Organic to Chemical question.

homebrewer

Well-Known Member
Of course, everything has its optimum environment. I have recently come to learn that most Myco fungi WILL die in P levels over 10. So where many buy Promix with the myco* fungi already added they may be wasting it with say a 20-20-20
'20-20-20' is essentially referring to the concentration of salts within your product (if they're being honest on the label). If it is a FACT that high levels of P kill microbes, then it's the dosage you should be concerned with, not the concentration of salts in your bottle.
 

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
To each his own.

I'm just saying I've seen a difference.

To Dave and others. I would say how can you really know unless its from first hand expeirance.
 

bravedave

Well-Known Member
'20-20-20' is essentially referring to the concentration of salts within your product (if they're being honest on the label). If it is a FACT that high levels of P kill microbes, then it's the dosage you should be concerned with, not the concentration of salts in your bottle.
Wait!?! I thought your "FACT" was "Mineral-derived plant foods do not kill microbes". ;) I guess I did dispute that a bit with my post so your defensiveness is understood. Unfortunately or fortunately only one set of facts is correct...oh and Yes, I meant the concentration. I say "a bit" only because I assume an organically high P level would probably kill the fungi also.
 
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homebrewer

Well-Known Member
Wait!?! I thought your "FACT" was "Mineral-derived plant foods do not kill microbes".
Yes, that's a fact.

I guess I did dispute that a bit with my post so your defensiveness is understood. Unfortunately or fortunately only one set of facts is correct...oh and Yes, I meant the concentration
I don't think you're understanding what those numbers mean. 200ppm from a '20-20-20 bottle' is the same as 200ppm from a '3-3-3 bottle'. Your statement of 'Myco fungi WILL die in P levels over 10' is false.
 

bravedave

Well-Known Member
@homebrewer
Bro, first,you can take your condescension and assumptions and pack your bong with it. Now growing weed is new to me so there I turn to those with knowledge to share and books by the same. You might want open one yourself...
H/t. Bugeye
From p. 151 of Jeff​
Lowenfels "Teaming with Microbes - A Guide to the Soil Food Web"

"Rule #14 warns that if you want to work with the soil food web, you need to stay away from additives that have high NPK numbers. Most gardeners know these letters represent the the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in the fertilizer, and this NPK trilogy appears on all fertilizer packaging. Don't put anything on the lawn with NPK numbers greater than 10-10-10; traditional organic fertilizers usually meet this criterium. Of particular note is that a high (anything over 10) concentration of phosphorus not only prevents mycorrhizal fungi from growing but kills off the ones that are there. As a result, the grass loses its ability to take up a resource easily, and no matter how much phosphorus you put on the lawn, it is locked up quickly and unavailable to the mycorrhizae-less grass plants."

So yeah, sorry for adding my little tidbit to the discussion, hate to clutter things up with hyperbole. :roll:
 
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homebrewer

Well-Known Member
@homebrewer
Bro, I have been dealing with math, logic, probabilities, correlations, and combinations "probably" since you were were shitting yellow...so you can take your condescension and assumptions and pack your bong with it. Now growing weed is new to me so there I turn to those with knowledge to share and books by the same. You might want open one yourself...
H/t. Bugeye
From p. 151 of Jeff​
Lowenfels "Teaming with Microbes - A Guide to the Soil Food Web"

"Rule #14 warns that if you want to work with the soil food web, you need to stay away from additives that have high NPK numbers. Most gardeners know these letters represent the the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in the fertilizer, and this NPK trilogy appears on all fertilizer packaging. Don't put anything on the lawn with NPK numbers greater than 10-10-10; traditional organic fertilizers usually meet this criterium. Of particular note is that a high (anything over 10) concentration of phosphorus not only prevents mycorrhizal fungi from growing but kills off the ones that are there. As a result, the grass loses its ability to take up a resource easily, and no matter how much phosphorus you put on the lawn, it is locked up quickly and unavailable to the mycorrhizae-less grass plants."

So yeah, sorry for adding my little tidbit to the discussion, hate to clutter things up with hyperbole. :roll:
Bro, it is the concentration of your DOSAGE that's important, not the CONCENTRATION of the salts IN THE BOTTLE.

