Vermiculite is an alkaline media. It is inappropriate for CP except
for certain pings (mostly the mexican varieties). Perlite is neutral
and can be used to improve the drainage and aereation of your soil mix.
Some have recently mentioned the problem that occurs when peat or sphagnum
is sterilized by heat. I have heard some speculation that steam
sterilization may rupture cells in the medium and release an abundance of
carbohydrates (sugars). This triggers a bloom of mold growth.
For this reason, it may be more advisable *not* to sterilize your media,
but instead set up seed trays a year in advance. Once the mold has run
its course and used up all the available sugars in the media,
homeostasis sets in where the various microrganisms are in a state of
equalibrium. Sowing seeds onto this "pre-aged" media may result in
lower infection rates than either "new" peat from the bag, or steam
sterilized media.
I have noticed a similiar problem in my aquatic Utric tanks. For some
months after initial filling, I have a bad algae problem. If I leave
the tank alone (don't change the water, etc), it will eventually clear
up and reach equilibrium once the excess nutrients have been used up.
This results in crystal-clear water, with a 1/4" layer of green
scum and bacteria in the bottom of the tank.
> THE VENUS FLYTRAP TRADE IN NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA
> From: TRAFFIC Bulletin 13(2): 68-72.
> (Article by Jane C. MacKnight & Vonda Frantz - abbrev.)
*Three* different people posted copies of this article to the
mailing list. I was able to catch it in time to delete the extra
postings so that users in DIGEST mode only got one copy.
(To avoid this problem in the future, please don't repost big articles
from other mailing lists. Send them to me for inclusion in the CP
archive, and merely post a summary of the information to the group, with
a note that they can get the whole thing from the archive.)
If you are not running in DIGEST mode, I can't provide any of this sort
of benign "censorship", so you got all three. Sorry about that.
I very much recommend using DIGEST mode for this reason, and also to
reduce the mess in your mailbox. In DIGEST mode you will only get
one posting per day, with all the postings bundled together. If you
have been considering UNSUBSCRIBING due to the heavy mail load, try
DIGEST mode for some relief.
To set this up, send the message: "SET CP MAIL DIGEST" to
"listserv@opus.hpl.hp.com".
>From Ivo:
> WOuldn't it be possible to store the pictures of CPs also in
> some other form accessible for us we haven't WWW?
Your question was answered by the Peter Cole's recent posting. You can
now use various telnet servers to access the CP WEB info.
Best regards,
-- Rick Walker