Re: [Aroid-l] commercial mixes- get real, learn how to grow!

Title: Re: [Aroid-l] commercial mixes- get real, learn how to
I usually do not put my two cents worth in on this list...  This time I will make an exception.

In Florida (the only place that I am qualified to make a judgement) you can obtain a job in a nursery and have a profession as a "Grower" if you know what you are doing.  You can't get a job or a profession if you are a person who "Puts Plants in Pots".  If you are a Grower, you can grow plants in thin air...  (Hydroponics) or you can grow them in something that might resemble a poor quality of concrete.  The difference is that you have studied your product, gained a lot of experience and tried different things.  One can learn a lot from talking with others but the bottom line is where someone else might have success will be your dismal failure.

So, Yes, Mix is irrelevant to knowledge that you have gained by trial and error.  It is also my experience that over the years DOCTOR BURCH has probably forgotten more that 99% of the people on this list will ever learn....  including me, and I am placing myself at the top of the 99% list.
Dewey

Hi Derek,

What I think I hear you saying is that the soil mix is irrelevant if only the grower will learn what the hell he or she is doing? That seems like a curious comment, and a wrong one. Are you honestly telling me that you can grow Astrophytum asterias in pure peat moss? Well, maybe you could if you wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time "observing" that one plant.

We have been blessed with 1000 different mixes to choose from for a reason. Maybe we could happily get by on 10 rather than 1000, but different plants like different conditions and there's no reason to try to shoehorn the same conditions into every mix.

If I have a nursery pot that's 7" high and the bottom 5" are wet and the top 2" are bone dry, that is bad. If I have tubers planted in it that have not broken the soil yet, how can I observe my plants? And if they are in active growth, shall I wait for them to wilt to water again? I don't think that's a good way to grow a healthy plant. It may survive but I want them to thrive. And how many signals do plants give? Not too many, depends on the plant. The above mentioned Astro. asterias usually gives two signals: I am alive; I am dead. If you manage to catch a condition between the two you can be fairly sure that state 2 is not far off for it will not easily re-attain health.

Or maybe what I was saying in my original post was that the mix I was using gives me NO slack and I want to find one that does. Lots, if possible. I'm a one-guy operation and for better or worse *I* run the hose. I want to become a good commercial grower and in that quest I seek good tools to help.

Lucky for us there are a bunch of people on aroid-l that will give of their expertise.

-Ken

Derek Burch wrote:
With all due respect to the companies and researchers who have done such valuable work, all that matters is that you learn how to water. If you get that wrong, you can blame the mixes, blame the weather, blame the size pot, but it is you who are to blame if things go wrong. A good commercial grower knows that it is his/her most experienced person who should be holding the hose.

 
That said, the value of the research work has been in developing mixes that allow us to slack off in our observation of what is going on with the plants, and give us a little slack.

 
Read your plants, learn how to water and if you only have time to grow six plants properly, don't try to outdo your neighbour by growing two hundred.

 
I know, I killed off a bunch of my beloved gingers after switching to a coir-based mix, and not realising what a bear it was to water properly.

 
Derek
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