Zath
Enthusiastic Enthusiast
I've been doing some reading the last few days, trying to learn a bit more about mosses in general; how they grow and propagate, how much their environment affects them, etc.
Turns out that most "typical" mosses do not, in fact, leech nutrients or food from the soil...at least, not intentionally. They do absorb dissolved solids when they come into contact with "tainted" water, but the food and energy necessary for them to grow is produced solely through photosynthesis, with only three necessary requirements that need to be met; Light, water, and warmth (some can continue growing in temperatures as low as 20F). In nature (or cultivation), all the soil represents is an anchor for the moss, nothing more. Similarly, the PH values of the soil can vary widely, again because the moss has very little actual interaction with it, since it it typically situated on top of the soil, and therefore "upstream" of the water flow (rain).
Now, most of the growing guides for sphagnum I've seen want a substrate layer of peat no less than several inches deep, I'm guessing in an assumption that the sphagnum needs to extract some essential nutrients from it. I'm now wondering how important this actually is.
For a period of over a year, when I first began my first sphagnum culture outside of top-dressings, I was mighty low on soil, and lazy. Turns out this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The end result is that I have a 3 gallon container filling with healthy sphagnum atop a layer of peat/sand no more than 3/8" deep.
Now, at this point, I find it very unlikely that the moss is extracting anything of value from the soil, and aside from 2 test sprayings of diluted maxsea early last year, the colony has been given nothing but distilled water. The fertilizer treatments, by the way, did not seem to make any difference in growth-rate, which is why I stopped, but considering the conditions of the colony at the time (small), and the low light levels, that is not a satisfactory test. I only mentioned it for transparency (i.e. I introduced nutrients manually as a foliar spray at one time).
Now that I'm in a position (or soon will be) to begin a much larger colony for potting purposes, I'm seriously doubting the efficacy of wasting several pounds of peat in order to grow a large tub of the stuff. If all the sphagnum needs is something to anchor to, packed play-sand may work just as well, or bark mulch, or anything else that will retain sufficient moisture and a provide a solid substrate for the initial strands to attach themselves to.
Thoughts?
Turns out that most "typical" mosses do not, in fact, leech nutrients or food from the soil...at least, not intentionally. They do absorb dissolved solids when they come into contact with "tainted" water, but the food and energy necessary for them to grow is produced solely through photosynthesis, with only three necessary requirements that need to be met; Light, water, and warmth (some can continue growing in temperatures as low as 20F). In nature (or cultivation), all the soil represents is an anchor for the moss, nothing more. Similarly, the PH values of the soil can vary widely, again because the moss has very little actual interaction with it, since it it typically situated on top of the soil, and therefore "upstream" of the water flow (rain).
Now, most of the growing guides for sphagnum I've seen want a substrate layer of peat no less than several inches deep, I'm guessing in an assumption that the sphagnum needs to extract some essential nutrients from it. I'm now wondering how important this actually is.
For a period of over a year, when I first began my first sphagnum culture outside of top-dressings, I was mighty low on soil, and lazy. Turns out this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The end result is that I have a 3 gallon container filling with healthy sphagnum atop a layer of peat/sand no more than 3/8" deep.
Now, at this point, I find it very unlikely that the moss is extracting anything of value from the soil, and aside from 2 test sprayings of diluted maxsea early last year, the colony has been given nothing but distilled water. The fertilizer treatments, by the way, did not seem to make any difference in growth-rate, which is why I stopped, but considering the conditions of the colony at the time (small), and the low light levels, that is not a satisfactory test. I only mentioned it for transparency (i.e. I introduced nutrients manually as a foliar spray at one time).
Now that I'm in a position (or soon will be) to begin a much larger colony for potting purposes, I'm seriously doubting the efficacy of wasting several pounds of peat in order to grow a large tub of the stuff. If all the sphagnum needs is something to anchor to, packed play-sand may work just as well, or bark mulch, or anything else that will retain sufficient moisture and a provide a solid substrate for the initial strands to attach themselves to.
Thoughts?