do we under fertilise??

[Pup]

Jamie and co just another equation. Tomorrow is my scheduled fertilising day. Now what the problem is, the weather forecasters were slightly out today.

They forecast 38 here and it got to 39 I know its only 1% but they have forecast tomorrow to be 40 and also the day after 40. So my dilemma is. What do I do

If it gets to 41% do I fertilise or wait thus shortening the time between fertilising. As most plants will not take any nutrients at those temps plus I would be watering.

If I use one of the polymer coated slow release ferts it will probably just burst and release it all.

This is what makes this post so important. As we in Australia have such a vast arrays of Zones.
Most of the literature we read is from the Northern hemisphere. With most authors living in either a mediterranean or colder climate where extremes of heat and dry are not a problem.

Some of the members of Bonsai talk lived in these extremes they understand our problems. So this post is not about who is right or wrong but what they do for there Zone.
Brett is always asking questions as is Jamie. When they get an answer they do not always except it. They then refer to some thing they have read.
As do many of our members.
Graeme who has just joined us after lurking for awhile. Told us of his methods tried and true.
So you can take that that it works not that he read it somewhere. So in my book I will listen to that because it is not second hand.

Now before you rip my b^!!$ out, I am not against reading( it is one of my favorite past times ) or researching a subject.
If you have done this and prove it works then we all benefit, but if you have not, do not pass it on for someone else to try and loose.

To answer what was the opening. I will wait till it cools down as tw or three days, do not make that much difference I have been doing it for years.

Cheers Pup

[Jamie]

pup,

dont get me wrong, i am not saying someone has said this but i have read that and i dont think your right, it is quite the contrary, i am just putting things out there to spur discussion and learn from the experiences and trials of others that have done things before me, and as you state books are mostly written from a northern hemisphere point of view, does this help us down here in aus?? yes and no, it gives us some form of a guide to work out where we can and use to our benefits. i could throw another spanner in the works in this topic as you have with the weather side of things by talking bout micro climates, which we can get into as well.

as for getting an answer then not accepting it this is not so much the case, i am just trying to cross reference things to get to a fact that works for us.

i am not one to have a crack at anyone for putting a question or response across that differs from my own, this is a fact of life, i among a lot of others are just trying to learn and if these sort of questions arent asked then we will not get the answers even if it sometimes have to be drummed into our (well alot of the time mine ) heads.

what you have brought up about weather and temperatures with fertilising is very interesting, now in my climate i dont have to stress about that as much as my temps rarely get above 40 degrees, my humidity on the other hand can be quite high, will this cause a problem???

im hoping i havent stirred up the wrong feelings of how i come across with this, i am on a journey with my bonsai and learning about it and since i have been on here i feel i have been getting somewhere instead of stumbling around with trial and error and not knowing everything i need to bar from what i have read, this is why i refer to the books alot.

pup, and alot of others have put me alot further ahead in my bonsai journeys so far in the past 6 months or so than i have in the past 4 and a half years.and you pup have a lot to do with this.


cheers


jamie

[ozzy]

You're supposed to fertilize your Bonsai? ... why didn't somebody tell me

[Jamie]

You're supposed to fertilize your Bonsai? ... why didn't somebody tell me

it couldnt hurt i am sure of that

[Pup]

Jamie what I am saying, this thread is a very important one for learning the right and wrong way.

Also that if you are not sure ( used the wrong wording ) about the answer you do more research.

Then when you see something you can work with, fine. Try it first then pass it on .

Not pass it on if you have not proved it. For the next person to try it and lose out.

Fertilising in humid conditions is not a problem, unless it is 90% which is almost like rain.

The one thing about Dynamic lifter, is it will turn your soil mix Alkaline, so Azaleas Camellias and a lot of Melaleucas, do not like Alkaline soil.
I would not recommend it for them.

I know what Dorothy Koreshoff recommends as a fertiliser, we had a discussion about it. When she visited my place in 2001.
most plants prefer a neutral soil.

