Christopher Green wrote:


About as much as you'd appreciate a banquet just after GI surgery....

The thing you don't want is too much nitrogen around the roots while
they recover. This will "burn" and kill off the fine feeder roots that
made it through the transplanting.

But a light, with the emphasis on light, fertilizing or mixing
slow-release fertilizers into the soil at transplanting will give the
tree a good start. This is also the best time to amend the soil with
good compost. Mulches are always a good thing, and they are more
helpful at transplanting than any other time.

In some areas, such as Southern California, this is the best way to
get P, K, and trace nutrients to the tree, because these don't travel
very well through our soil.

The conventional wisdom is never use any fertilizer intended for home
use at more than half the recommended strength. When transplanting,
it's safe and prudent to reduce that some more.

--
Chris Green

Yes, I wonder Chris, if all fertilizer is really safe and really very good at
all times for whatever plants and whatever situation. It is just a glitch
in the old technology of fertilizer in that it was not slow release. So that
if it were slow release then the problem of root burn would never
have taken place. So I wonder if overfertilizing was just a glitch in
history when horticulture did not have "slow release" products. Poor
technology in fertilizer business, much like the additive of lead in
gasoline in the early days of gasoline technology or like the lead
additive in paint until better paint technology.

So I am guessing that it is wise to fertilize plants at all times, provided
that the dosage is slow release and not overdose.