Tag Archives: water-soluble fertilizer

How do I calculate fertilizer rates? Part-2

May 29, 2023Blogfertilizer supplier near me, water-soluble fertilizerplantprod

How do I calculate fertilizer rates? Part-2

Fertilizer Rates & Concentration Values

Last post, we outlined the connection between electrical conductivity and the fertilizer concentration in your nutrient solution. Here, we outline the missing link – the relation between parts per million of Nitrogen (ppm N) and actual feeding rates (g/L, oz/gal).

In the horticultural industry, fertilization rates are often given in parts per million (ppm) of nitrogen (N). Parts per million is a convenient unit of measurement for indicating the concentration of fertilizer solutions. This is because nitrogen is the most commonly found nutrient in fertilizer formulations and because it allows us to state the concentration of a fertilizer solution independent of the fertilizer analysis. It is important to distinguish ppm N from total ppm, since total ppm typically refers to total dissolved solids, including those that are not coming from the fertilizer. When we refer to ppm N, we refer to nutrient concentration from the fertilizer only.

Calculating Rates Based on ppm N

When preparing a fertilizer stock solution, it is important to know the injector ratio of your system. This refers to the amount of stock solution that is delivered for each increment of irrigation water that passes through the injector. For instance, a 1:100 injector ratio will deliver a final 100 gallons of dilute fertilizer solution for each 1 gallon of concentrated stock solution.

Other important factors include:

The desired ppm you wish to feed of a specific element guaranteed in the fertilizer
% of the element guaranteed in fertilizer
Conversion constant determined by the units desired for your rate (see table below)

Example 1

You want to feed Plant-Prod MJTM Bloom 10-30-20 Water Soluble Fertilizer at 150 ppm N, and your injector is set to 1:200. Your tank is 500 L and you want to know how many grams of fertilizer to add to your stock tank.
Let’s list all the factors you know:

Desired ppm N = 150
Injector ratio = 200
% of the element guaranteed in fertilizer = 10
Conversion constant for g/L (see table above) = 10

Now let’s put all that into the equation:

Now you know that you need to add 150 kg of Plant-Prod MJTM Bloom Water Soluble Fertilizer to your 500 L stock tank to have a final fertilizer solution of 150 ppm N. Note that the ppm N in your stock tank will be 200 x this concentration since you have an injector system set to 1:200.

Example 2

Copy: What if you have a rate in oz/gal that you’ve been using and want to compare it to a recommendation that is in ppm N? All you have to do is rearrange the equation.
Say you’ve been diluting 14 oz/gal of Plant-Prod 20-10-20 high Nitrate Water Soluble Fertilizer and using an injector set to 1:100.
Again, let’s list all the factors you know:

Rate in ounces per US gallon = 14
Injector ratio = 100
% of the element guaranteed in fertilizer = 20
Conversion constant for oz/gal (see table above) = 75

Now let’s put all that into the equation:

Now you know that you are feeding 210 ppm N when mixing a stock solution of Plant-Prod 20-10-20 high nitrate water-soluble fertilizer at a rate of 14 oz/gal and using an injector ratio of 1:100.

Want to cut your fertilizer costs and increase grower profitability?

Learn how high-quality fertilizers can help you cut fertilizer costs, and labour costs and increase your growing productivity here.

For more fertilizer productivity tips, check out these blog posts:

Plant-Prod manufactures water-soluble fertilizers for fruit trees, plants and flowers. The choice of growers from California to Maine for over 70 years, Plant-Prod fertilizers are made from the finest raw ingredients in the world, tested constantly for purity and turbo-milled to ensure 100% solubility in order to help you improve yields while cutting fertilizer costs. Click here to find a Plant-Prod fertilizer supplier near you.

How do I calculate fertilizer rates? Part-1

April 20, 2023Blogfertilizer supplier near me, water-soluble fertilizerplantprod

How do I calculate fertilizer rates? Part-1

Did you know just as with pH, each type of plant has a preferred Electrical conductivity (EC) range within which it can thrive? In general, though, if your EC is very low, your plant probably doesn’t have enough food. On the other hand, if your EC is very high, you run the risk of burning your roots or creating toxic buildups.

All plants need the right amount of food (nutrients) in order to grow. Electrical conductivity (EC) is an essential measurement that indicates the total amount of nutrients available to your plants.

When nutrients dissolve in water, they split into ions. For example, potassium nitrate dissolves into a potassium ion and a nitrate ion. Each ion carries an electrical charge, which creates the potential for electricity to move through a solution. The more ions present, the better the water can conduct electricity.

Plants only absorb nutrients when they are available in an ionic form. That’s why EC is a good indication of the overall strength of your nutrient solution.

