The three primary nutrients essential for plants are the NPK – Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium. Nitrogen (N) is largely responsible for the growth of leaves on the plant. Phosphorus (P) is largely responsible for root growth and flower and fruit development. Potassium (K) is a nutrient that helps regulate important physiological processes or the functional processes in a plant.
Having said that, now let’s look into what is Rock Phosphate and the difference between Rock Phosphate fertilizer and Bone meal fertilizer.
Rock phosphate, also called phosphorite, is a natural mineral fertilizer obtained by mining from sedimentary clay deposits and rocks that contain phosphorus. Rock phosphate is a long-standing or slow release best organic fertilizer for adding phosphorus to your vegetable garden.
Both Rock Phosphate and Bone Meal are good sources of organic phosphorous for home gardeners. Bone meal is mainly used as a short term phosphorous supply and rock phosphate as a long term phosphorous supply, as it’s slower to break down plus it’s a non leachable source of phosphorous and calcium.
Now let’s look into 5 important benefits of using organic rock phosphate in gardening and How much and how to use it:
- STRONG ROOT SYSTEM: Rock phosphate promotes the development of strong roots throughout the growing stage of a plant and makes your plant healthy and high yielding by accelerating plant maturity.
- RESISTANCE TO PEST ATTACKS: a strong root system and a healthier plant means a plant highly resistant to pest attacks. Applying phosphorous at early growth stage of a plant will confer a great immune system and help resist pests.
- FLOWERING PLANTS: Any flowering perennial plant like rose and hibiscus love rock phosphate as it helps them develop more buds and larger sized flowers.
- VEGETABLES AND FRUITS: Strong roots, healthy immune plant and more buds means more vegetables and fruits. One or two applications of rock phosphate early in the growth stage is important to achieve this.
- Improves Soil Structure and water holding capacity. Rock phosphate is in Powdered form and hence can be mixed with soil and proves very beneficial while you prepare the potting soil before planting.
- EARTHWORMS and Beneficial microbes in soil are not harmed and infact they love it.
- DOSAGE and How to Apply: Best way is to mix the rock phosphate powder in your potting mix along with other stuff like compost, cocopeat or peat moss and others. This is because for proper phosphorous uptake by plants, the soil PH has to be slightly acidic and and adding compost like decomposed cowdung or vermicompost will help achieve this task. You can watch a detailed video on making the best potting soil here.
Well, Now, How to use Rock phosphate in potted plants and plants grown in ground or raised beds.
First of all loosen the soil around the plant by raking or tilling the top layer. For Potted Plants start with 1 teaspoon per container and then add 1 tablespoon after 15 days. For ground plants or raised beds start with 1 tablespoon per plant, preferably in its growing stage and then two tables spoons after 15 days. And this one time application will help your plant throughout its stages of growth till flowering and fruiting.
Before we start displaying the various leaf patterns, you must understand some basics in order to diagnose this problem of nutrient deficiencies in plants and start the right treatment to save your plants. Because directly jumping in to adding too many supplements can burn or kill your plant.
Plant nutrients fall into 2 categories: macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are those elements that are needed in relatively large amounts. They include the three major ones – nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, that’s NPK and also sulfur, calcium and magnesium. Micronutrients are those elements that plants need in very small amounts, like iron, boron, manganese, zinc, copper and molybdenum.
Most of the times, except in container gardening, these nutrients may be present in the soil. So before adding supplements you have to diagnose your condition by checking these 3 problems or factors:
- The problem may be with the roots – not able to absorb or uptake these nutrients. This can be due to root disease or improper watering. Because these nutrients are taken up by the roots only in the presence of moisture.
- Soil PH may not be right. Most plants need a PH of around 6.0 for proper absorption of nutrients by the roots. Having this little PH meter will certainly help you rectify this problem. You can find related posts on altering soil PH.
- Pest attacks which can sometimes resemble the patterns of nutrient deficiencies, especially the sucking pests like aphids. Make sure you thoroughly examine your plants.
Now having said that, let’s jump
into identifying the various leaf patterns of discoloration and distortion and
diagnose this problem. But always Keep in mind that each plant variety is
different and may display different symptoms. And also the damaged leaves may not come back
to normal after treatment but the new leaves will certainly come out healthy
and lush after treatment.
Let’s start with:
- Nitrogen Deficiency: you will notice complete yellowing of the older leaves generally at the bottom of plants. The younger leaves are often healthy and green. This is because, nitrogen is a mobile nutrient which moves up from the lower parts of the plant to the growing ends as a compensatory mechanism and hence the older leaves donate nitrogen and show complete yellowing including the veins and the entire leaf surface. The solution to this is simply adding a good nitrogen rich compost like decomposed cow dung or horse dung. But before adding, please rule out the problems of improper watering and soil PH that we already discussed.
