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House Plants
msgvb

Schultz and Miracle Gro Liquid Plant Feed Discontinued? Alternatives?

msgvb
8 years ago

I was using a couple of different liquid fertilizers for years and they both seem to have been discontinued.

Anyone know of any good alternatives to the Schultz or Miracle-Gro house plant fertilizers?

I'm not too keen the Miracle-Gro foam. I tried it the other day. One, I have no sense of how much I'm putting in, or how it compares to liquid, and two, it seems to be used up pretty quickly.

Thanks!


Featured Answer
  • tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
    7 years ago

    The Schultz product supplies far more P than plants want or can use, which is reason enough not to use it, but it also lacks many important nutrients (Ca, Mg, and several micronutrients), and it gets it's N from urea, which tends to promote coarse growth and long internodes. It really is a poor choice as your 'go to' fertilizer for houseplants. The Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is a FAR better choice. Even Miracle-Gro 12-4-8 which lacks the same nutrients missing from the Schultz 10-15-10 is a superior choice because the ratio (3:1:2) much more closely mimics the ratio at which your plants actually utilize nutrients.

    Also, Superthrive = snake oil.

    The
    question regarding the value of Superthrive as a miracle tonic for
    plants is often bandied about in horticultural circles. Over the
    years, I had read claims that ranged from, “I put it on my plant,
    which had never bloomed, and it was in full bloom the next day.”
    to, “It was dead - I put Superthrive on it and the next day it was
    alive and beautiful, growing better than it ever had before.” I
    decided to find out for myself.


    If
    you look for information on the net, you will probably only find the
    manufacturer’s claims and anecdotal observations, both so
    in want of anything that resembles a control. Though my experiments
    were far from purely scientific, I tried to keep some loose controls
    in place so that I could make a fair judgment of its value, based my
    own observations. Here is what I did, what I found, and the
    conclusions I made about any value the product Superthrive might hold
    for me.


    On
    four separate occasions, I took multiple cuttings of plants in four
    different genera. In each case the group of cuttings were taken from
    the same individual plant to reduce genetic variance. The plant
    materials I used were: Ficus benjamina, (a tropical weeping fig) Luna
    apiculata (Peruvian myrtle), Chaenorrhinum minus(a
    dwarf snapdragon), and an unknown variety of Coleus. In each
    instance, I prepared cuttings from the same plant and inserted them
    in a very fast, sterile soil. The containers containing half of the
    cuttings were immersed/soaked in a Superthrive solution of
    approximately 1/2 tsp per gallon of water to the upper soil line. The
    other half of the cuttings were watered in with water only. In
    subsequent waterings, I would water the “Superthrive batch” of
    cuttings with a solution of 10 drops per gallon and the others with
    only water. The same fertilizer regimen was followed on both groups
    of cuttings. In all four instances, the cuttings that I used
    Superthrive on rooted and showed new growth first. For this reason,
    it follows that they would naturally exhibit better development,
    though I could see no difference in overall vitality, once rooted. I
    can also say that a slightly higher percentage of cuttings rooted
    that were treated with the Superthrive treatment at the outset. I
    suspect that is directly related to the effects of the auxin in
    Superthrive hastening initiation of root primordia before potential
    vascular connections were destroyed by rot causing organisms.


    In
    particular, something I looked for because of my affinity for a
    compact form in plants was branch (stem) extension. (The writer is a
    bonsai practitioner.) Though the cuttings treated with Superthrive
    rooted sooner, they exhibited the same amount of branch extension. In
    other words, internode length was approximately equal and no
    difference in leaf size was noted.


    As
    a second part to each of my “experiments”, I divided the group of
    cuttings that had not been treated with Superthrive into two groups.
    One of the groups remained on the water/fertilizer only program,
    while the other group was treated to an additional 10 drops of
    Superthrive in each gallon of fertilizer solution. Again, the
    fertilizer regimen was the same for both groups. By summer’s end, I
    could detect no difference in bio-mass or vitality between the two
    groups of plants.


    Since
    I replicated the above experiment in four different trials, using
    four different plant materials, I am quite comfortable in drawing
    some conclusions as they apply to me and my growing habits or
    abilities. First, and based on my observations, I have concluded that
    Superthrive does hold value for me as a rooting aid, or stimulant if
    you prefer. I regularly soak the soil, usually overnight, of my newly
    root-pruned and often bare-rooted repots in a solution of 1/2 tsp
    Superthrive per gallon of water. Second, and also based on my
    observations, I no longer bother with its use at any time other than
    at repotting. No evidence was accumulated through the 4 trials to
    convince me that Superthrive was of any value as a “tonic” for
    plants with roots that were beyond the initiation or recovery stage.


    Interestingly,
    the first ingredient listed as being beneficial to plants on the
    Superthrive label is vitamin B-1 (or thiamine). Growing plants are
    able to synthesize their own vitamin B-1 as do many of the fungi and
    bacteria having relationships with plant roots, so it's extremely
    doubtful that vitamin B-1 could be deficient in soils or that a
    growing plant could exhibit a vitamin B-1 deficiency.


    Some
    will note that I used more of the product than suggested on the
    container. I wanted to see if any unwanted effects surfaced as well
    as trying to be sure there was ample opportunity for clear
    delineation between the groups. I suspect that if a more dilute
    solution was used, the difference between groups would have been even
    less clear.


    It
    might be worth noting that since the product contains the growth
    regulator (hormone) auxin, its overuse can cause defoliation, at
    least in dicots. The broad-leaf weed killer Weed-B-Gone and the
    infamous “Agent Orange“, a defoliant that saw widespread use in
    Viet Nam, are little more than synthetic auxin.

    See what Linda Chalker-Scott PhD says about it.

    Al

    Comments (19)

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