Good Fertilizer? (forum)

Brendan starts with ...
G'day All,
After reading Julie's & Brad's posts about different fertilizers, I thought might be a good time for this subject.

I'd say the best fertilizer is Terrafoska TE, it's NPK is 10:4:8, but it is expensive. I've used it, and it is very good, but I cannot buy it in Mackay, so I'm now using Katek Super Growth. It's NPK is (roughly) 4:2:4, and I can get 35kg for $30. Btw, both of these have Trace Elements :-)

What do other people use?

Time: 2nd March 2011 9:11am

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Jason says...
On evergreens I'm mostly using Pivot pasture booster, it's about 30$ for a bag that's.. heavy I'm not sure how heavy but 35kg or so.

N: 23.8% P: 3.7% K: 13.0%

I'm also adding about another 10-15% nitrogen to that mix for anything that I want to push. Pretty strong stuff but that's what gets results in the dirt and climate here

Time: 2nd March 2011 2:24pm

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amanda says...
Gee - that's really interesting about the nitrogen Jason. It's really helpful to hear what others do - I tend to get a bit nervous with fert's that I might kill something by over doing it...so I think I am often "under" doing it...

Can u tell me a bit more about your eneral methods Jason? (pretty please?) and your basic climate and soil?

As a solid fertiliser I use Rooster Boosta - which is exactly the same as Dynamic Lifter (analysis wise) - but much cheaper. It's about all I can afford.
It's only N3/P2/K1.7 (%w/w)
(but I play around with liquid fert's including liq N too..)


Time: 2nd March 2011 5:38pm

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amateur green thumbs says...
Im with you amanda, it can get exy all this feeding. i used to use commercial stuff like osmocote etc on the fruit trees but found it was rediculous by the time you feed 30 odd trees.
So, i peaked at the NPK ratios of all the favourites in the garden centre and then bought the N the P and the K seperately and made my own mix. Costly at first to acquire but found I use way less in the long run. Add some good manure and trace elements now and again and wammo, lush growth and fruits.

Time: 2nd March 2011 10:36pm

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Jason says...
Amanda, I don't know how many trees I need to feed here but it's in the hundreds (more than 200 for sure maybe 300) so Chemicals is the only sensible way about it. As I understand it (I could be wrong) the cooler the climate you are trying to grow warm climate plants in, then the more fertilizer you need for compensation. Here it's about 3c cooler than Melbourne day and night hour for hour which adds up to a lot less heat. Also the soil is fairly acid in most areas between 5.5 and 6. Plus the soil is a gravely Iron based loam, I figure it all adds to needed lots of fertilizer. In the past I used organic fertilizers, rock dust, dynamic lifter, chicken manure. They did something but in the end pretty poor results compared to chemicals and the Chemicals are 50 times cheaper strength for strength, I decided I can't wait my whole life to see a plant grow not much at all when I could make them grow ten times faster with this stuff... So I've thrown my ideals out the window in favour of bigger trees :D.

How I apply it is a bit random also but it goes something like this..

Apply general pasture booster to any plant that's stalled in growth.... wait for growth flush... have a party.... wait two months, apply more pasture booster...

Now after this and the plant is moving it probably starts to flower like crazy, sometimes TOO crazy if that happens and it wont quit, I add nitrogen _only_. meanwhile I'm looking at the leaf size and continue adding enough nitrogen to the mix to hold it at the leaf size I think is about the maximum the tree can make before I start getting deformed leaves from to much juice.. As soon as one new leaf is smaller than a previous leaf, then more nitrogen goes on. I have over fertilized some stuff, most notably a Fuerte Avocado that got a heavy handed application since it's always refused to grow properly and so I got in a fight with the tree and said, I grew you and I grafted you so you can either grow or die trying.... It had another protest after its heavy dose with wobbly leaves and no upward growth but a couple months later it went insane and now it's growing really fast, a couple of feet in the last 2 months for sure. It's hard love :) but worked out in the end.

I use less fertiliser on stone fruits and apples because they don't seem to need as much but I will admit to getting a little crazy with the fertilizers these days, seeing things grow fast after years of almost nothing is very addictive.

Now sometimes because I live in a small town area I can't always get the bag of fertilizer I want, when that happens I usually buy three bags of other stuff and with a bit of stuffing around I can make a fertilizer of the NPK that I want. I always have a bag of straight nitrogen since that is what the plants use the most of, it's also very cheap :).

