Giving your Neps a coffee treatment

[marka]

The advantage of coffee (and tea) might be that it contains the whole range of plant nutrients rather than just the main few. Especially as a lot of people insist on growing neps in largely inert substrates devoid of all trace elements. Plenty of them in the wild are groing in poor, but not inert, soils.

[dvg]

Mar 29, 2010 11:54:46 GMT -10 marka said:

The advantage of coffee (and tea) might be that it contains the whole range of plant nutrients rather than just the main few. Especially as a lot of people insist on growing neps in largely inert substrates devoid of all trace elements. Plenty of them in the wild are groing in poor, but not inert, soils.

Marka, that could very well be true. I believe that the coffee plant is similar to the ginseng plant in that they both leach a lot of the nutrients out of the soil that they are growing in.

So it could be, that depending upon what region in the world that the coffee beans were harvested from, could in turn determine what soil elements and micronutrients were taken up by those respective plants.

I have wondered if coffee beans from Sumatra might in fact be more beneficial to Nepenthes than say coffee grown in Colombia or Ethiopia, maybe just because some Neps are native to Sumatra. I'm not aware of any coffee bean composition analysis though. Just some food for thought.

dvg

[marka]

I doubt that the country of origin has much effect, if the coffe tree is growing well then it can't short of the right nutrients. People have been feeding tea to houseplants for at least 30 years as a fertilizer, nothing magical about just safer than harsh chemicals. It's not clear that neps can absorb trace elemts through the pitchers in any case, so roots may be the only source of these, with lack of some being the rate determining step in the plants growth.

[dvg]

Marka, if I use coffee from Somalia as an example, the soil in Somalia is very low in selenium.

So I would expect the selenium uptake into coffee beans from that area would be very low as well.

The point I am trying to make is, that coffee beans could contain more trace elements from some regions of the world than are found in other regions.

And although it might not affect the growth of the coffee plant per se, it could make a difference in that next growth step in Nepenthes plants.

[kain]

Makes sense to me, dvg, but it does bring up another question: What trace elements that the coffee plant uptakes are present in the beans and what trace elements are present in the plant's other tissues. Coffee treatment doesn't do the Nepenthes any good if the trace element it needs is bound up in the stalk of the coffee plant.
To clarify: Say the Nepenthes needs magnesium and the soil the coffee you are using in your treatment had magnesium in it, but the coffee plant just happens to store magnesium in its stalk and doesn't transfer much at all to the beans. The Nepenthes won't get much magnesium and the treatment won't work as well as it might.
It would be interesting to see what proportion (of trace elements present in the soil) of which trace elements actually makes it into the bean.
Or, I suppose, you could just skip the middleman and find out what proportions of which trace elements each species of Nepenthes needs and institute a fertilization regime based on that. But that would be a lot of very expensive research.

[dvg]

Hi Kain,

That's a good question that you raise...a question that I don't currently have the answer to.

But I suppose when it comes to micronutrients and trace elements, that might be one of the reasons why sea kelp derived fertilizers are so effective. The oceans of the world are very rich in most if not all of the trace elements. And sea kelp is known to contain a lot of these trace elements. As long as the salts are removed from the sea kelp, sea kelp extract should be a good soil additive, for Nepenthes. And I think some growers have had pretty decent success with using it.

dvg

[Noa_F]

I have begun fertilizing my Nepenthes with full strength seaweed extract and and superthrive under the recommendation of Michael. Superthrive has all the trace elements you could ever need and the seaweed extract has all the main nutrients and dosent burn the plants. I use this combination once every week or two (depending on how much it has rained). The benefits are absolutely amazing. My plants have never grown so fast. Why go to the trouble of all this coffee stuff when you can simply buy something that is very effective? My only fear is that this frequent fertilizing will break down my potting mix of 2 parts eXXXpanded perlite and 1 part peat.

Noa

[mikuláš]

Why go to the trouble of all this coffee stuff when you can simply buy something that is very effective? My only fear is that this frequent fertilizing will break down my potting mix of 2 parts eXXXpanded perlite and 1 part peat.

Sounds like you answered your own question, Noa

[dvg]

Mar 30, 2010 12:17:23 GMT -10 rainforest said:

One of the interesting points I have seen is that many growers are willing to give their plants coffee but reluctant to use real fertilizer on them. I somehow believe if they did fertilize and saw results on their plants, they may be reluctant to use coffee and vice verse for those who use coffee and never plant ferts.
A test (contest in a way) should be the best to judge to see how each responds and what are the results. DVG, I would not use test villosas and macros, but since you have already done so, your results are promising. One question enters my mind: Have you ever used soluble plant fertilizers?

