Organic Tree Care - For The Prof

Organic Tree Care - For The Professional

Chapter 10 - Fertilizing - Applying Essential Elements (14 from soil)

Myth: You can buy plant food in a bag and feed a tree.

Fact: Not only do trees manufacture their own food, they manufacture food for many others. In fact, they trap 50% of the sun light energy that stays in this atmosphere. Only a small percent of the energy from the sun, that enters our atmosphere, stays here. A bag consisting of no more than, the three elements - nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium does not provide energy (FOOD) for a plant that manufactures its own food, by a process called photosynthesis.

Please, beware of so-called plant or tree experts who do not understand tree biology.

Fertilizers - Part One

What makes me mad is when people rather listen to the product pushers with respect to their products. Do you believe that people who label fertilizer as "tree food" and "plant food" really understand the plants we are fertilizing with their product? They obviously flunked photosynthesis or they think you did, so they try to tell you they sell "food". Trees manufacture their own food. Fertilizer is "NOT" Plant Food! Fertilizers are salts of essential elements. Most bags of so called plant food only contain 3 elements - N-P-K. There are 17 essential elements and when one is lacking it will determine the health of the plant. That is called the Law of the Minimum. Elements are single groups of atoms of the same kind such as calcium and nitrogen. There are seventeen known essential elements for life - Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Sulfur, Magnesium, Manganese, Iron, Copper, Boron, Molybdenum, Chlorine, Zinc, Nickel [Sodium, Cobalt, Selenium?]. They are elements. They are not nutrients as do the product pushers claim. Food is a substance that provides an energy source, mostly. Nutrient is a substance that provides an energy source, elements, and other substances essential for life, in types and amounts that can provide a healthy life. Fertilizer is a substance that provides elements, as salts mostly, or in bonded forms, that require microorganisms to alter to forms that can be absorbed by plants. We break them into two groups - micro and macro elements. Please do not call them "miner elements" because when one is lacking, they are anything but miner. Trees cannot absorb a nutrient or food. They absorb elements that are dissolved in water. Fourteen (14) of the seventeen essential elements come from the soil.

Next article will be addressing what each element does.