this mix doesnt seem to be as stable and attracts algae like no other. Maybe due to something the leaves are leeching?
More later..time for breakfast.
Some observations from keeping these plants at lower humidity levels – ~70% vs. 96%
All last year, I kept my plants at humidity levels nearing 100%. Plants grew large leaves, and were very lush. But the leaves were thin – resembled submersed growth and were prone to melting when they touched a surface or another plant.
By creating a little bit of a gap in the lids, I’ve lowered the humidity levels down to near 70%. The goal was to encourage the plants to have thicker leaves and to mitigate the melting problems. The results from the last few weeks are pretty obvious. By lowering the humidity down to near 70%, some of the plants lost their leaves, albeit slowly. New leaves coming in are shorter, thicker and aren’t prone to melting.
Take a look at the difference:
7 Weeks after being placed into the lower humidity setup.
The leaves are shorter, thicker.
Additionally, several plants flowered during this same period. Weather that was caused by stress, or the lower humidity induced flowering is uncertain since I don’t have many controls. However, here are three cases:
Case #1
The C. ideii spathes I’ve got pictured in this blog, is one of several pots and only the one in the lower humidity condition flowered. However, lighting levels are also a little stronger in that low humidity setup.
Case #2
The same is true for the C. pygmaea. Again, placed in the lower humidity / higher light setup, the plant flowered.
Case #3
Recently, I placed a C. usterenia in the lower humidity/higher light setup and it TOO is throwing up a spathe. Several clones of that same plant are in the higher humidity setup, and while they’re larger plants, they have yet to throw up any spathes.
Case#4
This one is slightly different from the above cases, where the lighting levels remained the same, but the humidity levels were dropped. Soon after I dropped the humidity levels in the previously high humidity setup, my C. usterenia x walkerii hybrid started throwing up spathes.
Conclusion:
While this is not by any means a definitive conclusion, there is strong anecdotal evidence that moving the plant from a high humidty setup to a lower humidty setup, induces flowering.
Additionally, as a by product, the glass doesn’t fog up any more and I can peer into the tank without opening the lid. However, evaporation is also up and I find I have to top off the water much more frequently.