Specialty Gardening: fertilizer and containers, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
If you're results oriented and want 'easy', there is no question in my mind that soluble fertilizers are the answer for container plants. You can MAKE organic programs work, but I can almost assure you your results will be more erratic than if you chose an appropriate formulation of a soluble fertilizer. BTW - fish emulsion is not soluble. It forms a suspension of organic molecules that soon fall out of suspension. These molecules need to be broken down into elemental form before they can be assimilated by plants.

The best all-around choice for your fertilizer program (containers) is a 3:1:2 RATIO fertilizer like MG 24-8-16 or 12-4-8. Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is also a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer that has all the secondary macro-nutrients + all the necessary minor elements, and all in a favorable ratio. It also derives most of its N from nitrate sources, so there is less worry about ammonium toxicity issues (common, but rarely diagnosed properly) when temps are above 80 or below 55*. It's a great choice.

I'm sorry, Irwells, but there is no way to justify recommending the use any kind of bloom-boosting fertilizer formulation in container culture unless you are using it for very specific manipulation of a decreased N supply, but even then it would have to be supplemented with K to be effective. Plants use an average of 6 times more N than P, so to supply more P than N is a waste. The plant can never use all that P before it needs more N, so ALL bloom-booster formulations (with P as the highest % of the fertilizer - middle NPK # highest) unnecessarily raise the electrical conductivity and level of total dissolved solids in the soil. This makes it more difficult for plants to absorb both water and the nutrients dissolved in water. The high P content also raises pH unnecessarily AND can cause antagonistic deficiencies of other elements, particularly Fe and Mn.

Al



This message was edited Jul 30, 2009 2:03 PM

This message was edited Jul 30, 2009 3:31 PM