What are the wonderful uses of charcoal in orchid growing

The wonderful uses of charcoal for growing orchids

http://www.dfac.cc/showtopic-17-271861-0-0-1.htm

Add about 5% charcoal, roughly 2cm long, to your orchid potting mix, and it will make your orchid's roots and leaves stronger and greatly boost its disease resistance, for three reasons.

One: charcoal, like activated carbon, can adsorb toxic substances, greatly reducing acid poisoning in orchids caused by the potting mix turning acidic;

Two: charcoal has a sterilizing and disinfecting effect, which can reduce disease;

Three: charcoal contains a large amount of K (potassium), which can promote orchid growth and will have an effect you never expected on enlarging the orchid's pseudobulbs.

In tissue culture, adding activated carbon to the final rooting and seedling-strengthening stage plays a very important role in promoting orchid root growth. By late autumn, let the roots in the pot do the talking, haha!!

This is just my personal opinion, offered here to draw out better ideas. I hope everyone will share their better experience!!

One more thing: using larger pieces of charcoal instead of brick or tile at the bottom of the pot works even better.

Note: activated carbon is a further processed product of charcoal, with stronger effects, but of course it is more expensive. Charcoal already works very well and is cheap, so it is a great choice.

In some places charcoal is also called gangtan, the very stuff used for keeping warm by the fire in winter, hehe.