Re: CULT: fertilizer
- To: iris-talk
- Subject: Re: CULT: fertilizer
- From: l* M*
- Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 07:07:03 -0400
> In North Hills CA,
> where it is a lot less humid than in a lot of the east coast, you can
> evidently get away with a lot more nitrogen (though I woiuld still rate
> it as risky), whereas in the humid southeast, it would almost always
> spell disaster.
Again, it depends on soil conditions and the amount of water percolating
thru the soil. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate is highly soluble and
can leach out of the soil quickly. Organic matter can help the soil
hang on to the nitrogen. Fine soil particles (clay) provide more
surface area for bacterial goop (and all the good thangs that bacterial
goop does for soil and plants) than coarse soil particles (sand). Since
nitrate is highly soluble, the more water that moves thru the soil, the
more nitrate washes out. Water moves faster thru coarse soil (sand,
gravel) than fine.
With all the rot problems I used to have here, I got all kinds of good
advice about not fertilizing, & especially not fertilizing with too much
(or any) nitrogen. However, with my gravelly soil and high rainfall
(average 55 inches/year), the result of not adding nitrogen was poor
growth and hardly any bloom. I've had much LESS rot since I started
dumping loads of alfalfa pellets and fertilizing twice a year (except
when we have drought like last summer/fall) with 15-15-15. Took me a
while to figure out what was going on.
What John and Anner and Hager say is probably a good rule of thumb for
more typical clay soils of the humid, rainy southeast, but not for sandy
ones.
Has anybody experimented with different sources of nitrogen for their
irises?
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
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