I am also wondering if coffee works the same way as a product called "Superthrive" works on pants. Like a hormone rather than a nutrient. It is known that coconut embryo water also stimulates plant growth in the lab for plants in vitro. Perhaps the coffee works in a similar way. More so like a root or growth stimulator and not really a plant food source.
In these tests we should also combine the effects of a fertilizer AND coffee to see if the results are even better over coffee and fertilizer alone. There are many possibilities of testing this and the endorsement or abstinence of using coffee may also be determined from test results.

M

Hi Rainforest,

In answer to your question, no I haven't yet used soluble plant fertilizers on any of my Nepenthes. In fact, I was reluctant to initially even use coffee as a fertilizer for them.

Using coffee as a growth stimulator was my first foray into Nep fertilizing. But I am not opposed to using soluble plant fertilizers on them either. Nor am I totally invested in coffee as being the perfect Nep food. Now that I see that soluble plant ferts can be quite effective for speeding up Nep growth, I will be more willing to experiment with that in the future.

I would also like to experiment with letting the naturally occurring microfauna and beneficial soil organisms do their work at breaking down organic material in the potting mix, and thus releasing N-P-K to plant roots at a more gradual rate. This slower release of N-P-K could result in the potting mixes not breaking down so quickly, and the consequential need for repotting. Without having to repot so often, plants could grow on unhindered by any transplant shock or readjustment phase that can happen after a repot.

It sounds like you are interested in doing/seeing some tests with the various fertilizing options. This is not only exciting, but could turn out to be quite informative as well. I would also like to see some testing with [ferts vs coffee] vs [coffee and ferts] vs a control.... As well as other possible combinations that arise.

I'd also like to see how an organic set-up would work. For the organic set-up, the same potting mix could be used, but a cup of earthworm castings and a cup of leaf mold would be added in as well. And this pot would be fed about once a month with black strap molasses, dissolved in water. The molasses itself has a lot of trace minerals and the complex sugars in it would also feed the soil organisms so that they could better do their work at breaking down and releasing soluble N-P-K from the organic materials in the mix.

It would be better if the testing was done with the same type plants and clones would even be better. Are you interested in doing some of the testing? It is testing like this, that helps to propel this hobby forward.

Let me know what you think. If we do some tests, maybe we can learn something new.

And i have a couple of questions; how often on average do you find you have to repot due to media breaking down with your current fertilizing schedule? And how can you tell that it is time to repot?

regards,

Doug
dvg

[rainforest]

The whole idea of fertilizing is that bacteria in the soil are responsible for getting these usable nutrients to plant's roots. The soluble ferts by themselves are worthless unless they are broken down by soil mircoorganisms first. I have also seen visible results in initial use of adding EM1 to the soluble fertilizers but not necessary over prolonged usage. This bacteria soup adds some of the necessary bacteria to boost soil activity and while not a fertilizer by itself, they add considerable boost to a plant's ability to break down nutrients into usable components.

Media break down will vary depending on what you use. I like a more gritty or coarse organic media. I have used pine bark mulch with very good results and not having seen breakdown as rapid as coconut/coir, peatmoss, or even general potting mixes. I like pumice but this is hard to find. I have grown excellent nepenthes in almost near pure pumice mixed with soil debris breakdown and this media is reusable. Roots cling and become entwined with this media. Pumice is also advantageous that it adds weight to the potting media which prevents plants from toppling over. Watering in between fertilizings will help prevent media breakdown and flush out the harmful slats that can kill soil mircobes from flourishing. This is why I like and endorse Liquid Seaweed Extract.

If I would rank fertilizer effects from best onwards. I would say using Peter's soluble gives near perfect results, but because Peter's is high in salt, this becomes risky. Liquid Seaweed comes next. I don't like fish emulsion because of the smell and it contains an oil that helps break down and make this mixture soluble. This oil eventually dries and adheres to the soil making it impermeable to water sooner or later. Miracle Grow should not even be on this list as it has the highest salts of any brand. I have not tried some of the others (i.e. Schultz, etc.) but probably would do well just the same.

Having a trial between coffee and some favorites would be a true experiment that I would be interested in seeing. But I am already satisfied with using soluble fertilizers because of the ease in making a batch. There's no cooking. cooling and then application. For my time, just mixing with water and applying does the job and is already available when I have the time to do it.
M

[mikuláš]

The whole idea of fertilizing is that bacteria in the soil are responsible for getting these usable nutrients to plant's roots.

