trimming leaves and planting ..... stem plants.

[hamfist]

I asked this question in a recent thread but it received no traction, so maybe it deserves its own thread. .........

When planting newly received emersed growth stem plants could it not be beneficial to leave the leaves on the stem of the section to be buried ? Yes these leaves will rot but could this not be possibly providing a useful ammonia source for the newly introduced plant and promote root development etc ? What evidence do we actually have of the pros and cons of doing this ? I must admit that do trim as Naturescapes_Rocco has suggested in another thread, by removing all leaves apart from a small top section but every time I do, it always makes me wonder about this factor.

I can see all the benefits of not leaving any excess emersed growth leaves on the exposed part of the stem but on the actual buried part of the stem could it possibly be even beneficial ??

 

[CincyScaper]

@Dennis Wong had written about this in his articles but don’t remember exactly which one.

In my own limited experience growing them in aquasoil, I find the cleaner things are the less mulm buildup and algae that I get. In addition as you replace most stems, by uprooting them to prevent root zone compaction I find that the leaves that were buried are half decomposed and again add to the waste release on uprooting which you have to siphon.

To answer your question directly, the buried leaves do act as fertilizer but also add quite bit of organic matter/waster similar to fish poop. If you are into other methods like the walstad and such, I would think that this would be beneficial but in EI/lean dosing aquasoil sort of ways it might just lead to needing more siphoning.

 

[Dennis Wong]

the downsides of detritus/excess decaying leaves far outweigh any benefits. That's the whole reason why cleaning aquasoil substrates is effective, even though we are removing detritus. lack of nutrients is a far away problem in the planted tank world, there are many ways to add nutrients commercial or DIY. Algae on the other hand, is just waiting around the corner.