I found some of this in my kitchen from years ago and wonder if I
should bother using it on my indoor 6.5' ficus tree, Dracaena, or
outdoor creeping figs on the balcony.

Ingredients are (copied from bottle):
Nitrogen... 10%
10% ammoniacal Nitrogen
Available Phosphate... 10%
Soluble Potash... 10%
Sulfer... 20%


I have been mixing a few drops (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) of "Super
Thrive" into the water whenever I water them now.

Thanks

On Mar 16, 2:25 pm, JayDee wrote:
I found some of this in my kitchen from years ago and wonder if I
should bother using it on my indoor 6.5' ficus tree, Dracaena, or
outdoor creeping figs on the balcony.

Ingredients are (copied from bottle):
Nitrogen... 10%
10% ammoniacal Nitrogen
Available Phosphate... 10%
Soluble Potash... 10%
Sulfer... 20%

I have been mixing a few drops (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) of "Super
Thrive" into the water whenever I water them now.

Thanks

NPK are primary nutrients. Sulfur is a secondary, along
with iron, magnesium, and calcium. MG supplies everything,
including micronutrients, except magnesium, for some odd
reason. Supplement with dolomite at planting time --
mix into the soil with your other ammendments, and let it
sit for a week before use. Epsom salts (1 tsp / gallon water)
can be used to treat Mg deficiency. Deficiency shows on
older leaves as yellow patches between veins rapidly spreading,
with brown spots of dead tissue. Nitrogen deficient leaves
(older leaves first) simply turn yellow with few or no spots or
lesions.

As for Superthrive, it's a mix mostly of auxins and
B vitamins. I've tried it, and haven't seen it do anything.

In article
,
wrote:

On Mar 16, 2:25 pm, JayDee wrote:
I found some of this in my kitchen from years ago and wonder if I
should bother using it on my indoor 6.5' ficus tree, Dracaena, or
outdoor creeping figs on the balcony.

Ingredients are (copied from bottle):
Nitrogen... 10%
10% ammoniacal Nitrogen
Available Phosphate... 10%
Soluble Potash... 10%
Sulfer... 20%

I have been mixing a few drops (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) of "Super
Thrive" into the water whenever I water them now.

Thanks

NPK are primary nutrients. Sulfur is a secondary, along
with iron, magnesium, and calcium. MG supplies everything,
including micronutrients, except magnesium, for some odd
reason. Supplement with dolomite at planting time --
mix into the soil with your other ammendments, and let it
sit for a week before use. Epsom salts (1 tsp / gallon water)
can be used to treat Mg deficiency. Deficiency shows on
older leaves as yellow patches between veins rapidly spreading,
with brown spots of dead tissue. Nitrogen deficient leaves
(older leaves first) simply turn yellow with few or no spots or
lesions.

As for Superthrive, it's a mix mostly of auxins and
B vitamins. I've tried it, and haven't seen it do anything.

Ay Father Haskell your logic is fine but your premise is skewed, totally
skewed.

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by
Lowenfels and Lewis

http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb.../dp/0881927775
/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205731566&sr= 1-1

"In general, perennials, trees, and shrubs prefer fungally dominated
soils, while annuals, grasses, and vegetables prefer soils dominated by
bacteria.

One implication of these findings, for the gardener, has to do with the
nitrogen in bacteria and fungi. Remember, this is what the soil food web
means to a plant: when these organisms are eaten, some of the nitrogen
is retained by the eater, but much of it is released as waste in the
form of plant-available ammonium (NH3). Depending on the soil
environment, this can either remain as ammonium or be converted into
nitrate (NO3,) by special bacteria. When does this conversion occur?
When ammonium is released in soils that are dominated by bacteria. This
is because such soils generally have an alkaline pH (thanks to bacterial
bioslime), which encourages the nitrogen-fixing bacteria to thrive. The
acids produced by fungi, as they begin to dominate, lower the pH and
greatly reduce the amount of these bacteria. In fungally dominated
soils, much of the nitrogen remains in ammonium form.

