# P-K free fertilizer?



## The Orchid Boy (Dec 21, 2012)

I found I have an organic fertilizer that supplies only nitrogen. It is Miracle-Gro Organic Choice. Total N is 8%, 2.6% ammoniacal N and 5.4% other water soluble N "derived from fermented sugar beet molasses." Contents and metals found in product can be found at www.regulatory-info-sc.com. I was going to look this up later this evening. Is this a good fert? I thought about using it w/ 1-1-1 "buffalo loam tea". What are your opinions?


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## Ozpaph (Dec 21, 2012)

What's the claimed benefit?
Could use calcium nitrate alone.


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## keithrs (Dec 21, 2012)

I have never used ether of those products. 

In general, teas are good to use. I use to mix all kinds of different thing in my teas. The best was a blood meal and bone meal tea/liquid fertilizer. Sh*t stinks!!!! You have to ferment it for 2-3 weeks. I used it on garden plant. Bat and sea bird guano are good as is fish emulsion. You have to find a emulsion with out urea like Neptune's. Alfalfa is good too. 

Like what Stone does... Mixing small amount of "salt" based with organics is your best bet.


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## keithrs (Dec 21, 2012)

Ozpaph said:


> What's the claimed benefit?
> Could use calcium nitrate alone.



I think he's trying to get away from "salt" based ferts.


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## gonewild (Dec 21, 2012)

I would say it is a BAD choice for your orchid plants.

The 5% "other" nitrogen is probably Urea.

It is very expensive considering there is not much actual Nitrogen in a bottle of the liquid. Mostly you are buying water.


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## Stone (Dec 21, 2012)

gonewild said:


> > I would say it is a BAD choice for your orchid plants.
> >
> > The 5% "other" nitrogen is probably Urea.
> 
> ...


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## gonewild (Dec 21, 2012)

Stone said:


> gonewild said:
> 
> 
> > What's wrong with Urea? If its not absorbed directly, it's turned into ammonium in 2 days. The only problem to me is that it doesn't show up in EC tests so you have to allow for it when making up your feed.
> ...


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## The Orchid Boy (Dec 22, 2012)

How would using the buffalo loam tea with my other fertilizer mixed in be? The buffola loam tea mixture says it comes from organically (I think) raised buffalo and it is their manure composted, dried, and in a powder like form that disolves fairly easily in water. Would this contain urea? I know there is some contraversy over urea; I like to avoid urea for the most part. 

And would 30-10-10 Grow More orchid formula w/ 24.8% N being from urea or 7-8-6 Dyna-Gro urea free orchid formula be better? I have a mixed collection of paphs, cattleyas, phals, a phrag, and an oncidium, all in different types of media. 

1 more question: Is it true some orchids do best with a low or no N fertilizer when blooming? It seems that in the wild they would have constant N-P-K levels.


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## Ozpaph (Dec 22, 2012)

keithrs said:


> I think he's trying to get away from "salt" based ferts.



Can plants absorb long chain, complex molecules intact or do they degrade in the 'soil' to form 'salts' which are then absorbed?


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## keithrs (Dec 22, 2012)

Ozpaph said:


> Can plants absorb long chain, complex molecules intact or do they degrade in the 'soil' to form 'salts' which are then absorbed?



I'm not qualified to answer that. 

I do know the reason you have to ferment blood and bone meal is so there in time to break down the protein chains into useable form. Weather that's a salt... That's beyond me. 

But if he is trying to stay organic, he can not touch any salt based fert.


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## keithrs (Dec 22, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> How would using the buffalo loam tea with my other fertilizer mixed in be? The buffola loam tea mixture says it comes from organically (I think) raised buffalo and it is their manure composted, dried, and in a powder like form that disolves fairly easily in water. Would this contain urea? I know there is some contraversy over urea; I like to avoid urea for the most part.
> 
> And would 30-10-10 Grow More orchid formula w/ 24.8% N being from urea or 7-8-6 Dyna-Gro urea free orchid formula be better? I have a mixed collection of paphs, cattleyas, phals, a phrag, and an oncidium, all in different types of media.
> 
> 1 more question: Is it true some orchids do best with a low or no N fertilizer when blooming? It seems that in the wild they would have constant N-P-K levels.



