Eucharist Orchids: Coconut Husk Chips

Coconut Husk Chips As a Media.

I use all kinds of media for my orchids - charcoal, fernroot, oil palm shells, wood, moss, polystyrene chips, artificial sponge chips - and I found coconut husk chips to be most suitable. Apart from being the cheapest, compared with all other types of media, it's water retention quality and light weight makes it very suitable for me as I have thousands of seedlings and matured plants to be planted. You can refer to this site for further information nregarding coconut husk chips : http://www.ehow.com/how_8623523_use-coconut-husk-chips-orchids.html

I bought pre-cut chips from Sri Lanka, Thailand and recently Malaysia but found that most of the chips are cut too fine. It is alright for pots up to 4 inch but if you want to use it for pots from 6 to 10 inch, they tend to retain too much water causing the roots to rot.

I tried sourcing for bigger chips but just cannot find them. I then decided to make my own cutter. After discussing with one of my friends from Singapore, who is a mechanical engineer, I designed a cutter made with local materials. I bought a chopper made from spring steel (Spring absorbers from cars) which is really sharp. I then sharpened it until its like a razor. I also bought a pair of right angled stainless steel brackets with pre-drilled holes.

I aligned the hole in the bracket and made a mark on the chopper after which a hole of the same size is drilled into the chopper. The chopper is attached to the brackets by a bolt and nut. This gives me the mechanical advantage in turning the chopper into a kind of guillotine to give me enought strength to cut the relatively hard coconut husk with ease into any size I want.

Using coconut husk chips as a media is good, provided certain rules are observed:

1) The chips have to be soaked in water for a few days. This is to ensure that excess salt in the husks are dissolved in the process. As most coconut trees thrive well in saline coastal areas, the intake of salt is present in all parts of the coconut and this have to be reduced by soaking in water.

2) Watering have to be controlled. The husk must be given a dry period and must not be wet all the time or else it will decompose very quickly. Once it is dry completely, watering, even in excess, will not allow the dry chips to absorb the water competely.

3) Coconut husks decompose with time and it should be changed within a year to get the best out of it.

4) The orchid plant shoud be secured with a string when planted with coconut chips. Any excessive watering will make the chips float and this will dislodge the plant eventually.

5) The chips should be washed out periodically to prevent excessive builtd-up of chemical fertilizer. A thorough wash with lots of water and then allowed to dry should do the trick.

6) Coconut chips provide an ideal place for snails and slugs to hide. A periodical sprinkle of snail pallets (metaldehyde) will solve the problem.

Root growth is good