What is the difference bet. fertilizer and plant food.?
Question:hello just want to know the difference of it, what can i apply to make my flowering plant bear flowers?
Answers:
The use of "plant food" is a marketing ploy and a misnomer. Plants are unique from the animal world in that they produce their own food from photosynthesis. 16 elements are essential for plant growth. Structural elements are carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Plants acquire these elements directly from air and water. The macro elements are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These elements are the most likely elements to be deficient in our soils and make up the bulk of the elements in fertilizers. Secondary nutrients are calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. Most normal soils contain sufficient amounts of these elements and, therefore, are usually not included in fertilizers. The micro nutrients are iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, molybdenum, and chloride. Generally, only very small amounts of these elements are needed for plant growth and most soils contain sufficient amounts. Many of the micro nutrients can be toxic to plants if present in large amounts.
Phosphorus (NOT potassium) is the element that most affects root, FLOWER & FRUIT development. Potassium affects disease resistance and cold tolerance. Nitrogen forces vegetative growth. A plant's response to nitrogen is lush, rapid new growth at the expense of flowering & fruiting. If you want flowers, go slow on the application of nitrogen. Also, some perennials bolt (become lanky) with applications of nitrogen. If your soil has sufficient amounts of phosphorus, applying more phosphorus will not benefit the plant and produce more blooms. Plants will only assimiate what it needs regardless of what we put on its roots. Fertilizers benefit a plant only when an element is deficient in the soil and this element is a limiting factor to normal plant development.
Here are a couple of links that provides more info on elements and their impact on plant development: http://www.walterandersen.com/pdf/fertil...
http://gardenline.usask.ca/misc/fertiliz...
Nothing. They're the same thing.
To find a fertiliser that will help your plant bear flowers make sure it has a high potassium ratio - NPK = 1:1:2 (or more) [K=Potassium]
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