Foliage Feeding

[bouquet]

Hi everyone,
With the recent comments in this thread there appears to be some confusion. Please read the very first post. The original Miracle-Gro MaxFeed for Azalea, Camellia, Rhododendron is no longer available. I have had a look at their WEB site again and it is not there. The make up of this product worked very well for everything. When it was taken off the shelf I couldn't see another of their products with the same analysis. This is why I have recommended the use of Charlie Carp and PowerFeed as explained in the first post. I use this mixture on everything from natives to exotics.

Regards Ray

Hi Ray

Taken from this post: viewtopic.php?f=132&t=18085&start=15

What do you think of this product as a replacement for the Miracle-Gro MaxFeed for Azalea, Camellia, Rhododendron.

https://www.manutec.com.au/default.asp?p ... id=MTO5078

Analysis for this product. All values are %W/W

Nitrogen (N) as nitrate 1.4
Nitrogen (N) as Ammonium 10.0
Nitrogen (N) as Urea 3.6
TOTAL NITROGEN 15.0

TOTAL PHOSPHORUS (P) as water soluble 4.5

Potassium(K) as nitrate 4.5
TOTAL POTASSIUM (K) 12.5

Magnesium (Mg) as Sulphate 0.78
Iron (Fe) as EDTA Chelate 0.26
Manganese (Mn) as EDTA Chelate 0.03
Copper (Cu) as Copper Chelate 0.06
Zinc (Zn) as Zinc Chelate 0.09
Boron (B) as Sodium Borate 0.05
Molybdenum (Mo) as Sodium Molybdate 0.001

Approx. pH of solution using 5g in 5 liters = 3.60
Approx. pH of solution using 10g in 5 liters = 3.10

[Neli]

Ray,
I have another question: Do you get white stuff on the leaves by folliar feeding?

[EJZ]

Hi Ray,

I was browsing through the fertiliser section at flower power and have noticed that Amgrow has taken advantage of the fact that Scotts have taken their product of the market and have released a number of soluble fertiliser called Nutrafeed.

The Amgrow Nutrafeed Gardenia, Azalea & Camellia has a NPKS of:

Nitrogen-19

Phosphorus-2

Potassium- 17

Sulphur-8

This would probably be a great substitute for the scotts product and comes in 500g or 1 kg packs

I will be purchasing as soon as I run out of the miracle grow product.

Cheers
Eugene

[treeman]

Hate to be the fly in the ointment but trials have shown almost no extra benefit from foliar feeding when plants are adequatly fed through their roots. It is highly likely that your trees would have looked the same if you had not foliar fed them.

[Ray M]

Ray,
I have another question: Do you get white stuff on the leaves by folliar feeding?

Hi Neli,
Eugene and bouquet, I will answer Neli first. Yes, I have noticed a green/white on the leaves using Miracle-Gro. I don't see any residue using the formula of Charlie Carp and PowerFeed.

Regards Ray

[Ray M]

Hi Ray

Taken from this post: viewtopic.php?f=132&t=18085&start=15

What do you think of this product as a replacement for the Miracle-Gro MaxFeed for Azalea, Camellia, Rhododendron.

https://www.manutec.com.au/default.asp?p ... id=MTO5078

Analysis for this product. All values are %W/W

Nitrogen (N) as nitrate 1.4
Nitrogen (N) as Ammonium 10.0
Nitrogen (N) as Urea 3.6
TOTAL NITROGEN 15.0

TOTAL PHOSPHORUS (P) as water soluble 4.5

Potassium(K) as nitrate 4.5
TOTAL POTASSIUM (K) 12.5

Magnesium (Mg) as Sulphate 0.78
Iron (Fe) as EDTA Chelate 0.26
Manganese (Mn) as EDTA Chelate 0.03
Copper (Cu) as Copper Chelate 0.06
Zinc (Zn) as Zinc Chelate 0.09
Boron (B) as Sodium Borate 0.05
Molybdenum (Mo) as Sodium Molybdate 0.001

Approx. pH of solution using 5g in 5 liters = 3.60
Approx. pH of solution using 10g in 5 liters = 3.10

Hi bouquet,
It is fairly similar to Miracle-Gro. The Phosphorus is 4.5. Miracle-Gro is 1.8. I normally would be looking for 3 or less. The Manutec should work very well on Junipers and exotics. If I was trying it I would select a couple of natives that are stock trees and try it on them. I would start with the 5g in 5 litre mix.

Regards Ray

[Ray M]

Hi Ray,

I was browsing through the fertiliser section at flower power and have noticed that Amgrow has taken advantage of the fact that Scotts have taken their product of the market and have released a number of soluble fertiliser called Nutrafeed.

