My greenhouse and plants

This is a place for members to post on-going topics about their plants and experiences.
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mmcavall
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Joined: Tue May 17, 2016 11:54 pm
Location: São Carlos - SP, Southeast Brazil, Cerrado Region

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

Sorry for taking so long...

My formulation for cactus (used the last year and with good results):
N: 112 ppm
P (P2O5): 255 ppm
K (K2O): 242 ppm
Ca: 57 ppm
Mg: 16 ppm
S: 19,60 ppm

To achieve this I use five different fertilizers from Yara, designed for fertigation that are diluted in water and will provide the ppm mentioned above.

The fertilizers are the following:
Calcinit (N 15.5%, Ca 19%)
Kristalon 06-12-36 (N 6%, P2O5 12%, K2O 36%, Mg 1.8%, S 8%)
Kristamap (N 12%, P2O5 61%)
KristaMAG (N 11%, Mg 9,3%)
Krista MKP (P2O5 52%, K2O 34%)

Micronutrients are also added (from a single product sell here under the name “Conmicros”).

I use this solution only in the growing season.
I use it in about 2 or 3 sequential waterings and them I water the plants with pure water to avoid excess of salts. Them back again to the solution.
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K.W.
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Location: Köln, Germany - Zone 8a

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by K.W. »

Good evening mmcavall,
very interesting this lineup!
Are you sure about the quantities?
The approx. 700 ppm correspond to approx. 7ml per 10 liters of water - isn't that very little?
How long have you been using this type of fertilization?

Thank you very much and best regards K.W.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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mmcavall
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Joined: Tue May 17, 2016 11:54 pm
Location: São Carlos - SP, Southeast Brazil, Cerrado Region

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

K.W. wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 9:00 pm Good evening mmcavall,
very interesting this lineup!
Are you sure about the quantities?
The approx. 700 ppm correspond to approx. 7ml per 10 liters of water - isn't that very little?
How long have you been using this type of fertilization?

Thank you very much and best regards K.W.
Hi KW thanks for asking.
I am quite sure about the quantities but not that sure if I am doing it right.
My main concern is to not overfertilizer the plants. Moreover I use this solution in almost all waterings during 6 months so it may counterbalance the low ppms.

The quantities of each product in grams per 1000 liters is given below (they are salts to be diluted in water).
Using this quantities I obtain the final ppms mentioned above.

I have been using this solution since the last two years and my plants look nice. They grow slow and compact. I like itbut sometimes I ask myself if I am taking too seriously the idea of "hard grow". I collect cacti since 2017 only so I haven't had too many time to gain experience.
Do your fertilizer scheme provide much more ppm of the nutrients? Thanks
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jerrytheplater
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Location: Bloomingdale, NJ (USDA Zone 6b)
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Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by jerrytheplater »

Thanks for posting your fertilizer method. It is certainly not just add a little bit of this product and go! Being a curious kind of person, I am working on a spreadsheet which calculates the final analysis of your mixture when applied to your plants. I just want to see if I get the same numbers you posted. I am assuming you are watering with the solution you are making and not diluting the mixture even further.

Are you mixing these fertilizers up as two solutions, in the A and B method? Calcinit and Krista MAG are probably incompatible with your other fertilizers due to the presence of Ca and Mg causing precipitation of Phosphate.

I forget how big of a collection you have, and so wonder if you are really mixing up 1000 liters of fertilizer at a time. Or are you using a smaller volume at the same concentration: 300 gram/1000 liters = 3 gram/10 liters.

The one item you didn't specify is how much of the Con Micros you are using. The label says to use 20-25 grams per 1000 liters. Is this what you are doing? I see your Kristalon Orange label contains trace elements too.
Jerry Smith
Bloomingdale, NJ
45 inches (114 cm) rain equivalent per year, approx. evenly spread per month
2012 USDA Hardiness Zone 6b: -5F to OF (-20C to -18C) min.
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mmcavall
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Location: São Carlos - SP, Southeast Brazil, Cerrado Region

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

Hi Jerry
Please tell if you obtained aprox. the same numbers (I rounded them when wrote the post). I made myself the calculation based in a previous formula I used to use (very similar in final ppm).
May collection is relativamente small. So I usualy prepare 50 liters with proportional amount of each salt. I have a second greenhouse (a kind of nursery I am starting) where we dilute the salts in 1000 liters. First I dilute Calcinit and then add the others. The concentration is too low to precipitate phospate (this was told me by an expert in fertigation, I dont know it by myself).
Thanks for the discussion.
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mmcavall
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Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

Today I would like to show you my front yard. There are some cacti and some other succulents such as Aloes Pachypodiuns and Jatropha.

