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Liquid or Slow release ferts

Oziam

Oziam

What is your experience with using Liquid fert or Slow release pellets!

Some say liquid fert is easier to use and control a precise amount of NPK & micro-nutrients where slow release has an unpredictable feed rate.

Others say liquid ferts build up salts over time and cause nutrient lockout resulting in nutrient deficiencies.
 
I like a healthy mix of well composted manures etc, combined with liquid ferts (more so after veg'ing)
You can always flush occasionally to avoid lockout.
 
Oziam said:
Others say liquid ferts build up salts over time and cause nutrient lockout resulting in nutrient deficiencies.
Click to expand...
And slow release ferts can alter soil pH over time resulting in nutrient deficiencies too. ;)

I dunno, I really don't know enough about this kind of stuff. I've been using both a combination of slow release pellets (Dynamic Lifter) and liquid nutes (a fish/seawood/worm juice combo) and everything seems to be OK.

Next season I am going to experiment with building my own soil though and see how that goes. I'm thinking I'll add composted cow and chook poo, professional blood and bone, and either worm castings or regular waterings with worm juice.
 
gasificada said:
Next season I am going to experiment with building my own soil though and see how that goes. I'm thinking I'll add composted cow and chook poo, professional blood and bone, and either worm castings or regular waterings with worm juice.
Click to expand...

Whoa that should be high in N.

Worm castings hay, where to get around Brizzy?
 
Oziam said:
Worm castings hay, where to get around Brizzy?
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Still trying to figure that one out. :rofl:

I've actually got a pile of used soil from this last season that is loaded with worms so I'm hoping that will be good enough to add to my new soil, but yeah, I'd rather be able to find a big ol' bag of castings somewhere.

I'm on the lookout for worm juice too. I use this stuff which you can get at Bunnings, but I dunno, I'm not really convinced it would be as good as a specific worm juice product would be:

http://www.batphone.com.au/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage-ask.tpl&product_id=22&category_id=5&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=29

I know there's this place down the coast but I think you have to order online and I can only imagine what delivery/postage would cost:

http://www.wormtec.com.au/

I'll give you a heads up if I find anything else.
 
+1 for combination of slow release pellets plus liquid fertilizer. Every year my garden is besieged by BLS (bacterial leaf spot), and the only sure cure I've found is to prevent its ever getting a foothold. That means keeping the plants heavily greened up by dosing them with as much nitrogen as they can stand...As long as the leaves are dark green, they seem to be bulletproof to the BLS...I can't afford to subscribe to the conventional "easy on the nitrogen" wisdom. If I try that my entire garden will certainly die. Don't know why that is, but it is nonetheless an empirical fact.

At plantout I work in 2-3 tablespoons of Osmocote 14-14-14 in a rough ring about 8-10 inches around the trunk of each plant. Then I water in with 1/2 gallon per plant of Miracle Grow Liquid 12-4-8 at the rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon. The liquid gives the plants a quick bump while they're waiting for the slow release to start working, which can take weeks. I can jack them a little more during the season with more liquid if need be, and of course the pellets need to be replenished every few months.

I like to think of the slow release pellets as the bass and drums, and the liquid ferts as the singer and lead guitar players of the chile garden dirt band.
 
I don't do either.
I do 100% foilar feeding my ferts. I do however add a bit of FRESH worm casting and compost to my soil and I also give them worm tea twice a month.

Several reason why I prefer to foilar feed:
Total control over what you plants intake and how much
Foilar feeding allows plants to intake nutes 60% faster
The amount of nutes taken in by the plant is a lot greater so I only have to use 2.5.2 liquid ferts
No build up in the soil causing problems with your root system
I mix my fert solution once and just use a large sprayer to feed the plants.
 
you might consider make your own

i am making attempts at such

found some chilli grower's worm strategum;

you might have a look here:

http://www.thechilliforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=43&p=240&hilit=worm+jizz#p240

it is well explained and i would not argue with a successful strategy until i tried it first :rofl:
 
I liquid and foliar feed atm but had a nutrient lockout which caused several deficiencies like nitrogen, calcium & sulfur,
the new growth was very slowed, yellowed and malformed, I flushed with neutral ph water then added a good dose of liquid fert and magnesium sulfate(epsom salts), everything is looking nice and green and growing normal again, I am not entirely sure why/how I got the lockout, maybe too often with the liquid fert causing salt buildup, atleast the flushing fixed it, thank god.
Amazingly no flowers dropped! I was thinking of adding pellets and reducing the frequency of liquid fert hoping this prevents it happening again!
 
Oziam said:
Whoa that should be high in N.

Worm castings hay, where to get around Brizzy?
Click to expand...
Go to Bunnings an see these:-

Gogo juice: has worm,fish etc with the added bugs to break own matter and unlock nutes n the soil. This is real good gear.
Triple boost: has worm, fish seaweed etc and also works a treat.

Remember - Go organic in your garden. I also use blood and bone dug through the soil. You can also try brunnings tomato and veg food - its similar to blood and bone but has extra stuff in it. Since going organic the difference has been huge- plant have more than doubled in size and the taste improvement has been more than noticeable.
 
Dazastar said:
Go to Bunnings an see these:-

Gogo juice: has worm,fish etc with the added bugs to break own matter and unlock nutes n the soil. This is real good gear.
Triple boost: has worm, fish seaweed etc and also works a treat.

Remember - Go organic in your garden. I also use blood and bone dug through the soil. You can also try brunnings tomato and veg food - its similar to blood and bone but has extra stuff in it. Since going organic the difference has been huge- plant have more than doubled in size and the taste improvement has been more than noticeable.
Click to expand...

Thanks Daz, very useful info.

QUOTE: You can also try brunnings tomato and veg food...

This is exactly what I use with a humus compost to help water retention.
 
Yeah, the Triple Boost, that's the one I mentioned before. While it does seem to do pretty good, I am still looking for worm juice on it's own. Unfortunately, Triple Boost can become quite expensive when you have 50+ plants to feed. At $13.95 for 1L of concentrate (granted, that does mix to 100L at recommended 100:1 dilution) doesn't seem too bad, I guess, but through my experiences, I have found TB to be quite mild and I find myself mixing a slightly stronger dose than that specified - something that becomes extremely costly when you have a lot of hungry plants to feed! Even using the recommended dilution, I find myself chewing through it rather quickly.

However, I have yet to investigate whether the use of a sole worm juice/extract would indeed turn out to be more economical or not compared to TB - but I would surely think so, especially if I managed to get the stuff in bulk.

That all being said, if you only have a small number of plants to feed, TB might just do the trick!
 
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