Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Growth Versus Fruiting
This is more of an advanced topic, but very interesting. Cationic nutrients like calcium,
magnesium and potassium, as well as the anions chlorine and nitrate nitrogen, tend to help
a plant with vegetative growth. Anionic nutrients like phosphorus and sulfur, as well as the
cation ammonium, tend to push a plant towards reproduction, producing seeds and fruit. Of
course, all of the nutrients are involved in both processes, but certain nutrients are needed
for the plant to switch from growth to fruiting.
The nutrients just mentioned that promote growth I will call “sweet,” while those that
promote fruiting I think of as “sour.” If you're growing a big crop and are serious about
getting the best response, you can consider the implications for your fertilizer program.
This is often where certain beneficial chemical fertilizers come in because of the energy
they bring to the table, but organic products can help here, too.
You may apply small amounts of materials at certain times to provide energy to a crop.
For the first month or two after plant emergence, you can focus more on “sweet” fertilizers
that provide more quickly available calcium, such as organic liquid calcium, or synthetic
calcium nitrate. After that, or whenever you see buds, you can focus on “sour” fertilizers to
promote fruiting, such as soft rock phosphate, or synthetic 11-52-0 and ammonium sulfate.
Foliar fertilizers are especially useful for promoting growth or fruiting because the re-
sponse is faster.
For the most part, this means the “sweet” fertilizers are applied in spring and the “sour”
fertilizers in the summer. If you're growing greens and herbs, you're not concerned about
fruiting, so you'll always stick with “sweet” fertilizers. If you're growing fruit trees, they
begin the fruiting process in the spring and the growing process in mid- to late-summer, so
the timing is reversed.
I tend to apply a bit of soft rock phosphate when I'm ready to promote fruiting, and I
have used 11-52-0 in the past. I don't often use any of the other chemicals for this because I
don't have them sitting around. I actually apply a simple recipe to promote fruiting that I
learned from Dan Skow: four tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and two tablespoons of
ammonia in two quarts of water per 1,000 square feet. Ammonia can be difficult to find
anymore, but I found some at a hardware store recently.
Boron helps with fruiting, too. If I have it, I might instead spray three tablespoons liquid
calcium mixed with two to four teaspoons boron, along with seven tablespoons liquid fish
hydrolysate, four teaspoons kelp and one to two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, in 1 ¼
gallon of water per 1,000 square feet. For either of these recipes, you need sufficient calci-
um in the soil for them to work, and you'll probably want to do them several more times
through the remainder of the season in order to keep up that fruiting energy.
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