Some of the cacti:
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An Opuntia and Aloes and Pachypodiuns:
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Another view of the same. The big Aloe is Aloe vaombe and the red ones, smaller, are Aloe cameronii and the glaucous green is Aloe excelsa. Not sure about that. I sowed these Aloes from seed and I tagged the red ones as excelsa and the glaucous green one as cameronii. But now I think I may had swapped the tags because cameronii would not be glaucous green. I think. Or maybe the seller sent me something else.
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The glaucous green one is starting to flower so maybe someone can recognize it but now I see I could have taken a better picture of the plant:
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Another Aloe. No idea of the species:
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And some Aloe castanea:
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The Pachypodium lamerei. Hope they get big:
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These are the Jatrophas:
podagrica and multifida if I am not wrong
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This is a pot of Dyckia brevifolia:
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Hope you enjoy the visit
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RorBurg56
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Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:09 pm
Location: U. K, Scotland, Midlothian

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by RorBurg56 »

Beautifully tanned aloes
Growing some succs and cacs in mid/coastal Scotland.
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ohugal
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Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by ohugal »

Nice arrangement of globular and columnar cacti! How deep is that plantbed?
Location
Antwerp, Belgium
temperate, maritime climate with mild winters and cool summers
hardiness zone 8a
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jerrytheplater
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Location: Bloomingdale, NJ (USDA Zone 6b)
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Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by jerrytheplater »

jerrytheplater wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 11:42 am Thanks for posting your fertilizer method. It is certainly not just add a little bit of this product and go! Being a curious kind of person, I am working on a spreadsheet which calculates the final analysis of your mixture when applied to your plants. I just want to see if I get the same numbers you posted. I am assuming you are watering with the solution you are making and not diluting the mixture even further.

Are you mixing these fertilizers up as two solutions, in the A and B method? Calcinit and Krista MAG are probably incompatible with your other fertilizers due to the presence of Ca and Mg causing precipitation of Phosphate.

I forget how big of a collection you have, and so wonder if you are really mixing up 1000 liters of fertilizer at a time. Or are you using a smaller volume at the same concentration: 300 gram/1000 liters = 3 gram/10 liters.

The one item you didn't specify is how much of the Con Micros you are using. The label says to use 20-25 grams per 1000 liters. Is this what you are doing? I see your Kristalon Orange label contains trace elements too.
Sorry for the delay in giving my comments on your fertilizers. I kind of stopped working on it. I got so far and then let the project set aside for a bit. Retirement preparations have gotten in the way.
Jerry Smith
Bloomingdale, NJ
45 inches (114 cm) rain equivalent per year, approx. evenly spread per month
2012 USDA Hardiness Zone 6b: -5F to OF (-20C to -18C) min.
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mmcavall
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Location: São Carlos - SP, Southeast Brazil, Cerrado Region

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

RorBurg56 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:36 am Beautifully tanned aloes
Thank you
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mmcavall
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Location: São Carlos - SP, Southeast Brazil, Cerrado Region

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

ohugal wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 4:15 pm Nice arrangement of globular and columnar cacti! How deep is that plantbed?
Thank you. There is no "deepth". Roots can reach the center of the Earth if they want. I mean, there is no cement below. Once one armadillo emerged from the Aloes "bed". It came from below and made a mess. I took some time to understand what have happened (never saw the armadillo but it was the only explanation to holes that appeared from one day to another...and armadillos are not rare here).

As an aditional information, I didn't prepared the soil in any way. There is no grit or other components indicated for cacti. This may explain why they are to in a very good health.
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Holunder
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Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by Holunder »

mmcavall, I really enjoyed reading your blog, thanks for sharing. I wish I had such rocky material around. Looks awesome.
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mmcavall
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Location: São Carlos - SP, Southeast Brazil, Cerrado Region

Re: My greenhouse and plants

Post by mmcavall »

Holunder wrote: Sun Oct 30, 2022 8:48 am mmcavall, I really enjoyed reading your blog, thanks for sharing. I wish I had such rocky material around. Looks awesome.
Thank you very much ! Maybe you can start looking for rocks. It is an additional pleasure to the hobby
Regards
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