“For the vast majority of plants, a balanced and versatile fertilizer will be good”
Shutterstock / ENTERRO
Take a stroll in any garden center and you will find a wall of fertilizer, where the colorful bottles promise perfect results for everything, lawns and roses with trees of trees and Japanese strokes. But do home gardeners really need it? Let’s look at science.
Although plants need approximately 16 mineral nutrients, most are necessary in tiny quantities. In fact, at the heart of vegetable nutrition – and therefore fertilizers – are only three macronutrients: nitrogen (n), phosphorus (p) and potassium (k), which feed the growth of leaves, the development of roots and the formation of flowers / fruits, respectively. The main difference between most vegetable food formulas is due to the report of these nutrients, which manufacturers must display on the label after the letters “NPK”.
If you want a lush green lawn, aim for a flow with a higher nitrogen value. For flower or fruit plants like roses or tomatoes, you will need more potassium. You do not need to browse each bottle for its mineral proportions or to determine the plants they would correspond, because the markets have usefully labeled formulas depending on the plant for which they are best suited.
But this is where things become more difficult. I recently compared three “specialized” plant foods from a well -known brand: for roses, strawberries and tomatoes. All three had an identical NPK report, 4-2-6, so the only significant difference was the image on the bottle. Here is the thing: the plants write everything they need the soil, in the proportions they need. For the vast majority, a balanced and versatile fertilizer will be good. In fact, some “specialized” flows are reconditioned general practitioners.
Storage on a minibar of different bottles is expensive and useless, and can also do more harm than good. Plants only need fertilizer to complete the missing minerals in the ground. Overload with nitrogen has been shown to lead to gentle growth and more unhappy pests and products. Excess phosphorus, on the other hand, is often washing in navigable waterways, contributing to serious environmental damage. This is particularly true in places like the United Kingdom, where garden floors are quite fertile, especially compared to agricultural, thanks to much less intensive management.
So what’s the answer? Buy a cheap and easy -to -use home floor test, no unnecessary fertilizer. Of course, there are exceptions: plants like rhododendrons, which love acid, often need a boost of iron and manganese, because their roots can have trouble absorbing them from more neutral floors. Likewise, plants cultivated by the container (especially those of low nutrients such as peat) generally need fertilizer recharges during the growth season. But for most households, including those that keep indoor plants, a single balanced vegetable diet, or none, is ok, leaving you time (and money) to enjoy plant cultivation.
For other projects, visit Newscientist.com/maker
Subjects:
