Dave Neal's stuff is very acidic. If you run it at 150 -200 ppm N, there is
a good chance you will burn up your roots in short order. (All depends what
your water is like.)

Pat


"Ray" wrote in message
...
Hi Joanna.

Yeah, you missed something, but there's more at issue than that.

1 teaspoon per gallon of Dyna-Gro "Grow" formula (7-9-5) used at 1
teaspoon
per gallon, adds a total of 235 ppm of dissolved solids to your water. Of
that 235 ppm, 99 ppm is nitrogen, 52 ppm is phosphorus, 55 ppm is
potassium,
with the remaining 29 ppm being the balance of the minerals provided in
the
formulation.

Dave Neal, owner of Dyna-Gro, is a firm believer in providing nutrition to
plants at a very low level every time you water. I subscribe to that same
approach, but now feel that his recommendations are simply too low.

For years, I fed his stuff at a rate of 1/2 teaspoon per gallon - a
nitrogen
loading of about 50 ppm. About a year ago I increased my feeding to
between
two- and three times that, and have seen marvelous results. I also
switched
to the MSU stuff simultaneously, but if my premise about controlling by
nitrogen content being key, and letting the other nutrients fall where
they
may, that should not have made too significant of a difference.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, and Lots of Free Info!

. . . . . . . . . . .
"J Fortuna" wrote in message
...
Ray,

I fear I either do not understand something or I have been
underfertilizing
by a lot (or both).

I actually use the Dyna-Gro (7-9-5) fertilizer which you refer to on
your
page, and on your page you say that 1 teaspoon per gallon of this
formula
results in a total contribution of 235 ppm, which if one reads further
down
in your page is somewhere within the norm for Phals "in greenhouse
conditions in bark-based media". I grow in an apartment not in a
greenhouse,
in moss not in bar, does that change the formula?

The instructions on this Dina-Gro fertilizer are to use 1/4 to 1/2
teaspoon
per gallon of water for houseplants. The instructions on your Web site
seem
thus completely different from those on this fertilizer, unless I am
missing
something crucial here.

Reading further in your page I noticed that (if I understand correctly)
lower light levels and temperatures mean that one should shoot for a
much
lower ppm target. Does this explain the difference between 1 tsp per
gallon
in greenhouse versus 1/4 teaspoon per gallon for windowsill culture?

Following the fertilizer label I use a 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water.
I
use tap water not distilled water (I assume that this also makes a
difference in the ppm). I don't know the water composition in the DC
area,
how important is it that I find out? Am I doing something wrong? My
Phals
seem to be doing well enough, though I am sure that with more optimal
conditions their potential is much higher. I would really like to get
one
of
the mature ones to have 2 spikes at once (so far I have had two spikes
only
when I bought plants with two spikes, but the following year yielded 1
spike
only), and so I have been trying to improve their conditions, which is
why
I
would like to know more about optimizing fertilizer now.

Thanks for explaining this.
Joanna

"Ray" wrote in message
...
Most of you are aware of the JavaScript calculator I have on my
website
for
determining the concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium
in
fertilizer solutions. You simply plug in the N, P, and K values from
the
label, and the number of teaspoons per gallon you use, and it tells
you
the
concentrations in ppm, plus the N, P, & K contributions to the TDS.

After a lot of discussions with the folks at Blackmore (they made the
stuff
for MSU) and Peters, I have concluded that if your fertilizer has a
wide
range of minor- and trace elements in it, you can manage your feeding
regimen by simply controlling the nitrogen loading. I have,
therefore,
added another calculator to that page which allows one to simply enter
the
"N" value from the fertilizer label and the desired nitrogen loading
in
ppm,
and it tells you how many teaspoons to add to a gallon of water (and
milliliters per liter).

http://www.firstrays.com/fertcalc.htm

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, and Lots of Free Info!

. . . . . . . . . . .