Electrical Conductivity & Fertilizer Concentration

Regular monitoring of the electrical conductivity (EC) of your nutrient solution is a vital part of any fertigation program. Electrical conductivity is the ability of a solution to conduct an electrical current. Most elements (plant essential or other) that are soluble in water will contribute to the conductivity of water or a nutrient solution. As a result, the EC of a nutrient solution will increase as the water-soluble fertilizer concentration in the solution is increased. By knowing the EC of a water-soluble fertilizer solution, you can predict the parts per million (ppm) of nutrients your plants are receiving, or that remain in your runoff water.

Each water-soluble fertilizer blend has a unique EC profile based on its concentration in solution due to the composition of the product. The following chart can be used to relate the EC of your Plant-Prod MJ TM nutrient feed with the associated parts per million (ppm) of Nitrogen:

Measuring EC

Most meters used by our growers are calibrated in mmhos per cm or mS per cm, which are interchangeable units. The data given here on our water-soluble fertilizers use the same measurement. The above table can be used to measure the accuracy of water-soluble fertilizer injector systems by following these steps:

Example:

Conductivity of clear irrigation water is 0.60 mmhos / mS
Conductivity of the final fertilizer solution using 10-30-20 is 2.05 mmhos / mS
The conductivity due to the fertilizer is 2.05 mmhos / mS – 0.60 mmhos /mS = 1.45 mmhos / mS
For 10-30-20, a conductivity reading of 1.45 mmhos / mS corresponds to a feeding rate of roughly 150 ppm of Nitrogen (N)

Stay tuned for our next post where we will cover the link between parts per million (ppm) of Nitrogen and mixing rates.

Want to cut your fertilizer costs and increase grower profitability?

Learn how high-quality fertilizers can help you cut fertilizer costs, and labour costs and increase your growing productivity here.

For more fertilizer productivity tips, check out these blog posts:

Will plants recover from fertilizer or nutrient burn? Signs and symptoms you can’t afford to ignore

March 29, 2023Blogfertilizer burn, fertilizer supplier near me, nutrient burn, water-soluble fertilizerplantprod

Will plants recover from fertilizer or nutrient burn? Signs and symptoms you can’t afford to ignore

So, you’ve noticed your plants are struggling a little bit. Think your plants have fertilizer or nutrient burn? Maybe you were a little heavy-handed when applying fertilizer to your cannabis plants or others. Now you want to know how bad is nutrient burn. Will your plants recover? Don’t worry, we have all the information you need here.

Below, we’ll discuss nutrient burn, list some of the early signs of nute burn, and talk about if your plants will recover from it.

What is nutrient burn? Is it the same as fertilizer burn?

Nutrient burn is a common problem growers experience with their plants. It happens when a plant is fed too much fertilizer, when applying soluble fertilizer too often, when drainage of media is poor or when growing in dry conditions, among other things. This causes plant damage. It’s also referred to as nute burn or fertilizer burn.

How bad is nutrient burn? Over-fertilizing your plants with nutrients can negatively impact growing productivity and hence your profitability.

It happens because plants are not equipped with the ability to discard excess nutrients. They cannot handle overfeeding. Therefore, it’s essential for you to regularly monitor your plants for early signs of nutrient burn.

What are the early signs of nute burn?

What does nutrient burn look like? Here are some of the early signs and symptoms:

Leaves bending at the tips
Deep green colouring of the leaves
Slight brown or yelling at the tips of leaves

These are the early signs. But there are also more advanced symptoms to watch out for:

Twisting leaves
Leaves wilt or curling under
Brown or yellowing moving up the leaf
Very slow growth

Generally, fertilizer burn starts at the tip of the leaf and works its way back toward the plant. Plants move nutrients through branches to leaves and when it has nowhere left to go (when there is too much fertilizer) it starts to burn the tips.

To prevent and manage overfeeding, use the application rates stated on the labels and regularly measure soluble salt levels in the media.

There can be some confusion between nutrient burn and other potential issues. Some may question if the issue is nutrient burn or something else.

For example, how can you tell the difference between potassium deficiency and nutrient burn? Potassium deficiency and nutrient burn are often mistaken for each other. Often the first signs of the issue look just like nutrient burn. However, you’ll know the issue is potassium related when the leaves turn yellow in the margins, primarily near the burn edges.

Will plants recover from nutrient burn?

If your plants do in fact have a nutrient burn, don’t panic. If you catch it early on, you can remedy the issue and save your plant. But unfortunately, you’ll still lose the parts of your plant that have been burned. You’ll need to cut those areas out of the plant.

Related to this, many people often ask if you can reverse fertilizer burn. No, you cannot reverse nutrient burn. The parts of your plants that have turned brown will never turn green and be healthy again.

How long does it take a plant to recover from fertilizer burn?

If you’ve overfed your plant, the first thing you’ll need to do is stop feeding it. Continuing the fertilization will only prolong the issue and it could even kill your plant. Be sure to remove excess fertilizer and flush out excess with water. You may even need to replant in new soil if the soil is over-saturated with fertilizers.

