Where to buy low salt 2-20-20 liquid fertilizer?

12 years ago

I was impressed with the rose nursery that sent me a tiny band of rose with a giant 4" bloom. They told me to use Daniels soluble fertilizer. I checked and found it's 40% less salt. Daniels doesn't have the 2-20-20 that I'm after.

The ratio I look for is 2-20-20 soluble fertilizer with potassium phosphate as K source (very low 7.2 salt index). Why low in nitrogen? Rose nurseries recommend planting roses in slow-released organic nitrogen, then fertilize with a soluble fertilizer at 2 week interval.

There's a University Extension that recommends slow-release nitrogen for high rain clay soil. I used alfalfa meal 2-1-2 with good results - but would like a high phosphorus soluble fertilizer for my roses next year.

Here's the info. from ehow: " When Not to Apply Superphosphate: Avoid applying superphosphate when you lime your yard. Agricultural lime prevents phosphate from being available to plants. However, those with soil with a high pH should apply superphosphate. Phosphate is not available in alkaline soils, according to Texas A&M University. To help transplants or seeds grow in the spring in alkaline soil, make sure that you band furrows or around garden areas with superphosphate before planting. Plants decline in overall health when soil is deficient in phosphate."

20% Superphosphate has the lowest salt index of 7.8 - I don't want to use high nitrogen in chemical fertilizer since nitrogen comes with the salt. What does it mean by banding furrows? Any info. on where to buy 2-20-20 soluble fertilizer with potassium phosphate would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help.

Here is a link that might be useful: How much salt is in the fertilizer?

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Comments (6)

gonebananas_gw
12 years ago
With 45-65 inches of rain around here we must not have to worry about salt indexes. I have never even heard it mentioned. If anything, I would guess a high salt index might be undesirable here because it implies easily leached.
strawchicago z5
Original Author
12 years ago
Thank you, gonebananas, for your input. I am interested in soluble fertilizer for both roses in the ground and roses in containers. My water is alkaline, pH of 8 (tested with fish-tank litmus paper at Walmart). My soil pH is 7.7 tested by EarthCo. The Chicago Botanical Garden stated that the soil pH is 7.4 with composted leaves, and they use a soluble fertilizer for their roses.

