On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 16:11:17 -0500, Rob Halgren
wrote in Message-Id:
:

Larry Dighera wrote:

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 13:33:05 -0800, profpam wrote in
Message-Id: :

The Press Enterprise article (2/28/04) -- Plant Food Makes Massive
Impression -- cites a new product --MegaGro, containing Gibberellic
acid.

Has anyone used this product on orchids?


I haven't tried it yet, but here's some information and an inexpensive
source for Gibberellic Acid-3:
http://www.crfg.org/tidbits/gibberellic.html

http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/GibberellicAcid.htm


This comes up every so often, actually. However, being an 'old
fuddy-duddy' (technical term) myself, I'd probably avoid it.

You're not a fuddy-duddy; you're a realist. :-) You know there's no
free lunch.

Jim Brasch (http://www.orchidmall.com/hormones/) probably knows more
than anybody I know. He'd be my choice to answer a few questions.

From his web site, I'd expect he might know something about GA-3 and
orchids.

Anyway, cytokines work differently in different tissues,

That's an interesting bit of information. Are you able to describe
any of the differences?

Given that fact, I would expect different plant orgins/tissues might
be topically treated with GA-3 with different concentrations at
differing times in their growth, dormant, or differentiation phases to
provide results.

and the results can be different between genera, as well.

That fact almost demands empirical testing of GA-3, as I wouldn't
expect there to be articles available dealing with reed-stem
Epidendra.

So I wouldn't generalize too much. Also, you may force flowering or
growth, but is that necessarily a good thing? If the plant isn't ready,
you can bloom it to death.

When the chemical control system is wrenched from the hand of nature,
the new master must exert responsible adjustments that will not result
in too great a drain of plant resources. A slight increase in flower
size would be nice, but employing the GA-3 whip to exhaust all the
plant's resources would be abusive.

That may work for the potted plant trade,

How do they use it?

but I'd wager that you are more interested in keeping a specimen around
for a while.

Control of plant growth and enhancement of size could be useful tools,
but I suspect that "deficit spending" of plant resources may affect
future plant performance. However, if the GA-3 induced increase in
growth rate can be sustained with increased light, water, and
nutrients ...

That isn't meant to discourage experimentation (go for it), but you
might want to experiment on some plants that you don't have a particular
attachment to.

Thanks for the encouragement and warning.

You may get excellent results, and if you do I'm sure a
lot of people would be interesting in hearing about it.

I'll post what I learn.