MICRONUTRIENTS YOU CAN’T IGNORE
O
n their quest for huge fruits and flowers, new growers
often overlook all of the micronutrients their plants
require in favor of providing them with sufficient amounts
of the macronutrients—nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium
(N-P-K)—they need to grow healthy and vigorous. However,
micronutrients help your plants reach for better growth despite
the fact they are not needed in high doses.
Balanced crop nutrients require you to have the right
amounts of macronutrients and micronutrients in the soil.
Micronutrients that you may not be supplying enough of to
your plants include iron (Fe), boron (B), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn),
manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), chloride (Cl) and molybdenum
(Mo). If your soil or grow medium is lacking any of these
nutrients, it may spell disaster for your crops, but thankfully
soil testing can be used to determine where you may be
needing to add these micronutrients.
HOW DO MICRONUTRIENTS GET DEPLETED?
Micronutrients become depleted from your soil even if you
follow a particular fertilizer schedule. There are a few ways
that this can happen to your land, even if you fertilize regularly.
For example, you may be growing crops that are high-yielding, which are stripping the micronutrients from the ground
because of the amount of growth they go through.
Another reason is that some fertilizers like N-P-K fertilizers
contain lower to non-existent quantities of micronutrients as
they focus on the macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium. You may also find that your soil is just naturally
low on some of these micronutrients—for reasons unknown.
IRON
Iron is a potent micronutrient that is necessary for plants to
produce food. Iron is used in several enzymes that provide
Iron should typically be
applied as a foliar spray
as soil applications are not
often sufficient for plants.
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Maximum Yield USA | October 2016