Oh I need to tell you about where exactly I put all this fertilizer because it might be what's saving me :).

I put fertilizer mostly about 1 foot outside the drip line (if the tree is growing well this is the only place I put fertilizer), If it's something lacking that I need to push I also put a sprinkling inside that (pretend it's osmocote in a pot and you get an idea how much, since I make it look like osmocote sprinkles).

I usually have all the grass from around the tree under the tree as a insulator and mulch from the trunk to the drip line. As I add so much nitrogen to the grass outside the drip line I get huge grass growth in that ring around the tree. Because the grass grows so well it's really soft and I can rip it up quickly and easily and lay another ring of mulch around the tree as it grows. then I go another foot out with the fertilizer. I repeat this over and over and over again, mostly I'm growing grass for mulch rather than the tree but doing it this way the tree gets second hand nutrients from the grass and also has something to chase after outside the drip line. I get quick shade canopy with the big leaves and the tree then starts to self mulch. It works out really well since it's the only way I can afford mulch for so many trees (free mulch :D). Actually I used to get in the forest with my hand saw and cut down invasive weed trees for mulch then drag the tree back to the garden snap them up with my hands/feet jumping kicking etc and lay the smashed bits around my trees and let the feeder roots got at the rotting wood but I got sick of that much effort after a couple of years.

So now I'm with the free grass mulch, that's basically how I'm doing it at the moment (2010/2011) I may change with the times but right now this is working

Time: 3rd March 2011 5:20am

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J says...
I've taken two fertiliser recommendations from two people on this forum so far.

Jujube4sale recommended water based fertiilser "Miracle gro". http://www.scottsaustralia.com.au/Miracle-Gro
She specifically recommended the acid loving plant variety for my jaboticaba. I have since used this on my Jab, my blueberries and Feijoas and they have responded really well to it. I have since bought the non acidic variety of Miracle grow for my other plants & most of them seem to love it. My babaco especially.

Jason recommended the Pivot chemical fertilisers and I will agree with him that you get a really awesome bang for your buck for the amount you can get of the stuff compared to say dynamic lifter. My initial application of the pivot stuff was somewhat of a disaster. All my trees are quite young and I think applied too much, too late in the season (late autumn). This caused much leaf burn in new growth amongst my white sapotes (though my citrus had no issue with it) and my strawberrie guavas almost died from it. So initially I was scared away from the pivot stuff and I have two bags of it! However just recently, I decided to give it another shot. I applied a much smaller amount and during the right time (growing season) and all the trees (white sapote, citrus, babaco, avocado, feijoa) seem to be responding to it much better.

So long story short, I from my (short amount of) experience so far, I'd recommend miracle grow. The pivot stuff is great for the price but make sure you "test the waters" with the amount of application for each tree. And if that stuff still makes you nervous than try out Dynamic lifter, I suppose.

Time: 3rd March 2011 10:32am

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Jason says...
I start fertilising in about September with just a little bit to wake everything up then start putting proper amounts on from November to about March then stop again till September. I'm going to try going all year this time on the evergreens that that aren't on a flowering cycle yet just for a bit of a test. I get deformed leaves when I go too hard on them but never gone so far as to have burnt leaves

Time: 3rd March 2011 1:28pm

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amanda says...
Awesome - thanks Jason (and others too) what a great post and thread, that gives me much to think about :)

I too tried the all-natural fertiliser way - but in addition to the poor results - I also found it incredibly time consuming and back breaking for so many trees (and my sand is so voracious it was like trying to feed a monster!!) Now I use both natural and synthetic fert's.

I have noticed a huge leap in prices of almost all the fert's over the last few years - even bulk manure has doubled in price here.

Some of the liquid fert's are good value - like a.g.thumbs mentioned they can seem $$$ to outlay (as I buy in bulk) but a little goes a very long way.

It would be great to hear some of the recipes people having for making up their own batches of fert's using the individual elements?

Time: 4th March 2011 9:56am

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Jason says...
Amanda I guess you have Glowinski's book he talks about various amounts of fertiliser for different trees a fair bit in there. You might have to adjust up or down for the soil and climate a bit but I think what he says is a good baseline. I'm getting one last bag today and that should see me done till next Spring. With that one I will have only spent about $100 on fertilizer this year, each year as the soil get loaded up I seem to need a bit less

Time: 4th March 2011 2:09pm

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amanda says...
I haven't seen this Pivot stuff up here - is it available in WA guys?.

