unspoken truths...

[Optimist]

I think that unless those who studied horticulture or plant biology in college, studied "orchids" as opposed to tomato or corn plants, they got only partial information. In my mind (though it may be wrong) I see this as similar to going to medical school to learn only "males in their prime" medicine, without any differentiation between males, females, old, infants, etc. The case is, also, if you know the Scientific Method, things that were thought true 10 or 20 years ago, might not be true today. And the other natural "rule" you must go by is the "Lucky Sock" rule, which is that one grower may swear by one method, and even have a fixation on it, or a superstition because it works for him. Hence "lucky sock" : the athlete who wears the same socks because somehow, he attributes his win to wearing his "Lucky Socks." Sometimes people have good luck with some method, and they attribute their "win" to that, when it was actually not that at all. Whether the fertilizer goes on first or later is probably not that important because somehow the plant is getting fertilized (if it is).