What nutrients do Tillandsia get from air that they need to grow and what additional nutrients do they need to flower? How do they obtain these nutrients in the wild?
I have several cultivated species that have never flowered and I would love to try to get them to flower without a commercial product. I read that rain water or pond water might do that. But I don’t know how many nutrients they are getting from rain water and they certainly don’t have access to pond water in the wild. Do these plants need to be in close proximity to microorganisms or simply their metabolites?
If I don’t have access to either, could I just pick some grass, stick it in water for a few days, and then use that water?
Or if I am just looking for water with biological activity in it, how about just making and using water from mud, which is chock full of protozoa (and bacteria, fungi, viruses…)?
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As for nitrogen, the air is pretty well full of it, I could imagine they get nitrogen from some symbiotic bacteria as do legumes via Rhizobia.
Phosphorous is hard to come by for everyone, and potasium, who knows.
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There are fertilizers made especially for Tillandsia, in different forms for misting and soaking or dunking.
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The flowering has more to do with environmental conditions than with nutrients.
In the wild the temperature/ ratio of moisture from rain,dew,humidity/ light matter the most.
Rain water is often recommended for many plants because of it’s more nuetral/slightly acidic ph and doesn’t have minerals that would make it “hard” like many tap water does.
If you want your tillandsias to flower, try keeping them at a higher humidity, and water regularly them with water that is not bottled or from the tap and provide adequate lighting. Don’t bother with trying to make your own pond water, I am sure there is some natural body of water near you that you can grab a water bottles worth and mist it onto the tillandsia. Just make sure that this water body is not right next to a busy road or agriculture fields and that your local water isn’t “hard”.
And as already said:
Caution Sciency below this point:
The short answer is using absorptive trichomes, which absorb moisture that is already carrying nutrients.
They obtain them due to a process called atmospheric deposition, which is a key part of many nutrient cycles such as the nitrogen cycle.
Here are some places that track and visualise various nutrient depositions in the United States:
https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/national-atmospheric-deposition-program-nadp
https://nadp.slh.wisc.edu/maps-data/ntn-gradient-maps/
https://www.epa.gov/castnet/total-deposition-maps
Long answer:
From Epiphytes: photosynthesis, water balance and nutrients by F Reinert
I reccomend reading:
An Overview of Water and Nutrient Uptake by Epiphytic Bromeliads: New Insights into the Absorptive Capability of Leaf Trichomes and Roots
for everything you might want to know
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10-nQhueES9yYzCzPudnb6vsQw3dpEl3M/view?usp=sharing
Pdf shared from my google drive
Some additional articles on Tillandsia:
Mineral dynamics in Spanish moss, Tillandsia usneoides
Leaf Anatomy and CO2 Recycling during Crassulacean Acid Metabolism in Twelve Epiphytic Species of Tillandsia
Tillandsia usneoides (L.) L. (Spanish moss) water storage and
leachate characteristics from two maritime oak forest settings
Foliar trichomes, boundary layers, and gas exchange in 12 species of epiphytic Tillandsia
Mineral Cycling and the Niche of Spanish Moss, Tillandsia usneoides
Water Vapour Uptake from the Atmosphere by some Tillandsia Species
Tracing the evolutionary and genetic footprints of atmospheric tillandsioids transition from land to air
I hope somewhere in my reply you find the answer to your question
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There currently isn’t a known symbiotic nitrogen fixing organism known to associate with tillandsia species, but it is an area of ongoing research
Influence of Growth Support on the Diversity, Composition, and Functionality of Microbial Communities Associated with *Tillandsia recurvata
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Deniz,
This is an impressively thorough answer. You might want to replicate your post as a Journal Post on iNat, so you can link to it in the future.
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Glad you appreciate it but this is just my brain on an average daily dive into a subject I sort of know and my curiosity leading to my researching of further resources and only an hour of my time :) I did more linking to further information than my own writing
But I don’t think I will share it as a journal post since:
- I’m not a source for information on epiphytes or the genus Tillandsia
- Everything I have linked is accessible online
- with the right keywords forum posts come up in search engines and those looking for this will find it here
- It would not fit the “theme” of my profile
Research is a skill that needs to be honed;
That being said I might make a journal post about how to find information/articles you are looking for and bypass scientific paywalls in the age of the internet.
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