Views on charcoal

Charcoal, especially charcoal that has just been fired, contains a large amount of activated carbon, has strong adsorption capacity, and has disinfection, sterilization, and bacteriostasis. In the autumn of 2001, when I went to the countryside, I found that a foreigner was using our old apple trees to make charcoal. At that time, I was troubled by the root disease of orchids. Influenced by some articles, I found the person who made charcoal and specially sifted out a sack of charcoal blocks of suitable size for me. Because the season was suitable, I quickly mixed bricks, granular soil and charcoal with one third of each and changed more than ten pots. The management was the same as that of other orchids. By the autumn of 2002, these orchids had no stems. Root disease, but the leaves generally got black spot disease, and almost did not send new buds that year, turn over the pot to check, the old roots did not change, but almost a year did not send new roots. After thinking and consulting the information, I don't think it is necessary to use charcoal for planting orchids. First, charcoal is fired with wood that has not yet rotted. Although the surface becomes porous and loose after firing, and contains a lot of potassium, it has a strong adsorption effect, which will absorb a lot of fertilizer, affect the absorption of fertilizer by orchids, and it is difficult for charcoal to decay and release nutrients in a short time. Second, fresh charcoal has the effect of activated charcoal, which can sterilize and inhibit bacteria, which inevitably kills a large number of blue bacteria while killing bacteria, and inhibits the propagation of blue bacteria; third, charcoal is alkaline, which is weak in the northern tap water, further exacerbating the alkalinity of plant materials, which is not conducive to the growth of blue. That's why my orchids don't grow roots for a year. If charcoal is used as the base, its air permeability is not as good as broken bricks and blue stones, and it also adsorbs fertilizer. If it loses its activity and adsorption ability after repeated washing, it will no longer have sterilization effect. Of course, if you can't find a suitable hard plant material to add, in order to make the plant material loose and breathable, you can add a small amount of charcoal to the plant material, but it must be washed many times, and the amount used should be small, it is best not to use it. (Fengjun)