The use of teas for fertilizer will get expensive in time and money. Also your not supplying the micros in fare amounts and will have to supplement them. 

High N didn't effect my plant as far as blooming gos.

If your going organic then I think the NPK is not as important. Organically things will break down at different rates. Even tho you have 1-1-1 fert. Doesn't mean it will break down that way.


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## Ray (Dec 22, 2012)

Isn't urea a salt? I know when the salt mine near Geneseo NY collapsed a few years ago (they supply the vast majority of "ice melt" in the eastern US), we were using urea on the driveways, instead.

OzPaph: According to Marschner, urea can be directly absorbed through leaf tissue to a greater degree than can more ionic species like nitrates and ammonium compounds. The opposite is true of the roots.


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## The Orchid Boy (Dec 22, 2012)

I don't know if urea is a salt. I do know that the main waste product of fish is ammonia. The main waste product of humans is urea along with ammonia.


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## gonewild (Dec 22, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> I don't know if urea is a salt. I do know that the main waste product of fish is ammonia. The main waste product of humans is urea along with ammonia.



Make sure you don't confuse Urea with Urine.


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## gonewild (Dec 22, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> I know there is some contraversy over urea; I like to avoid urea for the most part.
> 
> And would 30-10-10 Grow More orchid formula w/ 24.8% N being from urea or 7-8-6 Dyna-Gro urea free orchid formula be better? I have a mixed collection of paphs, cattleyas, phals, a phrag, and an oncidium, all in different types of media.



If you want to avoid urea then why consider a fertilizer that contains it?

There is no definite answer to your question, only opinions. (My opinion is that both are poor choices)
The two fertilizers you mention will probably work equally well for you. The 30-10-10 will loose nitrogen to the atmosphere quickly so it might become a similar ratio to the 7-8-6. I'm not saying it does just pointing out a possibility.

If you read the threads here on K-Lite and pay attention to the reasons behind the idea of it and you pay attention to the results people are having you will see that it may well be the best fertilizer formula.

You'll never get people to all agree what is best so you have to learn it for yourself with experience.

I'm curious why you are searching through all these different fertilizers rather than try the K-Lite. Are you thinking you want to be an organic grower?


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## keithrs (Dec 22, 2012)

Urea is natural but its combined with a synthetic salt(like almost all other 'salt' based ferts). Organic products can use it in there fertilizers if <5% N comes from it. Most likely if you find a organic fert that is 5-1-1 or 8-1-1. Its safe to say that about 5% of that is urea if blood meal is not listed.

I would love to grow orchids with straight organics but have not found a way that gives ok results that is not too expensive or time consuming.


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## The Orchid Boy (Dec 22, 2012)

I'm going to use K lite from Ray soon. I just wanted to see what you all thought of these other fertilizers. What should I do with all this extra fertilizer? Use it on houseplants or garden?


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## gonewild (Dec 22, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> Use it on houseplants or garden?



Yes


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## The Orchid Boy (Dec 22, 2012)

So houseplants can absorb urea because they are in soil with microbes; am I correct?


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## The Orchid Boy (Dec 22, 2012)

gonewild said:


> Make sure you don't confuse Urea with Urine.



I know. Our "liquid waste" is basically ammonia and our "solid waste" is basically urea.


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## keithrs (Dec 22, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> I know. Our "liquid waste" is basically ammonia and our "solid waste" is basically urea.



I thought that are pee had urea in it!?


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## gonewild (Dec 22, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> So houseplants can absorb urea because they are in soil with microbes; am I correct?



