Calcium question

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by estación seca

The number of nitrogen on the label doesn't matter. It refers to what percent of the material inside is made up of nitrogen. Anything can be diluted to a reasonable nitrogen concentration. There is a fertilizer concentration calculator available on the First Ray's Web site. The other components in most fertilizers are present in adequate quantities when diluted to an appropriate nitrogen concentration.

True! The percentage of the component (eg. nitrogen) on the packet is a reference value for us to determine how much fertiliser to to add to some given quantity of regular water ------- to achieve a target concentration of the component (eg. nitrogen).

The recommended dosage of the packet can be a useful reference too ------ such as taking their recommended dosage, and 'halving' the recommended dosage ----- or even 'thirding' it. That's the super basic approach.

I support the fertiliser calculator method though. Or at least that method gets people toward knowing more accurately about what is being applied.

[Ray]

When the MSU formula was first announced in the AOS magazine, I made contact with the originators and started using it right away at the 125 ppm N level they recommended.

WOW!!! Did I get great growth! Except that over time, I noticed I was getting fewer and fewer blossoms. A friend in my local OS simply said “you’re overfeeding”, so I did a little digging and realized I had been feeding my plants every other day with what they recommended for every week or two...

I immediately cut back to 25 ppm N, and it took a good 18 months before blooming returned to an acceptable level.

[SouthPark]

Very nice information Ray. Thanks for sharing that. Extremely useful for all growers.

[Ray]

I will add, looking back at- and supporting Southpark's earlier post, that there is often a confusion about fertilizer formula and overapplication of nitrogen.

Before I looked into it, I always assumed that using a 30-10-10 would be applying way too much nitrogen compared to a 15-30-15, without realizing that one measure of the latter has the identical mass of nitrogen to a half-unit of the former.

The bottom line is that you should:

• CHOOSE your formula based upon how much of the other minerals are provided, relative to the nitrogen
• CONTROL your feeding by the nitrogen level.