Soluble fertilizer is best used in a high alkaline soil where phosphorus is not available, since it's bound up with calcium. I have just found that Neptune Fish fertilizer with NPK 2-4-1 works best. Check out the attached link for growth rate of marigolds in various fertilizers. If you know of any other soluble fertilizer best for alkaline soil, please let me know.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Fertilizer Use and Nitrogen Leaching in Marigold
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I have to defend everything I do. There will always be attacks on me, since I advocate cheap & organic ways to control black spots rather than Bayer spray. The reason why I use low-salt monopotassium phosphate, NPK 0-52-34 is: 1) My alkaline soil, pH of 7.7 is tested very deficient in phosphorus and potassium. 2) According to Robert Morris PLANT foundation, nitrogen mobility is a 10, it moves with water. Potassium mobility is a 3, somewhat mobile. Phosphorus mobility is a 1, it stays put where applied. 3) The phosphorus leaching that Diane_NJ mentioned is due to phosphates in detergents that EPA banned years ago. It does not apply to phosphorus in fertilizer, like bone meal, which stays put where applied. 4) Phosphorus is immobile in my heavy clay, with a limestone base at bottom. Plus I use a soluble fertilizer right at the roots. Nitrogen moves with water, leaches out and is an ecological problem. Here's a quote: "about 60 percent of the nitrogen contained in applied fertilizer is never incorporated into plants and so is free to wash out of root zones, and then pollute rivers, lakes, aquifers and coastal areas through eutrophication." Wikipedia wrote this on nitrogen: "High levels of NO3 in water can adversely affect oxygen levels for both humans and aquatic systems. Human health issues include methemoglobinemia and anoxia, commonly referred to as blue baby syndrome. .. Eutrophication, a decline in oxygen content of water, of aquatic systems can cause the death of fish and other marine species. Finally, leaching of NO3 from acidic sources can increase the loss of calcium and other soil nutrients, thereby reducing an ecosystem's productivity.[2] Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia on nitrogen leaching This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, May 24, 13 at 7:35
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I've got a bunch of fires to put out at the moment so I'll read the other as soon as I can. Not for lettuce Rio, if that's what you meant. Well, really we don't know, but by defaul;t the tobacco would be no until you can get us an analysis of what's in it from the seller. The assumption for a complete tobacco float fertilizer is that it has very weak micronutrients. Like "Peat Lite" from J R Peters. So this tobacco stuff is loaded with nitrogen which prevents us from using much Calcium Nitrate. Calcium deficiency would be a problem for you doing fast leafies on rainwater. If you want to assume this 20-10-20 tobacco stuff you found is a typical tobacco float formula, you can't avoid paying the piper. Sure it could be used, but then you'd need to work out the calcium issue for rainwater and maybe bump up the phosphate, which is low for tobacco floats. Even though P's not a big problem for leaves, we'd need to look at it and possibly a sack of MKP (so if you can't get that locally - back to where you started by mail), cheap epsom salt and a blend of micronutrients. You could mailorder the blend of micros from JRPeters also, and it is a great deal and small = cheap to ship if that's the issue. Then I'd say look at that product and add the amount that gives 2.5 ppm of iron, so that would determine the amount of the micro blend to use. It's all about your local vs. shipped economics. The tobacco formula would be a fine base if it was cheap enough and probably could work just fine with the adjustments mentioned. But we need to sharpen out pencils and be sure what your local guy is selling - analysis of it. Most cheap bulk hydro complete ferts use Fe EDTA. which is great at low pH. I really think the tobacco formula would too. For most this is fine, but in my personal case I like to drift my pH up to 7 for some things and for that I'm a big propmoter of Fe DTPA. No biggie just something I'm noting if you go that route.
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gonebananas_gw
12 years ago
I am just pondering here and the effectiveness would have to be checked, but when soil bacteria nitrify organic nitrogen or urea or ammonium fertilizers (all of which go through an ammonium stage, which then is converted to nitrate) they release acidity (hydrogen ions). That must help at least a bit in an alkaline soil I would think.
toxcrusadr
12 years ago
I guess I'm not clear on what the 'salt index' actually is. Virtually any soluble NPK fertilizer is going to be in salt form, of course, so I'm not clear on how you achieve lower salt levels while getting the same nutrient value.
strawchicago z5
Original Author
12 years ago
The "salt index" is a concern for container planting and for seed germinations in greenhouse. The article concluded, "The best fertilizers for seed-row application have a low salt index, N compounds that do not produce free ammonia, and potassium phosphate rather than potassium chloride as the K source."

I once had a wave-petunia in a container, sitting under a porch, and did not get much rain. I used a soluble high phosphorus fertilizer resulted in tons of blooms. Then the salt built up and it went brown way before the winter. That's why I'm concerned about the salt-index for my roses in containers next year.

You are right, gonebananas, that ammonium sulfate is a good soil acidifier. My neighbor used an acid soluble fertilizer with ammonium sulfate with good results on her rhododendrons. Mine didn't do well on espresso ground from Starbucks. They have pink stripes, and my cement walkway still has a white stripe from coffee ground leaking out while I dragged the bag.
toxcrusadr
12 years ago
OK I did a little Googling and learned about salt index.

Quoting:

"Salt index (SI) of a fertilizer is a measure of the salt concentration that fertilizer induces in the soil solution.

"The SI of a material is expressed as the ratio of the increase in osmotic pressure of the salt solution produced by a specific fertilizer to the osmotic pressure of the same weight of NaNO3, which is based on a relative value of 100. Sodium nitrate was chosen as the standard because it was 100 percent water soluble and it was a commonly used nitrogen fertilizer when the SI concept was first proposed in 1943."

This is a good page with tables and numbers in case anyone else is interested.

http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/salt_index_calculation.htm

I learned something new!

Where to buy low salt 2-20-20 liquid fertilizer?

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gonebananas_gw

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Where to buy low salt 2-20-20 liquid fertilizer?

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gonebananas_gw

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toxcrusadr

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strawchicago z5
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