Nitrogen Content in Fertilizer

I recall his being discussed here but I don’t recall a definitive answer.

Is there scientific data to substantiate the practice of insisting on a low nitrogen content in fertilizer used for daffodils?

This came up at the Master Gardener course I am taking. We had an excellent presenter yesterday, and the materials from the U. of Illinois, MG sponsors here, only have a passing reference to not adding nitrogen until after flowers appear. I don’t fertilize heavily but have used 0-10-10 when I could find it or 10-25-25 now that the former seems to be unavailable. I have’t really noticed a difference over the years.

Do you?

Is there data on paper somewhere?

George

…ready to fertilize or do anything in the garden. Tete ā Tete from Trader Joe’s gracing our kitchen is all we have here.

 

3 comments for “Nitrogen Content in Fertilizer

  1. Hello George,
     
    When I first started growing daffodils it was recommended that I fertilise my bulbs with blood and bone. It is full of nitrogen. I got magnificent leaves, huge bulbs and flowers about an inch across. The bulbs were soft and very prone to basal rot. Need we say more.
     
    When growing vegetables and cut flowers they talk about NPK. One gives leaves, one gives roots and the other gives flowers and fruit. Some one who knows lots will clarify this for us.
     
    Dave

  2. With the high costs of fertilizer and micro nutrients and the super high costs of the contents of our daffodil beds we should ALL be getting a complete soil test done every year or two!!!

    Commercially growing onions is very similar to growing daffodils. Onion growers want a large firm bulb that will store for long periods of time without rotting!!! Similar types of roots and similar growing and storage conditions for both onions and daffodils.

    When I get a soil test done, instead of telling the lab I grow “daffodils” I tell them to test the soils for growing onions! They send you back the “critical level” or the minimum level of nutrients that are necessary to grow a full crop to maximum potential.

    It actually takes a LOT of nitrogen in our soils where we get 45 inches of rainfall a year! Nitrogen does not stay in the soils very long it moves with water away from a daffodils shallow primitive roots or it goes back into the atmosphere.

    For collecting a soil sample for daffodils I scrape off the surface and then take a sample from about 4 inches (10 CM) deep down to about 16 inches (40 CM) because that is where I WANT the daffodil roots to grow down to:-))

    Critical Levels (minimum) in your soil for growing a commercial crop of onions:
    Phosphorus 50 Parts Per Million
    Potassium 125 PPM
    Calcium 180 PPM
    Magnesium 50 PPM
    Sulfur 13 PPM
    Iron 4.25 PPM
    Zinc .27 PPM
    Manganese 1 PPM
    Copper .16 PPM
    Boron .60 PPM

    Without a soil test you won’t know if you NEED any of these or not! Boron is REALLY important for plant cells as it helps the cells divide and elongate. It helps roots grow and also flower stems need to “elongate”. TOO much Boron is Toxic, that is why you want a soil test:-)) I had to put out 5 pounds of Boric acid (Roach poison) per acre! Explain THAT one to the check out ladies at the store!

    Our soils had almost NO nitrogen and they recommended I put in 95 pounds of nitrogen per acre during the growing season. Blood meal is 13% nitrogen or for every 100 pounds of dried blood meal there is a total of 13 pounds of nitrogen. I would need to put out 731 pounds of blood meal per acre on my soils!

    Anyway get a full soil test, shoot for a PH of about 6.2

    The fertilizers and lime or sulfur you sprinkle on top of the soil may take a year or longer to get down to where the daffodil roots are actually growing. Daffodil roots are primitive they almost have to bump into a nutrient with the very tip of the root as it grows in order to pull it out of the soil! Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas Daffodils are just about to POP!

  3. I remembered Keith saying this in the past… tell the soil analysis lab you are growing onions. I did that, knowing that Vidalia onions were such an important money crop (70-100 million $) for much of southeast Georgia. Keith is right, I got back a much better soil analysis than ever before. Thank you Keith! And I’ve been meaning to post that the usual daffies are blooming in abundance all over middle GA. They are especially noticeable on the shoulders of the roads… campernelle, pseudonarcissus, (pardon the shorthand, am in a hurry so I hope I got the spellings correct), and more. The bulbs get redistributed during roadside shoulder work by the Dept of Transportation, and that is how they get so close to the roadway. Various tazettas have been blooming since the first of DEC, around every old oak tree, in every yard, in middle and south GA. I suspect many of these have been passed down thru generations of families. And Keith would be thilled to know the campernelle are happily blooming thru the cowpies of the nearby dairy and beef cattle farms. And I’ve been meaning to post that Mary Lou Gripshover… gave me a wonderful little white species tazetta, from Portugal, in 06, and it puts on a show all winter long. It was too cold in OH for this delightful flower, but it seems to love it here, zone 8b (same as before). So MLG gave it up so it could have a good home. Back to the work of ADS… new member welcome packets, orders, and bookkeeping await me J.

    Cordially,

    Jaydee Atkins Ager

    Executive Director

    PO BX 522 Hawkinsville, GA 31036-0522

    The American Daffodil Society, Inc.

    http://www.daffodilusa.org http://www.daffodilusa.org/ http://www.daffodilusastore.org http://www.daffodilusastore.org/ http://www.daffseek.org http://www.daffseek.org/

    Description: ADS logo

Comments are closed.