- Calcium Deficiency: Here the new leaves are affected and may show yellowing, distortion and even burnt tips due to necrosis or death of the tip tissues. Blossom End Rot (BER) seen in tomatoes and squashes is the best example of this. We have discussed this problem and treatment in detail in my previous post.
- Magnesium Deficiency: Magnesium is also a mobile nutrient and hence The older leaves first turn yellow at the edges and surface – called interveinal chlorosis, meaning yellowing between the leaf veins. The veins as you can see, stay green, giving the leaf a marbled appearance. Remember, Magnesium is the central most atom in the chlorophyll molecule which imparts green colour to leaf. Foliar Spraying or watering the plant with 1 teaspoon Epsom salt per litre of water will give great results.
- Iron Deficiency: Iron is an immobile nutrient and hence cannot be carried upto the younger leaves from older leaves for compensation. So the leaf yellowing is first evident at the tips or the younger leaves. The pattern is similar to magnesium – the interveinal yellowing. This is actually a common pattern and most often due to alkaline soil ph which prevents proper absorption of iron by the roots. Hence its also called as lime induced chlorosis. The treatment for this is actually rectifying the soil ph to around 6, if its alkaline. Another method to bypass this problem is foliar spray of a micronutrient solution or compost tea.
- Phosphorous and Potassium Deficiencies: These are very much similar and plants show stunted growth plus leaf chlorosis like leaves turning darker or purplish. But this is difficult to identify and depends on the type of plant. Isolated Potassium deficiency usually exhibits yellowing starting at the tip or the margin of the leaf with the center being still green.
- Last but not the least, you must be aware of a condition called YELLOW VEIN CHLOROSIS. Here only the leaf veins turn yellow while the rest of the leaf shows normal green colour. This usually happens in winter or the dormancy period due to reduced nitrogen uptake by the roots from the soil in low temperatures.
Now the Universal Treatment Solutions for all these problems:
You have two options: First one is Making The Universal Cocktail Fertilizer mixture.
And the Second option is Vermicompost – which is rich is almost all micronutrients. Adding a handful every 15 days will keep your plants healthy and high yielding.
Well, Last year, we prepared a Mixed fertilizer containing both chemical and organic fertilizers with a detailed discussion and calculations on how to calculate the total NPK value. For beginners and those interested in these scientific calculations, please check out that article.
Now, we will quickly start the recipe for this well balanced organic mixed fertilizer, you can use for any plant in varying dosage to produce healthy growth, increase flowering and fruiting. We will also total the NPK value of by adding the NPK values of each of these components. For beginners – NPK means Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium which are the Major nutrients required for plant growth.
- COW DUNG: Whatever animal
manure you are using, whether horse dung or cow dung or even goat dung. Note
down its NPK value. Here we are using decomposed
cow dung. So NPK is 3-2-1.
We are taking 2000 grams of cowdung powder.
- COMPOST (
Whether home made compost or VERMICOMPOST): In this recipe, we are adding
vermicompost which also contains many useful trace elements, so no need to add
that micronutrient powder containing trace elements. The NPK of vermicompost is
1.78, 0.77,0.94
We are taking 2000 grams of Vermicompost.
- BONE MEAL POWDER, you can also use any of the other meals like sterameal, fishmeal or bloodmeal. If you are a pure vegetarian, you can use soya bean meals as a substitute for bone meal. So the NPK for bonemeal is 3.5, 18, 0
Here, will add both bone steamed meal
powder as well as coarse bone meal chips powder mixed. This fine powder is just
to make it quicker for release of nutrients.
We are taking 1000 grams of Bone meal powder.
- we shall also add some optional stuff into this for additional fortification which also act as soil pesticides or pest repelling agents, particularly neem cake powder or Karanj powder. Then we will also add Mustard cake powder. We will discuss the benefits of each of these some other time.
Well, the first one Neem Cake Powder: NPK of neem powder is here:
N(Nitrogen 2.0% to 5.0%), P(Phosphorus 0.5% to 1.0%), K(Potassium 1.0% to 2.0%).
N – 2.0% to 5.0%, P – 0.5% to 1.0%, K – 1.0% to 2.0%
We are taking 1000 grams of Neem cake powder +
1000 gms Karanj Powder +
- of Mustard cake powder.