Yes but not exactly. Because house plants are generally potted in a more dense media or soil there is more chance for the nitrogen in urea to be trapped. It is more due to the lack of airspace than microbes that the nitrogen stays available longer.

When I said use it on houseplants and in the garden it was only a suggestion of how to use it without wasting it. If your house plants don't grow so well because of it it probably is not as bad as if your orchids suffered from it. Unless of course you have very expensive rare houseplants. When you said houseplant I thought "cheap" common plant that just won't die no matter what.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Dec 22, 2012)

Urea is the physiological solution to the toxicity of ammonia. Simple aquatic animals have no problem with ammonia, because it can just diffuse away. But more complex animals, with circulatory systems cannot survive unless they convert the seriously toxic ammonia to the far less toxic urea (or uric acid). Once the urea/uric acid has been excreted, bacteria break it back down to ammonia. So, pee contains urea. Bird poop contains uric acid....and poop. Human poop is just poop.....lots of cellulose with some stinky bacterial byproducts like skatole. But our urea is in our pee. The reason all those men's rooms smell like ammonia is because those urinals are curved in such a way that it sprays back. Just take a pee in one while wearing shorts or sandals to see for yourself. Or take my word for it and spare yourself the trouble (I never, ever, use urinals anymore!) So the smell is from all that pee urea decomposing to ammonia.


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## Amadeus (Dec 23, 2012)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> Urea is the physiological solution to the toxicity of ammonia. Simple aquatic animals have no problem with ammonia, because it can just diffuse away. But more complex animals, with circulatory systems cannot survive unless they convert the seriously toxic ammonia to the far less toxic urea (or uric acid). Once the urea/uric acid has been excreted, bacteria break it back down to ammonia. So, pee contains urea. Bird poop contains uric acid....and poop. Human poop is just poop.....lots of cellulose with some stinky bacterial byproducts like skatole. But our urea is in our pee. The reason all those men's rooms smell like ammonia is because those urinals are curved in such a way that it sprays back. Just take a pee in one while wearing shorts or sandals to see for yourself. Or take my word for it and spare yourself the trouble (I never, ever, use urinals anymore!) So the smell is from all that pee urea decomposing to ammonia.



:rollhappy::clap:This receives my vote for best post of the year.:clap::rollhappy:


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## goldenrose (Dec 23, 2012)

At first I started skipping over this thread, just rehashing the K thread. Now I'm finding it rather entertaining!


The Orchid Boy said:


> I'm going to use K lite from Ray soon. I just wanted to see what you all thought of these other fertilizers. What should I do with all this extra fertilizer? Use it on houseplants or garden?


 lesson learned ......
research it *before* buying and there will not be wasted money as well as what to do with it!


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## The Orchid Boy (Dec 24, 2012)

I enjoyed this thread too! Yes, I definitely should have researched before buying.


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## Ozpaph (Dec 24, 2012)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> The reason all those men's rooms smell like ammonia is because those urinals are curved in such a way that it sprays back. Just take a pee in one while wearing shorts or sandals to see for yourself. Or take my word for it and spare yourself the trouble (I never, ever, use urinals anymore!) So the smell is from all that pee urea decomposing to ammonia.



or pee sitting down (women are so smart - no splash back).


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## gonewild (Dec 24, 2012)

Ozpaph said:


> or pee sitting down (women are so smart - no splash back).



It's easy to be brave and sit in a Woman's bathroom....NOT so pleasant in a Men's room, may as well sit on a urinal..


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## Clark (Dec 24, 2012)

gonewild said:


> It's easy to be brave and sit in a Woman's bathroom....QUOTE]
> 
> Some are just as filthy. Just make sure, one locks the door...


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## goldenrose (Dec 25, 2012)

The Orchid Boy said:


> I enjoyed this thread too! Yes, I definitely should have researched before buying.


what can we say, we get impulsive, part of the addiction & passion!


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