The Amgrow Nutrafeed Gardenia, Azalea & Camellia has a NPKS of:

Nitrogen-19

Phosphorus-2

Potassium- 17

Sulphur-8

This would probably be a great substitute for the scotts product and comes in 500g or 1 kg packs

I will be purchasing as soon as I run out of the miracle grow product.

Cheers
Eugene

Hi Eugene,
Looks very similar to Miracle-Gro. The Sulphur is a little higher than Miracle-Gro. I don't think that will be a real problem.

Could I please make a suggestion to all who are trying foliage feeding. If you are trying something new, do some tests on some stock trees to check the suitability.

Regards Ray

[Ray M]

Hate to be the fly in the ointment but trials have shown almost no extra benefit from foliar feeding when plants are adequatly fed through their roots. It is highly likely that your trees would have looked the same if you had not foliar fed them.

Hi treeman,
That certainly hasn't been my experience. All the people at the School of Bonsai that I have encouraged to try it, have had great success. I had a friend who owned a wholesale nursery. He decided to sell up and he had quite a few Junipers that he threw out onto the dump. I retrieved a number of them and potted them up. I had them for a number of years and they were still very scrappy. I was actually going to throw them out. When I introduced foliage feeding to my fertilizer regime they where treated and the response from rubbish to good trees was amazing.

The post above, that Scott posted, is worth a look again. by Scott Roxburgh » November 30th, 2013, 6:59 pm

Regards Ray

[bouquet]

Ray another question with regards to foliar feeding.

I understand the concept and how it is applied etc however if I'm watering the soil with a watering can would applying the solution over the foliage at the same time i.e. Start from the top of the tree and work the watering can to the soil/pot do the same thing.

Or have I forgot something along the way here i.e. in between fertilising the soil to apply a foliage feed throughout the week.

i will go back and read

Ok I re-read the original post. Would I be correct in saying you foliar feed whenever you water?

[Ray M]

Ray another question with regards to foliar feeding.

I understand the concept and how it is applied etc however if I'm watering the soil with a watering can would applying the solution over the foliage at the same time i.e. Start from the top of the tree and work the watering can to the soil/pot do the same thing.

Or have I forgot something along the way here i.e. in between fertilising the soil to apply a foliage feed throughout the week.

i will go back and read

Ok I re-read the original post. Would I be correct in saying you foliar feed whenever you water?

Hi bouquet,
I divide fertilizing into two distinct methods. Fertilizing the soil surface and fertilizing the foliage. I fertilize each species with different fertilizers. That's another subject. Foliage feeding is additional to normal surface fertilizing. When I'm watering I wet the foliage and then apply the foliage feed. I do this from every time I water to whenever I have the time to do so. Your available time will dictate when and how often you are able to do this. It would be good to do it at least a couple of times a week.

Regards Ray

[treeman]

I retrieved a number of them and potted them up. I had them for a number of years and they were still very scrappy. I was actually going to throw them out. When I introduced foliage feeding to my fertilizer regime they where treated and the response from rubbish to good trees was amazing.

Hi Ray,

Well you've kind of illustrated my point there. As I mentioned, the foliar feeding quite probably did work on these trees but for whatever reason, they were not adequately fed through their leaves. This is not a fault on your part. They very likely did not have a good enough root system (be it from too hard a pruning, disease, off the scale pH or any number of reasons) to take up enough nutrients to show much of a response. In a case like this, feeding through the leaves would (up to a point) bypass the root system.
Remember also that whatever nutrient salts are not taken up by the leaves do not evaporate away but gets washed into the soil at the next watering/leaf feeding.
There is no doubt that plants can take up nutrients through their leaves but compared to the roots it is an extremely inefficient way to get them into the plant.

Here is a trial on musk melons (from R R M Harun Proc. Intern. Soiless Culture P. 395, 1988) (yeild Kg)

Fruit- Control - Phostrgen- Nutrophos

1st -- 0.85 -- 0.86 -- 0.84
2nd-- 0.84 -- 0.85 -- 0.86
Total -- 0.69 -- 0.71 -- 1.70

So as you can see here, hardly any difference from the control in total yield .
To my mind the best way to feed is to use a combination of some kind of slow release with the occasional liquid feeding both at the soil. If you use liquid only, you need to feed very often (every second watering or more) as you are continually flushing soluble salts out of the soil/mix. I find during summer when you're pouring water on your trees every day, it's very difficult and time consuming to feed with liquid. But a spray with nutrients (especially during humid weather) can't hurt.
And that's another reason why foliar feeding works better in humid climates like Taiwan etc that dry one like the dust bowl where we live.

Regards,
Mike