- Optionally, You can add 500 gms of Epsom Salt + 500 Grams of Micronutrient Powder to include those trace elements or micronutrients like Mn, zinc, Fe, boron and many others to safeguard our plants from any deficiencies. Also you can add more ingredients you wish to like used tea powder and any other stuff, because this is a one time mix and you offer this on a periodic basis and only once in 15 days or so and you add almost all organic nutrients and this reduces burden and saves you a lot of time, plus this become a quality mix!.
Nothing to worry about over dosage which is an issue with chemical fertilizers which can cause chemical burns. This is pure organic fertilizer with hardly any adverse effect on over dosage.
After Approximate Calculation, the Total NPK value of this fertilizer mix is:
22, 25,07
Have a look at this equation in the table:
| Ingredient | N | P | K |
| Cow Dung (3-2-1)-2000g | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| Vermicompost -2000g | 3.5 | 1.5 | 2 |
| Bone Meal -1000g | 3.5 | 18 | 0 |
| Neem, Mustard etc | 9 | 1.5 | 3 |
| TOTAL | 22 | 25 | 7 |
Then optionally you can perform a soil PH test and mix either woodash or lime to make your soil more alkaline if its too acidic and if your soil is too alkaline, you can add alum powder into this mix.
And one more important point from storage point of view: you might feel some moisture in this mixture due to some moist ingredients like vermicompost. You can either use completely dry ingredients before mixing or you can dry this mixture in sunlight and then store in air tight containers. It will not loose its NPK value much on drying. Remember to mix the ingredients thoroughly well for best results.
RECOMMEDED DOSE PER PLANT? Depending on the plant, you can use one tablespoon once every 15 days, specially for flowering plants and once in a month for other plants. Make sure you apply this after tilling or raking the top soil and apply around the plant – not directly on roots.
Check out the Best Pure Organic Pesticide Recipe.
We all know that plants need Major Primary Nutrients – that’s NPK – nitrogen phosphrous and potassium and also the Secondary or trace or micro nutrients like calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, boron, zinc, and so on. These are either derived from
- Natural sources – what we call Organic Fertilizers for example, Cow dung, vermicompost and many other stuff.
- Inorganic or Chemical Fertilizers like NPK crystals, DAP, Urea and so on.
Now I will list out the harmful negative effects or the dangers of Chemical fertilizers and Pesticides that you frequently use in farming or home gardening. You please make a decision yourself after watching this video till the end.
- Ground water
Pollution: Nitorgen fertilizers
break down into nitrates and can easily go down into the soil. These are
water-soluble and can accumulate in groundwater for decades. And if you keep
adding more nitrogen over the years, this will have a cumulative effect. Moreover,
these effects of chemical fertilizers are compounded when you mix or use a
chemical pesticide.
You know the Fertilizer Urea, produces ammonia and contributes to acid rain, groundwater contamination and ozone depletion due to release of nitrous oxide by denitrification process. If we continue this in future, this hazard may increase several fold in the coming decades.
And remember! studies have shown that Groundwater contamination has been linked to stomach cancer, goitre (thyroid enlargement), birth defects in babies, and also hypertension.
Also Aquatic life is also significantly affected by water pollution and fish and other water animals may not get adequate oxygen and they can die. These are called Dead zones.
- Air Pollution: Excessive use of chemical NPKs can release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. These can cause respiratory problems, cardiac disease, and many cancers. A special mention about the Blue Baby Syndrome, medically called methemoglobinemia occurs in infants and one cause of this problem is attributed to chemical over use and pollution where due to reduced oxygen in blood, the baby turns blue.
- Fertilizer Burn: You can burn your favourite plants and crops if used excessively – specially leaf burn and root burn. This fertilizer burn can even kill your favourite plant in addition to the hazards it causes to the environment. This fertilizer burn will not happen when you use organic or natural fertilizers.
- Depletion of Beneficial Organic Matter, beneficial Microbes and even Minerals from the Soil – that is reduced SOIL FERTILITY: This loss of organic matter can lead to soil acidification, soil compaction and hardening and other ill effects which makes it vulnerable to soil erosions. Researchers also say that depletion of minerals from the soil can also lead to low quality foods with lesser mineral and vitamin content.
- Though chemical fertilizers will help plants grow faster; plants will not be healthy and strong as plants grown in this manner do not have enough time to mature and develop a strong root system and strong stems, or good nutritious fruits and vegetables. And also they will be less likely to survive because they will be more susceptible to pests and diseases as they lack good immune system against pest attacks.
The Bottom Line: is There is a large threat to environment, animals and human health; chemical fertilizers will ultimately end up leaking into our water bodies; ponds, streams, ground water etc. and contaminate water supply as a result of which humans as well as animals may suffer numerous short term and long term hazardous chemical effects on their health.
