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Illustro

Progress in Syrian Rue cultivation?...

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I have started a whole batch of seeds this winter and they are doing ok so far. That is always how they start out.

The mix is just a standard potting mix.

I started out watering every second day with 2500 ppm table salt. That is one teaspoon in two litres.

The seeds have germinated strongly and look healthy but the surface of the soil started looking salty

and the seedlings got the pretty phosphorous deficiency colors (purple and orange) from too much chloride.

I stopped the salt for a while and gave them a single feed of dilute urine for phosphorous.

It is hard to replicate the growing conditions of an arid saline soil because the level of salt is tiny but very

significant in terms of maintaining the correct osmotic water potential.

A desert soil is watered from above with small amounts of fresh water and a much larger reserve of saline

water supplies moisture from below.

The low salt level in the surface soil is a product of the activity of plants and algae and fungus. Deserts have

biocrusts which are like a bluegreen algae / fungus skin on the soil that doubtless is essential to maintaining the

correct growing conditions.

I have put some coarsely powdered limestone on the surface of the pots so water on the surface will at least

be saturated with calcium carbonate. Lime has a very low solubility so it will persist in the soil for a while.

Most of the osmotic potential of a soil will be due to sodium chloride/sulfate/carbonate because of the much

higher solubility of these salts.

Its a juggling act but I will keep you all posted and put up pictures soon.

All of this applies to any desert plant by the way.

Lophs, Ephedra ect.

Though none of those seem quite as hard to grow as Peganum.

Probably one teaspoon of table salt in ten litres would work well.

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:blink: Just because a species can tolerate something doesnt mean its required.

0.25% saline in potted plants goes radically beyond 'traces' of salt.

Salinity in my local soils and rivers is very low and both Peganum and Ephedra grow just fine. I can even transplant the Peganums around and still get a full seasons growth from them after.

As for growing in pots, my guess is the problems can mostly be attributed to too much organics and too much moisture.

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:blink: Just because a species can tolerate something doesnt mean its required.

Every plant wants pretty much the same things,

neutral pH, a steady water supply, sunshine.

Their strategies for achieving these things are tailored to their environment so their apparent

"requirements" are radically different.

I think you can be pretty sure that this plant will not grow successfully with coastal sweet rainwater

at any watering regimen. If you are lucky enough to live where the water is naturally saline, which would

include the tablelands, western slopes, western plains and south australia or even USDA Zone 7a Arid, you have a water source that is close to ideal.

Edited by weedRampage

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Not every warm dry area is salt flats.

Three ppm chloride doesnt count as 'saline'.

Peganum grows like a weed 200 to 1,000 miles inland sheltered by multiple mountain ranges in soils with 0 to 8 ppm chloride.

I just dont think growing them in saline will be the trick your looking for.

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This spring I'm going to water the ephedra with 0.25% saline once a week because for a six year old plant it hasn't grown that much.

Same goes for the loph even though it looks good and has flowered continuously for the last two years.

Every spring all the desert plants get a small amount of coarsely powdered lime stone.

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Not every warm dry area is salt flats.

Three ppm chloride doesnt count as 'saline'.

Peganum grows like a weed 200 to 1,000 miles inland sheltered by multiple mountain ranges in soils with 0 to 8 ppm chloride.

I just dont think growing them in saline will be the trick your looking for.

Everywhere more than 100 miles inland and with an annual rainfall of less than 800mm has an alkaline and saline soil. Mountain soils have greater water infiltration but also higher evaporation rates so often end up as saline as a flat desert. Saline includes sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, bicarbonate, sulfate and choride. Osmosis does not discriminate for cations, anions or even sugar.

Edited by weedRampage

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Even setting aside the fact that the context of potted plants in a organic soil is completely different than plants in the wild in soils with a ~0.1 to 2% organic content, looking at just osmotic pressure to the exclusion of all else isnt likely to work out very well.

If I loose a bunch of blood I'll be happy if a doctor decides to pump me full of 0.9% saline... but if the guy decides instead to pump me up with 1.2% formic acid because it has the same osmotic pressure we'd have some problems!

You'll give them chloride toxicity and you'll change the chemical structure of the soil and the distribution of soil microbes.

Granted you might not kill them, I've done crazy stuff to plants and not had them die, but dont be surprised if your experiment fails.

Get the ephedra in the ground and it'll start growing.

The peganums are already showing quite a bit of stress.

I like the blue aquarium gravel. :)

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There looks to be a lot of organic matter in them all too? I've been pondering your recipe all afternoon and it just doesn't fit with my cogs sorry! I think it was PH who once said this stuff grows wild in SA? do we know what area and its soil makeup?

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it grows on the catchment of the lower murray river. west victoria, south west nsw and eastern sa.

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This thread makes me feel uncomfortable.

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There looks to be a lot of organic matter in them all too? I've been pondering your recipe all afternoon and it just doesn't fit with my cogs sorry! I think it was PH who once said this stuff grows wild in SA? do we know what area and its soil makeup?

I did try for a long time growing desert plants in mix that was what I imagined to be close to identical to their native setting.

With the right pH and low organic content. Getting the pH close to neutral is a good idea but cutting out the organic content

in a pot deprives you of a very usefull buffer. A pot environment will always be significantly different to in the ground.

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