Ah, here is the rub: chemical fertilizers provide plants with nitrogen,
but most do so in the form of nitrates (NO3). An understanding of the
soil food web makes it clear, however, that plants that prefer fungally
dominated soils ultimately won't flourish on a diet of nitrates. Knowing
this can make a great deal of difference in the way you manage your
gardens and yard. If you can cause either fungi or bacteria to
dominate, or provide an equal mix, then plants can get the kind of
nitrogen they prefer, without chemicals, and thrive.

Negative impacts on the soil food web

Chemical fertilizers negatively impact the soil food web by killing off
entire portions of it. What gardener hasn't seen what table salt does
to a slug? Fertilizers are salts; they suck the water out of the
bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes in the soil. Since these
microbes are at the very foundation of the soil food web nutrient
system, you have to keep adding fertilizer once you start using it
regularly. The microbiology is missing and not there to do its job,
feeding the plants.

It makes sense that once the bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and protozoa
are gone, other members of the food web disappear as well. Earthworms,
for example, lacking food and irritated by the synthetic nitrates in
soluble nitrogen fertilizers, move out. Since they are major shredders
of organic material, their absence is a great loss. Without the
activity and diversity of a healthy food web, you not only impact the
nutrient system but all the other things a healthy soil food web
brings. Soil structure deteriorates, watering can become problematic,"_
pathogens and pests establish themselves and, worst of all, gardening
becomes a lot more work than it needs to be.

If the salt-based chemical fertilizers don't kill portions of the soil
food web, rototilling will. This gardening rite of spring breaks up
fungal hyphae, decimates worms, and rips and crushes arthropods. It
destroys soil structure and eventually saps soil of necessary air.
Again, this means more work for you in the end. Air pollution,
pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides, too, kill off important members
of the food web community or ³chase" them away. Any chain is only as
strong as its weakest link: if there is a gap in the soil food web, the
system will break down and stop functioning properly.

Healthy soil food webs benefit you and your plants

Why should a gardener be knowledgeable about how soils and soil food
webs work? Because then you can manage them so they work for you and
your plants. By using techniques that employ soil food web science as
you garden, you can at least reduce and at best eliminate the need for
fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides (and a lot of
accompanying work). You can improve degraded soils and return them to
usefulness. Soils will retain nutrients in the bodies of soil food web
organisms instead of letting them leach out to God knows where. Your
plants will be getting nutrients in the form each particular plant
wants and needs so they will be less stressed. You will have natural
disease prevention, protection, and suppression. Your soils will hold
more water.

The organisms in the soil food web will do most of the work of
maintaining plant health. Billions of living organisms will be
continuously at work throughout the year, doing the heavy chores,
providing nutrients to plants, building defense systems against pests
and diseases, loosening soil and increasing drainage, providing
necessary pathways for oxygen and carbon dioxide. You won't have to do
these things yourself.

Gardening with the soil food web is easy, but you must get the life back
in your soils. First, however, you have to know something about the
soil in which the soil food web operates; second, you need to know what
each of the key members of the food web community does."
------

I direct your attention to the forth paragraph.

"Chemical fertilizers negatively impact the soil food web by killing off
entire portions of it. What gardener hasn't seen what table salt does
to a slug? Fertilizers are salts; they suck the water out of the
bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes in the soil. Since these
microbes are at the very foundation of the soil food web nutrient
system, you have to keep adding fertilizer once you start using it
regularly. The microbiology is missing and not there to do its job,
feeding the plants."

If you want to use chemical fertilizers in pots, be careful, but do not
use it on the ground. We can leave this world a better place than we
found it.
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/

On Mar 17, 1:33 am, Billy wrote:

Ay Father Haskell your logic is fine but your premise is skewed, totally
skewed.

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by
Lowenfels and Lewis

http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb...Soil/dp/088192...

"In general, perennials, trees, and shrubs prefer fungally dominated
soils, while annuals, grasses, and vegetables prefer soils dominated by
bacteria.

You're preaching to the converted. My (current) favorite plant
food is PlantTone, supplemented with vermicompost, for the
reasons you cited.