So, Lets together take a pledge today to stop using these chemical fertilizers and pesticides and start using organic fertilizers and pesticides to keep our mother earth safe, for the present and for the future!!!
For both beginner and experienced gardeners, a good nutrient rich soil is one of the most important factors for gardening success. Well – this applies when you are using the best soil with all nutrients to be readily available to the plants. You can watch my video on Universal Potting Soil by checking a link in the video description and also from a card linked at top right corner of this video after this video.
Well, Back to the topic: What if you have not prepared the best potting soil for your plants and your plants are suffering from malnutrition and deficiencies. Also even if you already have the best soil available to your plants, what about supplementing it with nutrients, I Mean Fertilizing your plants for the best growth and development is very important.
Whether to practice organic gardening methods or to rely upon chemical products is a major decision in soil management. Weighing the advantages and disadvantages of natural and chemical fertilizers will help you decide which method is appropriate for your garden.
There are many advantages as well as disadvantages of both Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers. We will not go into the details of these right now. Will try to discuss these in another detailed video. For now, based on some research articles on Mixed Organic and Inorganic Fertilizer preparation, to utilize the benefits of both and considering the NPK proportions and micronutrients or trace element proportions, we will try to formulate a preparation to fertilize your plants and use this mix as an all-purpose universal fertilizer powder to fertilize your plants on a monthly or fortnightly basis. If you want to know What is NPK and some basics, there s my separate video on NPK fertilzers – you can check the link in description or from a video card link at top right corner.
The basic idea is to make a balanced general purpose or universal fertilizer. Like you get a general purpose NPK crystals of 19-19-19 or 12-12-12 proportions and so on – indicating Nitrogen 19 percent, Phosphorus 19 percent and Potash 19 percent and things like that. If you are an expert you can do more calculations and research and also consider your purpose or even make a plant specific combinations by varying these proportion. For this you should know the approximate concentration of NPK in each of these organic stuff you are adding. Also there are Fertilizer mixing apps on google playstore.
Well, Now lets look into the ingredients, we will be using. And if you do not have some of these, do not worry, you can use whatever is available based on the content of NPK in each. For this you can check the NPK percentages and then total it in the end to know the actual or approximate NPK value of your final fertilizer mixture. Also One more concept to keep in mind in Unlike chemical fertilisers, the ‘natural’ fertilisers tend to dissolve slowly and thereby release their nutrients – that’s slow releasing and chemical NPKs are readily available. This way we are balancing the nutrient availability and avoiding the adverse effects of chemical fertilzers by using a lesser amount of inorganic fertilizers.
- COW DUNG: Whatever animal manure you are using, take a look at the NPK ratio of these. Here we are using decomposed cow dung. So NPK is 3-2-1. Whatever, we will not bother much about these figures. For your reference have a look at the NPK values of each of these animal manures.
- COMPOST ( Whether home made compost or VERMICOMPOST): Here we are adding vermicompost which also contains many useful trace elements. Have a look at the tables for your reference. So NPK is 1.78, 0.77,0.94
- BONE MEAL, you can use any of the other meals like sterameal, fishmeal, bloodmeal. So the NPK for bonemeal is 3.5, 18, 0
- We will add both bone steamed meal powder as well as coarse bone meal chips powder mixed. Do not worry, you can add any one. This is just to make it quicker for release of bone meal nutrients.
- Now we shall also add some optional stuff into this for additional fortification and also as soil pesticide or pest repelling agents, particularly neem cake powder or Karanj powder. Then we will also add Mustard cake powder. We will discuss the benefits of each of these in separate videos.
- Well, the first one Neem Cake Powder: NPK of neem powder is here:
N(Nitrogen 2.0% to 5.0%), P(Phosphorus 0.5% to 1.0%), K(Potassium 1.0% to 2.0%).
- So knowing these NPK proportions, we can mix these stuff in different propertions to make your universal fertilizer mix. There are lot of formulae, calculations and maths to determine this but at home gardening level we will not bother too much about these. I am not a horticulturist or an expert in this field. I am a medical doctor with gardening as my hobby and passion.
Anyways, We will try to make an approximate mix with approximate proportions and use this on our plants.
If you are a Pure Organic fertilizer lover, then you can prepare “organic only” fertilizer for your plants and offer extra dose to your plants. But if you want to prepare a balanced universal mix – that is inorganic + organic mixture, you need to offer this in lesser quantity to your plants – like half to one tablespoon depending on the size of your pot and after tilling or raking the top soil and apply around the plant – not directly on roots. You can apply every 15 days to 1 month – by carefully evaluating your results and then adjust the dosage accordingly.