How long it will take your plant to recover will depend on the plant. It generally takes a couple of weeks to recover. Keep a close eye on your plants and look for signs of recovery.

Prevention is always the best cure when caring for your plants. Make sure you fertilize your plants based on their specific needs. Water-soluble fertilizers can help in this area.

Want to cut your fertilizer costs and increase grower profitability?

Learn how high-quality fertilizers can help you cut fertilizer costs, labour costs and increase your growing productivity here.

For more fertilizer productivity tips, check out these blog posts:

Plant-Prod manufactures water-soluble fertilizers for fruit trees, plants and flowers including cannabis. The choice of growers from California to Maine for over 70 years, Plant-Prod fertilizers are made from the finest raw ingredients in the world, tested constantly for purity and turbo-milled to ensure 100% solubility in order to help you improve yields while cutting fertilizer costs. Click here to find a Plant-Prod cannabis fertilizer supplier near you.

What You Need to Know About Fertilizer Prices in 2023

March 23, 2023Blogcalcium nitrate for plants, cannabis fertilizer, chelated iron for plants, fertilizer prices, fertilizer supplier near me, water-soluble fertilizer, zinc fertilizerplantprod

What You Need to Know About Fertilizer Prices in 2023

Like many other things, where we saw a dramatic increase in price over the past few years, fertilizer prices skyrocketed in 2022. While they have come down in early 2023, they continue to be higher than normal.

Increases have affected all types of fertilizers – regular fertilizers, water-soluble fertilizers for flowers, vegetables and cannabis, micronutrient fertilizers and many others. It has particularly affected potash, phosphate and potassium nitrogen fertilizers. The question everyone wants an answer to is, will fertilizer prices go back down to normal in 2023? While we’re already seeing some softening in prices early in 2023, if you’re expecting prices to return to pre-pandemic prices, the news doesn’t look as promising.

“With natural gas prices still high and major market disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine war, we don’t expect fertilizer prices to normalize in time for farmers’ 2023 crop planning,” said FBN Chief Economist Kevin McNew on Agrinews.

Why were fertilizer prices so high in 2022?

Fertilizer prices are market-driven. They are typically determined by supply and demand. There are a lot of things that happened globally that affected supply and demand. There was and continues to be a war between Russia and Ukraine. The other major event was China restricting exports. This has led to supply chain costs being historically high. And we mean significantly higher than pre-covid times.

Prior to the pandemic, the cost of a container of fertilizer from China was $3,000. By May of 2022, it was closer to $30,000 per container. Now it’s back down to normal. But in Europe, the cost of a container was $2,500-3,000, then went as high as $20,000 during the pandemic, and now it is approximately $7,000 so it is not back down to normal. This has a big impact on costs because fertilizer is a heavy commodity. You can only ship 24,000kg per container, so the cost per kilo was driven almost as high as the cost of the raw material itself – and, in some cases, even higher!

Finally, because of the spike in price, businesses started to stockpile supplies. Then the demand became unprecedented because clients were stocking up and usage was high. It’s a similar effect that happened to other products during the pandemic – toilet paper, formula, children’s Tylenol, and many others.

Will fertilizer prices go down in 2023?

So, will prices normalize in 2023? There will be a softening in the market – we are seeing it already – but they not return to pre-pandemic levels.

The Ag market affects the horticultural market. Manufacturers look at the net back on each. So, if Ag goes up, horticultural goes up within 2-6 months. The same is true if it goes down.

Currently, the commodity markets are down about 30% from their peak, however, they are still not at pre-Covid levels.

Also, food pricing is very high at the moment. So, farmers will not pull back on inputs as their profit supports fertilizer inputs.

The good news is we don’t anticipate any type of fertilizer shortage this year unless there is another significant global event.

Summary: key issues affecting fertilizer prices in 2023 and in the future

U.S. and Canadian fertilizers come from all over the world. There will continue to be a variety of factors that will affect its pricing in the short and long term future. So, it’s still uncertain when prices will go down and how long they will stay at their current levels is unclear. Here are the key things to keep an eye on this year:

China: The country continues its restrictive fertilizer exports policy in 2023
Russia: They have increased export tax and export quotas.
Natural gas prices: EU natural gas prices continue high
Freight costs: They are going down but are relatively high historically (sea and land) from Europe
Supply chain: Congestion in transportation ports is easing
War: Continued uncertainty from the Russian/Ukraine conflict
Commodity market: Strong Ag fundamentals

Want to cut your fertilizer costs and increase grower profitability?

Learn how high-quality fertilizers can help you cut fertilizer costs, labour costs and increase your growing productivity here.

For more fertilizer productivity tips, check out these blog posts:

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