"It looks like you switched to the Dyna grow 9-3-6 last year. Do you still use CRF in your soil mix if you are still using this fert?" Actually, I rarely use the CRFs at all. I like the near complete control the soluble fertilizers give me in containers. I'm pretty diligent about fertilizer applications, so I really don't need the CRFs to cover the 'in case I forget' base, or for any minor elements they might supply. I included them in the soil recipes to make it easier for others. As long as you're faithful to your nutrient supplementation program, you can easily do w.o them. If you think you'll be lax at times, I'd include them. 109 ppm alkalinity is nothing to be overly concerned about with fast container soils. It would be interesting to learn how the Ca and Mg levels are though. Alkalinity is related to pH because alkalinity (practically speaking and for our applications) determines your water's resistance to pH changes. If you have water 'A' at a pH of 9.0 with an alkalinity of 75 mg/L CaCO3, and water 'B', with a pH of 8.0 (a full point lower to begin with) and alkalinity of 300 mg/L CaCO3, it will take about 4 times as much 35% H2SO4 (sulfuric acid) to bring the water with the lower pH down to That aside - your water is better than mine, so I really doubt you'll have Fe/Mn issues if you're using either the 9-3-6 or MG. I will say though, that bark/peat soils have a potentially high Fe:Mn ratio, so applying Fe w/o Mn could easily create a deficiency of Mn. If I were in your shoes, I would do nothing until I actually saw evidence of an Fe deficiency. Then, I would acidify. Oh - the other likely cause of an Fe deficiency is too much P, which combines with the Fe to form an insoluble precipitate, so avoid the high P fertilizers - they are useless unless you are using them to supply the exact amount of P needed while intentionally (severely) limiting N. I used this strategy last year: I fertilized with regular dosages of 9-3-6 until the plants were well established. I then cut way back on the dosage and added ProTeKt to the solution. I rather like to envision that I used the added K (and got the benefit of the added silicon) to change the fertilizer ratio to 3:1:3 from a 3:1:2. This allowed me to reduce the dosage of N (reducing vegetative growth) while still having adequate P and K. Take care. Al

Farmerdilla, am a little familiar with Augusta as I had to go over there for some melanoma surgery a few years back. Just learned to find the hospital and the Publix store as I love their bread and we don't have any near us. I, too, am a recreational farmer as I just do it for the fun and enjoyment of my family and close friends. Lol, I'm not much at cowpasture pool either... One of my best life long friends is a farmer and he suffers through the bad times with the good. Days of the small farm are gone. Even in the best years, one could never even break even as he could not afford the high dollar equipment needed to harvest it and his profit would be used up hiring out a combine. The pastures around here are suffering also. Farmers have been having to feed their cows hay which you know is not nearly as good as green grass. One farmer friend of mine lost his irragation equipment (center pivot) to the Mother's Day storm as it blew them over in two large fields. Fortunately, we have been getting some summer showers in the past week or so and that is helping things immensely although no help for the corn that has already burned up. Around here farmers this year are planting more soybeans and peanuts than cotton or corn. Ran up with an old hog farmer friend of mine the other day and he was out looking for soybean meal as he said the price of corn was too high even if you could find it. He has about 400 broad sows. Have never tried the Quick Pick, Big Boy or Tommy. Had lots of White Acres last year as it is popular with the family. In the spring I take my wife to a local seed store and she is like a man in Home Depot with jingle in his pocket. This year she decided mostly on Lady Creams which is about the smallest cream I've seen. Takes a while to fill up a bucket with them, but they shell out nice. Last night I talked with a friend of mine that lives in Donalds, SC and he mentioned how dry it was there. Oh yeah, I pulled a Black Diamond yesterday... was not sweet so threw it away. I saved some seed from a commericially grown watermelon that was sweet so think I will try them next year, if it's God's will. Shot

No worries John, I feel no hostilities from you or frostiness. Just inquiring minds want to know. I will repeat though "The source of nitrogen I think is not of great importance compared to making sure the fertilizer you use has all the micronutrients plus calcium and magnesium. The purpose of my original post was that someone should not worry about whether the fertilizer they use has urea or not." I think people look at fertilizer as a quick and easy thing that they can change and feel like they are doing something to help their plants. Things like adding more light throughout the year, increase humidity, better control of temperature, regulating ph take more effort and/or cost more. Jane is on to something when she says "The biggest change I've seen in my growing conditions would be increased light over winter. I'm getting blooms on plants I've had for years without blooms." and Jan when she says "Now to figure out how to get my city water with a pH of 9.0 to a level to make better use of all those delicious trace elements!" One thing everyone can do that is not expensive is get a water quality report from their municipal water district. This should be free. Some cities require them to be given to customers. San Francisco customers get a water report twice a year. The reports maybe online. The report will tell you things like ph, hardness, and about minerals and pollutants in the water. These can vary from spring to fall. I suspect with Jans tap water ph of 9 that her municipal water source comes from a river that flows through limestone, maybe like the Colorado. She may find she gets plenty of calcium and magnesium in her water and doesn't need it in her fertilizer. As far as nitrogen forms in fertilizers, it maybe good to cover your bet with all three as they have varying times of utilization, but I think over time it doesn't mater. I think the different nitrogen forms are present in the potting mix after each fertilizing and get used the next time, washed out, or help break down your potting medium. John to help you search for a holy grail in fertilizer you may look at these: 1 Simple sugars after all that is a big part of what the plants are making. Jerry Grow- no longer made as far as I know - exploited this. Works better in highlight and warm to hot weather. Needs more scientific study. 2. Nickel as a trace element. It is use by plants as a catalyst in urease enzyme so it is never used up, but plants grow. I have only seen one fertilizer that had nickel in it made by Hydrofarm. I have no idea if they still make it or not. I do think you can grow orchids fine with urea free fertilizer relying on ammonical nitrogen and nitrate. I will mention two things that havent been mentioned so far and are needed in the break down of nitrate to ammonia to be use by plants. Two enzymes are required. Nitrate reductase involving two electron reduction of nitrate to nitrite. The other enzyme nitrite reductase involving a six electron reduction to transform nitrite to ammonia. As you can see there are a lot more steps to get from nitrate to ammonia then with urea. Cheers, Mark Sullivan