Well, now we will mix all these with approximate weight of each of these in gms to make this fertilizer mix of organic + inorganic – a total of upto 10 kilograms.
- Urea (NPK 46-0-0) – 200 gms
- NPK Powdered Crystals or water soluble powder (19 19 19) – 500 gms. You can also crush the NPK crystals before adding.
- DAP (18-46-0) – 500 gms – even this you can crush the crystals and add.
- Cow Dung powder – 2000 gms
- Compost (vermicompost) – 2000 gms (if you donot have micronutrient powder, you can increase this to 3000 or 4000gms)
- Bone Meal – 1000gms
- Neem Cake Powder or Karanj Powder – 1000gms (Here will add 500gms each of these)
- Then optionally you can perform a soil PH test and mix either woodash or lime to make your soil more alkaline if its too acidic and if your soil is too alkaline, you can add alum powder into this mix.
And one more important point from storage point of view: you might feel some moisture in this mixture due to some moist ingredients. You can either use completely dry ingredients before mixing or you can dry this mixture in sunlight and then store in air tight containers. Remember to mix the ingredients thoroughly well for best results.
Now we will roughly total up the NPK value for this mix. We will try to total up based on 1000 gms of each of the ingredients: have a look at this equation in the table:
Ingredient (per 1000g) N
P
K
Urea (200g) 9.2
0
0
NPK(19-19-19) -500g 9.5
9.5
9.5
DAP (18-46-0) -500g 9
23
0
Cow Dung (3-2-1)-2000g 6
4
2
Vermicompost -2000g 3.5
1.5
2
Bone Meal -1000g 3.5
18
0
Neem, Mustard etc 9
1.5
3
TOTAL 49
57
17
So the Approx Total NPK value of this Mix is 49-57-17. If you want to reduce the Nitrogen value, you can skip adding Urea and things like that. So the Take home message is this – “This Mix is Powerful mix of organic and inorganic fertilizer balancing the advantages and disadvantages of chemical fertilzers and secondly it saves your time and energy and you offer everything at once to your plants.”
So, there we have it folks, that was an attempt to make our own universal fertilizer mix for our home garden plants.
- Mustard Cake Powder – 1000 gms
- Epsom Salt – 200 gms
- Then Lastly we will optionally fortify this further with optional Micronutrient Powder available from a reliable company to add micronutrients like Mn, zinc, Fe, boron and many others to safeguard our plants from any deficiencies. Also you can add more ingredients you wish to like used tea powder and any other stuff, because this is a one time mix and you offer this on a periodic basis and only once in 15 days or so and you add almost all nutrients and this reduces burden and saves you a lot of time, plus this is a quality mix.
There are broadly 2 types of Fertilizers.
Organic fertilizers include properly managed manure and compost.
Whereas, Inorganic fertilizers, also known as Artificial fertilizers, are formulated in appropriate concentrations and combinations supply three main nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that is, N, P and K, Hence they are named as NPK fertilizers.
The one Here, on left hand side, white colored salt is plain urea salt, which we are not going to use it for our home garden, because it has very high nitrogen content of above 80% which can burn the plant and roots, if used in higher quantity.
The other one, creamy yellowish crystals here are NPK fertilizer. We usually use percentages of 20 20 20 combination of NPK. Hence its also called as NPK 20-20-20.
N – the nitrogen, promotes leaf growth and forms proteins and chlorophyll. P – the phosphorus, contributes to root, flower and fruit development. K – the potassium, contributes to stem and root growth and the synthesis of proteins.
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Careful fertilization with correct quantity is important because excess nutrients can be as detrimental. Fertilizer burn can occur when too much fertilizer is applied, resulting in drying out of the leaves and damage or even death of the plant.
So, without going into too many details, I will quickly show you what is required for home gardening.
The fertilizer you are seeing here is NPK 20-20-20. The 1 kilogram bag of this, costs about 250 to 300 Rupees. The link to purchase this in India is given in description of this video. You can also search or this NPK fertilizer at our website www.GKVK.IN .
Application of this fertilizer crystals is very easy and depends on the size of the pot. For Larger pots of 16 – 18 inch diameter, you can use 15 to 20 crystals, once, every 15 days.
For 12 to 14 inch pot diameter, you can use arounf 10 crystals every fortnightly. For smaller pots,
About 5 crystals should suffice.
If your plants are in ground soil, you can use little larger quantity without any issues.
Okay!, the easiest method is, Just throw them on the soil. They are water soluble. As you keep watering your plant, the NPK slowly dissolves in water and enters the soil and the roots slowy take up these elements as an when required.