How to use 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 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 heavy 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 drench high-quality lime lumps with water until they break down into powder, then take pure lime powder and mix it with water at 1:10 to make an aqueous solution (the lime powder that has just been broken down by drenching with water must not be taken immediately; for safety, wait until it cools 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 layer of crystalline matter like thin ice will solidify on the surface of the clarified liquid. This is a high-purity alkaline substance crystal and should not be taken. Moreover, this crystalline matter is not easy to dissolve in the water added later. Once it enters the leaf core of tender tissue, it will cause phytotoxicity and easily clog spray nozzles, so discard it.

2. Take the lime clarified stock liquid and mix it with water at 1:2000 to make an aqueous agent. In the hot and humid plum rain season, first irrigate to make the entire pot of substrate permeable, then spray the entire orchid room and orchid site so that the agent fully covers them, so as to suppress or kill on a large scale the fungi that prefer to live in an acidic environment. 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 scatter powdered lime on the ground to seal off and kill pathogenic fungi on the ground surface, but this operation is highly polluting and easily contaminates orchid leaves, causing damage to them, so it is not desirable.

3. Precautions:

1. The lime clarified liquid aqueous solvent is purely alkaline, so it cannot be mixed with any acidic pesticide or chemical fertilizer or organic fertilizer.

2. The lime clarified liquid aqueous solvent has high alkali purity. When adding water, make sure it is at more than 2000 times. It is harmless to add a little more water, but never arbitrarily reduce the amount of water added.

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

The above is for reference only. This lime extract aqueous agent is not an all-purpose remedy, and it should not be used dependently for a long time. Please usecultivationalternate agents in management. To reduce the drug resistance of fungi andcultivationthe possibility of the substrate turning alkaline.