Cheers Pup

[Jamie]

ok pup no drama, i think i get where you are coming from with where i have stated what i have used and havent had a problem so far i just cant see or recall where i have recomended using certain ferts to anyone at any stage in this post? what i have written in this post is what i have tried so far and had results from, not recomendations to what i am doing.

as you have stated everyone has to have a different fert regime as a lot of things can contribute to how the fert works.

i find that what has been working for is working for now, i am still in testing phases with everything to do with my ferts and i am just posting results thus far, not recommending it to anyone yet as i can tell????

now as for your chat with deborah koreshoff that would have been very intriguing as to what there fert regime was/is, would you care to enlighten us all a little on the conversation and how they fertilised? i do have one of the koreshoffs books and am on the look out for more but first hand experience such as your self that you have and had the chance to talk about it would of been a wonderful thing, if you could pass this on it would be greatly appreciated??

jamie

[Pup]

ok pup no drama, i think i get where you are coming from with where i have stated what i have used and havent had a problem so far i just cant see or recall where i have recomended using certain ferts to anyone at any stage in this post? what i have written in this post is what i have tried so far and had results from, not recomendations to what i am doing.

as you have stated everyone has to have a different fert regime as a lot of things can contribute to how the fert works.

i find that what has been working for is working for now, i am still in testing phases with everything to do with my ferts and i am just posting results thus far, not recommending it to anyone yet as i can tell????

now as for your chat with Deborah Koreshoff that would have been very intriguing as to what there fert regime was/is, would you care to enlighten us all a little on the conversation and how they fertilised? i do have one of the Koreshoffs books and am on the look out for more but first hand experience such as your self that you have and had the chance to talk about it would of been a wonderful thing, if you could pass this on it would be greatly appreciated??

jamie

Jamie it was Dorothy Koreshoff, Deborah's mother.

The discussion resolved around the use of Dynamic lifter which Dot is a believer in I pointed out that it turns the soil alkaline. Her comment was it must be different to what we get in Sydney!. Because a majority of my tree's are Mels I do not use it.

A fiend has used it to great affect with pushing the growth of Ficus. He puts a 10mm layer of Dynamic lifter all over the pots he uses polystyrene grow boxes.
Four weeks later he scrapes it off and redoes it. He goes from 10mm cutting to 100mm in 4 years. Now this is second hand I have not tried this my self, have seen the results though.
Cheers Pup

[Jamie]

ahhh thanks for clearing that up mate, and my bad with deborah and dorothy honest mistake there.

now that is a technique i must try, ten times the trunk thickness in 4 years is extreme, and i have the conditions to do this too, si this is one thing i will try and post results on. was anything mentioned about using liquid ferts aswell?? or just dynamic lifter??
and i take it there is a very good reasoning behind scraping it off every four weeks then applying it again yes?

and although you havent tried this yourself you have seen the results and this will be good enough for me, if i can get those sort of results i will at least be testing it for sure

i appreciate your input into this discussion and hopefully we can continue with some more input from others experiences, from that we all learn and that is the great thing about bonsai, a community that teaches and learns freely

thanks again. much appreciated


jamie

[Bretts]

Brett is always asking questions as is Jamie. When they get an answer they do not always except it. They then refer to some thing they have read.
As do many of our members

I haven't even commented here and I am already in trouble

As I said to Jim all those years ago Pup I even question my Doctor

I have only just read this thread as I have been busy.

From my reading as I am no Fertiliser chemist it seems to me that organic fertiliser takes longer to become usable but hangs around longer than chemical. So chemical is the opposite. Organic fertiliser will also have some humic content. From recent discussion it seems this is lacking in our inorganic soil mediums. I have wonderd recently if chemical works better in a very organic soil medium. Maybe the manure content is relative here?

It seems to me that there are many variables here soil medium, climate and species.

