Demystifying Fertilizer

Hi, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com. Have you ever gone down to the store to buy a bag of fertilizer and you got down there and looked and it was kind of confusing because there's all these different kinds of fertilizers, all purpose, grass, nut and tree, flowering, blooming plants. And then on top of that, there was a set of three numbers across the front. You said, what does this mean? Well, stick with me just for a minute and I'll demystify that for you. We're going to use these couple of bags right here as just an example. You're looking at two different bags, two different brands of all purpose fertilizer. And the reason they're called all purpose is because they have content in each of the three major categories that fertilizer has. What do these three numbers mean? They're simply percentages by weight of what's in each one of these bags in these three major categories. The first one is nitrogen. The second one is phosphorus. And the third one is potassium or potash. For you chemists out there, that would be NPK. All right? So that's all we're looking at, 16, 16, 16. So in this bag, 48% of it is directly items that go into plant nutrients. The remainder of it, that 52%, is all the carriers, the binders, what conveys it in and allows you to dispense it out there. Okay? Over here, this is slightly less. There's 10, 10, 10. So we have 30% of this bag has major nutrients. The other 70%, again, are those binders, carriers, conveyors, if you will, that allow you as the person to dispense it, put it in your spreader, etc., etc. Now, what do each of these three major nutrient areas do? And how do you make some basic choices of what you're going to get? All right. Nitrogen is the primary resource that plants, trees, grasses, etc. use to produce leaf. Okay? So that's the reason when you go down and you buy grass fertilizer, for instance, suppose you buy a bag of ammonium sulfate. What you would find is it would have three numbers. The first one would read 21, the second one would read zero, and the third one would read zero. What does this mean? Well, we've already told you and you've guessed it probably already. 21% nitrogen, zero in the remaining two categories, any major, or excuse me, measurable content. Why would it be 21% for grass fertilizer? Because grass is almost entirely leaf and is a heavy nitrogen consumer. So if you put nitrogen on your grass, it's going to green up. Many times it's easy to over-put it on or over-apply it, and you actually get really strong bursts of growth. And this is evidenced by having to heavily mow it afterwards. And where's all that nitrogen go? Well, it goes out in the leaf bag, or if you're doing it well, in the compost pile. But that's another story for another day. So we've got the nitrogen. That's the first thing. What about the second number? Here we have nitrogen. Here we have phosphorus. What is phosphorus mostly used by for plants? Well, they use it for rooting, they use it for flowering, and then also for fruiting. So if you've got a container plant, for instance, that is something that flowers on an ongoing basis and you want to keep that bloom going, besides deadheading those blooms, it's going to need some of this in here to keep going. Otherwise, it's going to deplete. It uses up that nutrient in the container very quickly, and then it doesn't have the wherewithal, the resources to continue to bloom. Well, the third one, potash or potassium. What is this responsible for? Overall plant vigor. It helps the plant's transportation system of nutrients and trans-invaporation, excuse me, that's moving of moisture and nutrients up and down the plant. All of that is helped by that third nutrient. So the next time you go down to the store to buy something, simply look and say, what am I trying to accomplish? If I have something, I'm trying to get fruit to sit on it? Is it a vegetable? Tomato? Am I trying to get peppers? Okra? Eggplant? Lots of other things? Well, you want to make sure to have some of this. If you are raising something there that had lots of leaf, spinach, lettuces, cabbage, those kind of things, it's going to need nitrogen and it will also need some of the other there, may not need to have quite as much. Well, there you have a basic primer and a demystification of what the numbers mean. And if you have any further questions on this, you can certainly write me back through our comment section. If you like this video, make sure to like it. Better yet, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com.