Re: Proteaceous Plants
- Subject: Re: Proteaceous Plants
- From: M* F*
- Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 16:15:39 -1000 (HST)
On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, John Atkinson wrote:
>
> I suspect your definition of a "drought" in Hawaii is not the same as ours,
> if you can fit one in every year. :-)
Sad but true. Each year in up country Maui we get 10-40% water reduction
orders. Doesn't help that this area is on the leeward side and above the
inversion layer. I don't think that we get more than 20 inches of rain per
in our neck of the woods.
In my home island the city of Hilo is the wettest inthe USA and if it goes
a few weeks with out rain they issue a drought watch. We however, are
supplied via a ditch running from the the east side of the island.
>
> >These trees grow
> >huge and will take over pasture, etc here in Upcountry Maui.
yep. I think our soil is majorly different. So here it may be possible
to over fertilize and not where you are from. I suppose the "Milage May
Vary" saying works really well here. I suspect that in a real rainforest
area the soil is fairly depleated (mineral wise) and high in organic
matter. Thus they often have less ability to bind phosphrus or other
nutrients. Our biggest problem is that the iron and alluminium oxides
bind most of the phosphrus unless sufficent lime is applied. One of the
problems with sugar lands becoming homesteads. There is a huge stockpile
of nutrients in the soil. Once people start making their lawns nice and
green, adding lime, etc. there may be major non-point source pollution as
the locked up stockpile get released.
Hard to say, but I am sure that most aussies would be right at home in the
up country area, we have lots of eucalyptus, silky oaks, melaluca, protea,
tea trees, etc.
>
>
> Yes, you're the experts on Macadamias. I do have one, which I fertilize
> whenever I happen to think of it. But my comment re phosphorous was based
> more on the advice you see in all the books that rainforest protaceae in
> general don't suffer from problems with phosphorous like their dry-land and
> poor-soil cousins, since they don't depend on protaceous roots, and respond
> well to fertilizing just like other "ordinary" rainforest plants. But maybe
> your soils do make a difference.
>
> John.
>