Purlisa: I no longer post for the pubic, but I make exceptions when people ask for me specifically. I respect & learn from honest folks like you who share about their garden. I learn more from honest folks who talk about problems in their garden, than gorgeous pics. of roses (with zero details as to type of soil & pH-level & climate & annual rainfall). That's my pet-peeve in HMF, folks just post pics, without specifying if it's own-root or grafted, zero info. on planting zone & type of soil & climate. If you click on my Houzz profile-picture , I updated to include tips on how to tell which own-roots are appropriate for which soil pH, type of soil & climate, just by looking at the leaves. https://www.houzz.com/user/strawchicago I received 8 roses yesterday 6/15 from RU summer sale, they are BIG, and some are over 2 feet tall & with buds & blooms .. very healthy. These roses are bigger & more blooms that the 7 roses I bought full-price early May. My last house was acidic clay: soft & easy to dig, with blue hydrangeas & deep-colors roses. My current house is alkaline clay: rock-hard, need a pick-ax to dig, pink hydrangeas, and roses have faded colors. Roses are much healthier in alkaline clay. My purpose of posting is to help foiks NOT to make the same mistakes like I did in my 30+ years of growing roses, and 110 own-root varieties. My B.S. is in Computer Science, minor in Chemistry, so I want to use my background to help folks. If you have sticky & dense clay, skip the Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate), since it hardens clay further. MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY IS RARE, EXCEPT IN SANDY SOIL (this is from the booklet when I got my soil tested by EarthCo.) My sticky clay soil was tested exceedingly high in magnesium. Skip the molasses, I tested for many years and it attracts rose-slugs, plus sugarly stuff LOWERS soil pH, sugar sours things fast. Azomite is similar to dolomitic lime (both have pH 9), but Azomite works faster. Digging deep, and remove the dense & icky clay & rocks at bottom helps with drainage, so acidic rain water don't sit at the bottom to rot roots. If your clay soil is acidic, COARSE sand (paver's sand) is good on top. BAGGED SAND AT STORES IS VERY ALKALINE, so it will neutralize the acidity of rain. Niels in Denmark, with hundreds of roses, put sand on top of his acidic clay. Skip the alfalfa, it becomes VERY ACIDIC like Kimchi if decays in acidic rain water. Many folks report roses breaking out in blackspots after "sour alfalfa tea", it's like watering roses with sauerkraut or Kimchi-water. At least Kimchi or sauerkraut has salt to control the acidity, but I already tested acidic-alfalfa-tea and it made leaves thinner, thanks to its acidity. Since my clay is rock-hard alkaline at pH near 8, I use acidic pine bark (pH 4) to fix my clay. People root roses in sand. I read a book by a CA rose-grower on the coast (mild temperate climate), he bought a land filled with sand and converted into a rose nursery, to sell cut-flowers !! Here's an excerpt from Houzz when I googled on clay .. folks in CA have heavy abode clay, while I have dolomitic clay. But both are mineral-rich clay. Kittymoonbeam have over 100+ roses in Southern CA, wrote this in Houzz .. from my experience I agree with her 100% .. I killed plenty of roses with acidic organic matter in the planting hole. And Roses Unlimited's tip of 1 cup of alfalfa meal mix-in WORKS ONLY FOR THEIR ALKALINE-TAP WATER inside nursery, but NOT FOR OUTDOOR ACIDIC RAIN, with pH 4.5 in my Chicagoland, and even more acidic rain on the East Coast. Kittymoonbeam - "I just came from a soils class by a local nurseryman. He said DON'T add organic amendment into the soil. The plants only tolerate it, not prosper in it. The short of it is that eventually it breaks down and rots causing oxygen problems in the root zone. A NASA guy said NO terrestrial plant wants to live in ground up dead tree. So most potting soils are only good for maybe 5 months, then they start harming plants. The growers know the plants can only survive a short period before they decline in that mix. Potting up in non amended soil causes no harm. You can grow in 100 percent sand as long as you water and feed often enough. Strawberry leaves from plants grown in sand were twice the size of those in the premium potting mix! There are no overwatering issues. Why the change from propagation in soil to wood products is a long story. However, we've all been taught to do it. But no one ever used to in the old days. Disneyland removed their riverbed soil and replaced with amended soil. After a few years, they took it all out and purchased new riverbed sandy loam and now they only mulch on top. This is all new to me but that's the way it was for millions of years. The organic stuff stays on top where it breaks down and travels to the roots below. Roots want a purely mineral soil with as much oxygen as they can get and still be moist." Kittymoonbeam. Lauren (Los Angeles, 10a, Sunset Zone 19) - kittymoonbeam, that does seem to make sense. Limited personal experience has also showed me that top dressing compost with shredded leaves/mulch produced better results than than simply mixing some compost into the surrounding soil" Lauren