Thanks Jason :) - I do have the book but I was looking for a recipe based on making up my own all purpose fert from the "pure" sources? (does that make sense?) eg; the nitrogen from say potassium nitrate etc...
I was using Calcium nitrate - but it put too much calcium in my (particular) soil and gave me problems with iron chlorosis.

I now use Liquitech Liquid N 42% w/v. The 20L container costs $38.75. I need to use 20mL/tree/month.
So I use 1.4L (all up for the 70 fertigated trees) per month - so should last >12 months.

How many bags do u think u may go thru in a year Jason? The price seems good value for the content/analyis..?

What's your annual rainfall like? (thanks again..)



Time: 4th March 2011 8:04pm

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John Mc says...
Hey Amanda,
I have a formula somewhere on my puter for making up my own fertilizers from basic salts like potassium nitrate etc. I have used it very successfully in my hydroponic vege system for the last 5 years. All the salts are water soluable and are instantly available to the plant, otherwise my veges in the Hydro system wouldn't be thriving. It's made up into two separate parts in concentrated form then diluted down to 4mm per litre. All the commercial hydro farms in Aus do it this way for economical reasons. Unless you can get your ferts for free, then this is the cheapest way to go.
If I can't find the formula I'll re type it out. I've been looking through a few hard drives but no luck as yet.

Here tis.

SOLUTION #1

CALCIUM NITRATE 1000 GRAMS
IRON CHELATE 12.5 GRAMS


SOLUTION #2

POTASSIUM NITRATE 600 GRAMS
MAGNESIUM SULPHATE 250 GRAMS
MONO-AMMONIUM PHOSPHATE (M.A.P.) 200 GRAMS



TRACE ELEMENTS

BORAX 3 GRAMS
MANGANESE SULPHATE 1 GRAM
ZINC SULPHATE 0.3 GRAMS
COPPER SULPHATE 0.1GRAMS
SODIUM MOLYBDENUM 0.1 GRAMS
SODIUM CHLORIDE 0.1 GRAMS

OR
60 Grams of LIBREL B.M.X. may be used instead of trace elements.

OR
20 Grams of Simplegrow trace element mix.



DIRECTIONS

Mix Solution #1 with 5 litres warm water.
Mix solution #2 & trace elements with 5 litres warm water.
Add equal amounts of each solution to water when making nutrient.
Do not mix solutions together before making nutrient as they interact together and make Calcium Phosphate which will not mix with water.


NUTRIENT STRENGTH>

For most vegetables 5mm of each solution to 1litre of water. Half strength for lettuce and carrotts.



I use the Librel BMX trace element mix instead of making up the individual trace elements. It's more expensive than making up the individual trace elements, but, it's a hell of a lot easier.

Time: 5th March 2011 11:09am

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amanda says...
Great - thanks John Mc! also - amateur green thumbs - what recipe do u use for the solid fert mix?

Time: 5th March 2011 11:06pm

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John Mc says...
There's no point in me making up solid mixes with my soluable mix , I mulch all my trees with horse or chicken manure as well as feed them with my hydro mix. I have an ec meter so I can up the concentrate dilution rate to any strength I like.
I have another recipe here somewhere that has different ingredients. The MAP is getting a little expensive even in 25kg bags.

Time: 6th March 2011 12:14am

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Jason says...
Amanda I use about 3 bags of that stuff per year so 120kg of it, I wouldn't need any added fertilizer at all another 10km North or South where the soil changes to a richer sandy loam to get the same growth

Time: 6th March 2011 3:37am

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Wayne says...
Good posting Jason and John and all. In my yard this year I would be able to grow very good rice. All my trees have suffered from the continual wet and most nutrients in my above ground veggie beds have leeched out so I have absolutely no idea where to start again with what fertiliser

Time: 6th March 2011 6:22pm

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Brendan says...
Not wrong Wayne, we've ONLY had 181mm in the last 2 days!, and it's still raining!

I think any good 'all purpose' fertilizer with trace elements would help, just have to wait 'till the rain stops :-)

Time: 7th March 2011 7:58am

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John Mc says...
Send some of it down this way, we've had our driest January in 10 years, and it's still dry. The odd sprinkle we get barely wets the surface.
I would have no water at all only for the neighbour next door who wanted her dam cleaned out. I pumped water for three days straight with the fire pump up to my dam. I, incidently, cleaned mine out as much as I could without loosing the little water I had.

Time: 7th March 2011 8:20am

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