I have used various applications over the last 5 years from being to scared to fertilise to fertilising every week and I am now on a 10 day schedule.
I have stopped mixing fertilisers which has also alterd my approach.
I started the season off with a good quality 10/10/10 with very good range of trace elements also humic acid. I believe it is an organic fertiliser but I could be wrong? and a Calcium Boron magnesium fert. Lots of worm juice and humic acid with the occasional seaweed fish emulsion as well. Discussions led me to wonder if keeping the high Nitrogen Fertiliser that I used last year (maxi Crop, Thrive) going through Summer was contributing to leaf burn in my hornbeams so I have followed through with my plan to use a low Nitrogen fertiliser through Summer.
Still have the leaf burn
Although my Water is not salty I read today that if we use a mix that often needs watering then the salt content will build up and in this case a Hornbeam should be waterd with rain water That was from Walter in an old Bonsai Today article
This is the opposite of what I thought. I thought that good drainage meant that the salts where washed away so I am totally lost now.

I am due to fertilise again at the moment. In fact I was due on the 24th of December but have not had a chance with all the rain. I am wondering which fertiliser I wil pick up considering It could be washed away with the rain anyway?

Reading a Japanese mix for fertiliser cakes the other day (posted in reply to Jow's mix, I will have a look and re-post here) It seemed to me that dynamic lifter was close enough to use without making your own.
I have stated before that I had a tree die from putting on Dynamic lifter. As I and others have used alot of Dynamic lifter with no harm I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that I had drastically pruned (trunk chopped) this birch twice in a matter of a month or so?
I guess it is possible that a tree with more leaves can handle a higher salt content in the soil?

Anyway I am far from telling anyone how to fertilise so I doubt you will get much argument out of me on this one Pup

[Pup]

Not in trouble. Just used your enquiring mind to try to get a point across.
I worded my first post on this wrong.


Cheers Pup

[Jerry Meislik]

Sorry to join this thread so late but I am enjoying and learning from all the information supplied.
I too have felt for years that we were under-fertilizing. First, I grow all tropicals now. Two, I use an inorganic soil. Three, I grow my trees indoors under lights only.
After various experiments I concluded given my growing conditions, soil, trees etc that I needed to increase fertilization from every two-three weeks to daily. I use an inorganic fertilizer applied with an injector system.
Once every week or two I will water without fertilizer to flush the pots. Not sure if this is needed but I do it anyhow.
I would like to use organics but due to insects mold and smell and growing my bonsai in the house, I can't do it.
I definitely noted better growth and healthier trees once I stepped up my fertilization.
So far, adding humic acid has done nothing to my inorganic fertilizer regimen. Nor has adding trace elements. Apparently my chemical fertilizer must cover some of these vital elements.
Jerry
http://www.bonsaihunk.us

[Greth]

Oh, well, all of my repotting today has involved gratuitous amounts of Seamungous, which is a Dynamic Lifter type product from Neutrog. It contains seaweed and fish leftovers as well as chook manure (If you thought D L didn't smell bad enough)
Hoping to see a good response to this.

[Bretts]

Thanks for the information Jerry. The lack of results with Humic acid is interesting.
Since you have a system that obviously leaches the fertiliser quickly I wonder if foliar application of Fulvic acid wil work instead.
Fulvic acid is the small percentage found in humic acid that is actually used by the plant . Humic acid will hang around in the soil for a while but when refined to fulvic acid it leaches away quickly.
Since your fertiliser is leaching away so quickly I guess the humic is as well. You don't say how often you apply the humic and I am definitely no expert but. Fulvic is best used as a foliar spray for quick uptake by the plant so if I am correct in thinking that the humic is not getting a chance to work in your system then using fulvic as a foliar spray may be the solution.

Might be worth a try
Here is some info. These guys have top quality fulvic if you can get it over to you.
http://www.nutri-tech.com.au/blog/?p=619

[Bretts]

Hey Greth I thought I had heard of that stuff. Some one else mentioned using that stuff as a source of humates. It looks good I might try that next year.

[Jerry Meislik]

Hi Bretts,
Thanks for the info.
I am doing the humic acid as a soil drench every 10 days. I have not tried the fulvic as a leaf spray but it may be worth a shot.
Jerry