Tips for Using Lime in Orchid Cultivation and Management

1. Selection of Lime

Selecting high-quality lime starts from the following two aspects:

1. Visual inspection. Through visual inspection, you can see that large pieces are pure white or slightly yellowish, and those with no weathering on the surface are high-quality lime lumps.

2. Feel. This point is very important in selecting high-quality lime lumps. The lighter the lime lump feels in the hand, the better (compared with other lime lumps of the same size); the lighter ones are fully burned and have high purity. Conversely, the heavier ones are not fully burned during the burning process and have a relatively high impurity content, so they are not desirable.

2. Preparation and Use of Lime Clarified Liquid

1. First, soak or slake high-quality lime lumps with water into powder form, then take pure lime powder and mix it with water at a ratio of 1:10 to make an aqueous solution (the lime powder that has just been slaked with water must not be taken immediately; for safety, wait for it to cool naturally before taking it). Soak for about 12 hours until it is fully decomposed, then carefully take out the clarified liquid. Note that when taking the clarified liquid, a crystalline layer like thin ice will solidify on the surface of the clarified liquid. This is a crystal of highly pure alkaline substance and should not be taken. Furthermore, this crystalline substance is not easily dissolved in the later water dilution. Once it enters the leaf center of tender tissue, it will cause phytotoxicity and easily clog spray nozzles, so discard it.

2. Take the lime clarified stock solution and dilute it with water at 1:2000 to make an aqueous preparation. In the hot and humid plum rain season, first pour it to penetrate the entire pot's substrate, then spray the entire orchid room and orchid site so that the preparation fully covers them, thereby suppressing or killing on a large scale the fungi that prefer to live in acidic environments. In this way, using it twice at intervals during the hot and humid plum rain season can effectively control stem rot,soft rotdisease, and southern blight. Large orchid sites generally spread powdered lime on the ground to kill pathogenic fungi on the surface, but this operation is highly polluting and easily contaminates orchid leaves and causes damage to them, so it is not desirable.

3. Precautions:

1. The lime clarified liquid aqueous solvent is purely alkaline, so it must not be mixed with any acidic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or organic fertilizers.

2. The lime clarified liquid aqueous solvent has high alkaline purity. When diluting with water, make sure the ratio is above 2000 times. A little more water is harmless, but the amount of water must not be arbitrarily reduced.

3. This preparation is also only effective against fungi that prefer to live in acidic environments. The principle is "prevention first."

The above statements are for reference only. This lime leachate aqueous preparation is not an all-purpose medicine, and it must not be used dependently for a long time. Pleasecultivationalternate medications in management. To reduce the drug resistance of fungi andcultivationthe possibility of the substrate turning alkaline.