Not entirely true...Hydroponics involves no medium at all or the use of inorganic media. Fertilizers are dissolved into the water that sustains the plants, and the plants seem to absorb those nutrients just fine

[dvg]

Rainforest,

Because of your endorsement of Seaweed fertilizers, I'm thinking of trying a trial of this type of fertilizer against a coffee treatment.

I have some B. Seaweed, a 'natural organic' product produced by Technaflora Plant Products LTD. This is pure liquified B.C. Kelp, sourced from Macrocystis Kelp. The N-P-K is listed as 0.1-0.5-1.0 repectively.

For Nepenthes to try this on, I have 2 small northiana with pitchers, both of them growing in the same pot, 2 Wistuba clipeata 'Clone 3', both plants growing in the same pot together, and 2 Wistuba N. ventricosa plants, each one about seven or eight inches in diameter. I believe each of these set of plants are the same clone, and each are about the same size as their respective twin.

I would want to unpot and repot each of these plants prior to doing any kind of testing.

The B. Seaweed, for soil feeding, is recommended to be used at 5-10ml/quart of water, once every two to three weeks. Does that sound about right to you? I might even go to about 1/8 or 1/4 recommended strength to begin with.

Also, would you recommend Superthrive be used at all, or should that be a separate trial, altogether?

If I can find some time this weekend, I could get started on these trials as soon as then.

regards,

dvg

[boris]

Mar 31, 2010 8:54:38 GMT -10 rainforest said:

The whole idea of fertilizing is that bacteria in the soil are responsible for getting these usable nutrients to plant's roots. The soluble ferts by themselves are worthless unless they are broken down by soil mircoorganisms first. I have also seen visible results in initial use of adding EM1 to the soluble fertilizers but not necessary over prolonged usage. This bacteria soup adds some of the necessary bacteria to boost soil activity and while not a fertilizer by itself, they add considerable boost to a plant's ability to break down nutrients into usable components.

wow ... I see EM mentioned. If someone is interested in this stuff. I've written a good while ago some information about this EM stuff. I'm still using it and am convinced that it gives the plants the needed stuff which is especially missing when you are growing indoors.
Here is the article on cpuk: www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29838

[dvg]

Hi Boris,

I had a look at your link and i must say that your results were most impressive!

Even with my coffee treatments, I haven't had results like that, that quickly.

But coffee was my first try at fertilizing Nepenthes, so with new knowledge we move, onward and upward hopefully... ;D

Thanks for sharing that info. I'm definitely going to be doing some more reading on this topic.

regards,

Doug
dvg

[leilani]

dvg .....

RE: Your proposed testing

• Your plants would seem inappropriate. Your collection is not that large and you want all of your plants to do well. In a good test some plants may be sacrificed.
  
• Your plants would seem insufficient in number.
  
• Your proposed dosage (PNK) seems way too small. If you go to the trouble of testing you should try to establish some limits. Your proposed fertilizer (0.1-0.5-1.0) sounds like one of those shi-shi brands that offer a hundred combinations of PNK in the tiniest of dosages and look like they should be sold in the "Health Food" store.
  
• Lastly ...
  Don't waste a lot of time on coffee (... you guys seem to be over-thinking it :. It may well be "beneficial" but tea and coconut milk probably are too. If, I eat and apple for breakfast then, that is "beneficial". If, I go to Ken's House of Pancakes for breakfast ..... that's a meal ( ... with coffee ). After all, what we all really want are not just "pretty-good results" but "great results".
  

---

NOT A RECOMMENDATION TO CARE but FYI .....

Some years back Micheal convinced me, by submission , to experiment with root fertilizing.

I did an experiment with around 50 plants: 25 test, 25 control. The plants consisted of small seedlings (same grex, same age), rooted cutting (clones of the same age and size) and adolescent siblings of the same size and age. Both species and hybrids plants were used.

Test plants were given, seaweed based, fertilizer (PNK = 16-16-16 ... with some micro-nutrients). Fertilizer was administered once every two weeks at full strength.

The results were very convincing with the test plants far out-pacing the control plants and, although I have made some adjustments to the regiment and media, root feeding is here to stay at my nursery.

MY CONDITIONS ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM MOST and I offer this information not suggesting that anyone, especially indoor growers or guys with tiny test-tube seedlings, start pounding their plants with fertilizers. Each grower must customize to their conditions. I will say, as Michael does, that once you find the right product and the right dosage you will forget all about feeding the pitchers with crickets, fish food or crap. Unless .... you just enjoy putting things in the pitchers.

My little experiment was less that rigorous and did not last long because my questions were answered quickly.