Re: Fertilizer Mixture

Dear Mr. Pumpkinman,

I have taken quite a spell, no pun intended to study this archive list 
and have taken notice of your recent posting. I think to sum up what you 
are trying to convey to the group is, get a soil test. In order to 
develop a fetilization program if one is even needed, one first must 
understand what type of soil and what the nutrient values of the soil 
are. Please correct me if I have misunderstood you. In studying the 
archive I see this young lad that grew the largest pumpkin last year 
Chris Andersen did just this. According to the generous information he 
posted to this group he tested his virgin soil before making any 
adjustments to it. Then he amended in the fall, October if I recall. He 
then goes on to explain that he tested his soil two months before he 
planted and made final soil adjustments. Further, that he performed a 
final soil analysis during mid season which led him to terminate any 
further fertilization of his plants. I believe this was posted last 
November perhaps October and is listed in the archives. My question is 
how many of you have done this. I see Ms. Vickie Broc has tested in the 
fall and is now testing again. Do you think three soil tests in one year 
is advisable?
It seems to have worked for Chris Andersen and provided him with 
pertinent information throughout the season.

Merlin  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Ron,
>   Normally you keep the same concentration whether you are putting on 
1
>gallon or 500 gallons. 500 gallons would be applied to an area that is 
500
>times bigger. Lets say you were watering a tomato plant with Miracle 
Gro. You
>might find that the plant gets a good drink with a half gallon of 
solution. It
>would do no good to water the plant with 500 gallons of water\ 
fertilizer
>solution, it would float away. That may be a little bit of a ridiculous
>example, but anyway. Lets go back to how a root basically works and why 
it is
>counterproductive, if not deadly, to your plant to over fertilize. A 
plant
>will only take up a certain amount of inorganic fertilizer ions(salts). 
You
>can't force the root to take up 3 times the amount of fertilizer than 
it
>needs. How does a root know , how much fertilizer water to take up? A 
tiny
>root hair is made up of tiny cells that act like a membrane. A membrane 
will
>allow water and fertilzer ions to pass through it and get into the 
plant, if
>conditions are right. The ionic concentration must be higher inside the 
root
>cell than outside (in the soil) in order for water to flow from the 
soil into
>the root. So water will flow from a less salty to a more salty area. 
Now here
>is a real example for you. Lets say you had a condom that was not made 
out of
>latex (non permeable)....lets say you had a condom made out of a semi
>permeable membrane and you filled it with a solution of 10 tablespoons 
per
>gallon of salt water. Now put that condom into a jar of water that only 
had 1
>tablespoon per gallon of salt in it. You would have a condom filled 
with very
>salty water immersed in a jar of weak salt water. Water would flow from 
the
>less salty water in the jar, through the membrane into the condom. Now 
if you
>switched things around and put the weak salt water solution in the 
condom and
>immersed it in a jar of very salty water, just the opposite would
>happen.....water would flow out of the condom into the jar. Always, 
flow goes
>from less salty to more salty. Now that root cell behaves like the 
condom and
>water flows into the root cell the same way. So now we take a watering 
can
>with 20 tablespoons per gallon and soak the roots. You have surrounded 
the
>root with saltier water than there is inside the root. The root says  
NO WAY
>MAN!!!! I'm not going to suck up that salty garbage. So if you 
overfertilizer
>to the point of toxicity, less water will be taken up by the plant or 
it might
>not take up any water at all and croak. A plant may wilt when you've
>fertilized the hell out of it because the roots refuse to take up large
>quantities of the salty stuff. Now back to the question of 1 tablespoon 
per
>gallon or two, etc. 2 tablespoons per gallon is pretty strong. 
Sometimes you
>are better off to use 1 tablespoon per gallon and water two times with 
the
>weaker mixture. Or a half a tablespoon per gallon every time you water. 
A
>plant will like it better, if it receives a consistant low dose, rather 
than
>getting a big jolt of fertilizer every two weeks. It all gets back to 
the old
>soil test. If you have loaded up your soil with preplant manure and 
granular
>fertilizer, you may need no fertilizer and just plain water. Hope I 
didn't get
>too far out with my examples.
>                                               pumkinguy@aol.com  
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