Control
Powders give growers more control. Usually
when you buy powdered fertilizer you are buying
either a blend or ingredients individually. If you
have an agronomist on-site, access to a consultant,
or are a super mega genius scientist you can fi ne
tune and control each individual ingredient of your
nutrient formulation specifi cally for what your plants
need. There is never one variable in the garden that
changes on its own everything must be adjusted ac-
cordingly. This goes for individual nutrients and their
ratio in relationship with other nutrients. Being able
to buy just an amino acid and separately, individual
humic acid and separately individual phosphorus has
huge benefi ts. When you can control your nutrient
formula and environment in symbiotic relationship to
one another you can dial in your grow to achieve the
best cost effi ciencies and production.
Timing
Most often, the fi ner the powder, the faster it
mixes and the faster it can be up taken by plants.
There are a lot of micronized products on the market
and there are an impressive number of technolo-
gies being added to the micronized process. Some of
these processes allow nutrients to homogenize better
into solution, solubilize faster, be up taken faster by
plants, and even work with biology better. A lot of
processes in a carbon base system require biology to
break down the nutrient before it can be fed to the
plant. The size of these particles dictates the length
of time required to break down that nutrient which
makes using the highest amount of bacteria, num-
ber of species, inoculants and soil as possible. The
higher amount of bacteria in your soil the faster the
nutrients become available but an added bonus is the
plant is also sweating out of its roots.
The sweat is called an exudation. In a true car-
bon-based living system plant exudations are food
for the microbes and the microbe exudations are
food for the plants; it's a closed loop system. The
important thing to know is true living systems do not
require a lot of input and should be a closed loop
system. However in container gardening with the
high demands placed on cultivation, some type of
additional input is required to achieve maximum re-
sults. Traditional organics require a good deal of time
to break down. Depending on the amount of biology
in the soil, some rock dusts and other minerals can
take anywhere from one to six months before they
become available. If a plant is only in that soil for 90
days then you can potentially be wasting money or
just calculating the timing of your nutrient availability
incorrectly. I am a fi rm believer in putting your slow
break down nutrients in a light to medium volume
in your soil every time you use it (if you are mixing
soil), and feeding micronized carbon-based nutrients
through a drip system which will be fast break down
and availability to your plans.
Ingredients
The push to fi nd the best fertilizer for this indus-
try is on. Everyday new process, minerals, ingredi-
ents, bacteria, and technology are being discovered.
The race to fi nd the most cost-effective, high concen-
tration, plant maximizing, and sustainable ingredients
will revolutionize agriculture and horticulture as we
know it.
Petroleum vs Carbon Based
Petroleum-based fertilizer is a contributor to
algae bloom and anaerobic bacterial growth in lakes,
streams, rivers and ponds. Let's look at the effects
of petroleum-based fertilizer on plants and the bio-
logical rhizosphere encapsulating the root system vs
carbon-based organic biologically friendly systems.
Petroleum Based
Petroleum-based fertilizers are chelate based.
This means that they rely on their ingredients sticking
to plant roots and then being broken down by water
which force feeds the ingredients into the plant and
causes growth. This force-fed action of giving nutri-
ents to plants can cause imbalance in ratios, burning,
pH lockout, nutrient precipitation and exudation, as
well as a lot of buildup in the media. Many growers
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www.GardenandGreenhouse.net
May 2018