I'll spell it out for you and then you can email your tree-hugging author that he's wrong too. It takes LESS of a 20-20-20 plant food to get to a particular EC/ppm than it does a 2-2-2. The plant foods are the same thing, you'll just use MORE of the weaker 2-2-2 formula when feeding your plants.

Additionally, compare a 30-15-30 formula to a 2-8-3 formula. If you're worried about high levels of phosphorus then the weaker formula (2-8-3) is not the formula for you. That is of course contrary to what your guy says.

Furthermore, his high phosphorus lawn fertilizer example is laughable. Does high phosphorus lawn fertilizer even exist??? If it does, it shouldn't.
 

hydroMD

Well-Known Member
If anything it's more often the other way around. Switching to organic may cause healthier plants and better yield. Your question basicly seems to be the old organic vs. chemical argument that won't be settled as long as both types of fertilizer are on the market.
If organic always outperformed synthetic, there would be no market for it
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
20-20-20 just means you're getting twice as good of a deal as 10-10-10 assuming it cost the same.

NPK ratings are percent of N, P2O5 equivalent, and K2O equivalent, by mass.

If you want to turn a 20-20-20 into a 10-10-10, double the mass with something inert, or just use half of what you wanted..

@homebrewer
Bro, first,you can take your condescension and assumptions and pack your bong with it. Now growing weed is new to me so there I turn to those with knowledge to share and books by the same. You might want open one yourself...
H/t. Bugeye
From p. 151 of Jeff​
Lowenfels "Teaming with Microbes - A Guide to the Soil Food Web"

"Rule #14 warns that if you want to work with the soil food web, you need to stay away from additives that have high NPK numbers. Most gardeners know these letters represent the the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in the fertilizer, and this NPK trilogy appears on all fertilizer packaging. Don't put anything on the lawn with NPK numbers greater than 10-10-10; traditional organic fertilizers usually meet this criterium. Of particular note is that a high (anything over 10) concentration of phosphorus not only prevents mycorrhizal fungi from growing but kills off the ones that are there. As a result, the grass loses its ability to take up a resource easily, and no matter how much phosphorus you put on the lawn, it is locked up quickly and unavailable to the mycorrhizae-less grass plants."

So yeah, sorry for adding my little tidbit to the discussion, hate to clutter things up with hyperbole. :roll:
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
20-20-20 is a very old formula anyway. Most urea based lawn fertilizers have a lot less P. I wouldn't recommend using a 20-20-20 formula on your lawn. This is what home depot is pushing now, which makes a lot more sense.

My lawn looks great with this 24-8-16, and there's way less P runoff. 20.5% synthetic organic urea based nitrogen.

24-8-16

 
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bravedave

Well-Known Member
Bro, it is the concentration of your DOSAGE that's important, not the CONCENTRATION of the salts IN THE BOTTLE.

I'll spell it out for you and then you can email your tree-hugging author that he's wrong too. It takes LESS of a 20-20-20 plant food to get to a particular EC/ppm than it does a 2-2-2. The plant foods are the same thing, you'll just use MORE of the weaker 2-2-2 formula when feeding your plants.

Additionally, compare a 30-15-30 formula to a 2-8-3 formula. If you're worried about high levels of phosphorus then the weaker formula (2-8-3) is not the formula for you. That is of course contrary to what your guy says.

Furthermore, his high phosphorus lawn fertilizer example is laughable. Does high phosphorus lawn fertilizer even exist??? If it does, it shouldn't.
So books arn't your thing then. What were the odds? Sorry, but you seem to want to add a level of difficulty to the concept that just is not there. The assumption that can be made is that a standard application of a fert with a concentration of P > 10 proved to be detrimental to the myco*. But sure, increasing that dosage will increase the detriment. Lastly, your little deflection at the end is rather pointless when the point IS the killing of myco* fungi with high P...which would be happening regardless of the type of plant it was there to help.
 

homebrewer

Well-Known Member
So books arn't your thing then. What were the odds? Sorry, but you seem to want to add a level of difficulty to the concept that just is not there. The assumption that can be made is that a standard application of a fert with a concentration of P > 10 proved to be detrimental to the myco*. But sure, increasing that dosage will increase the detriment. Lastly, your little deflection at the end is rather pointless when the point IS the killing of myco* fungi with high P...which would be happening regardless of the type of plant it was there to help.
If you don't understand the concept of ratios, dosages, or concentration levels, you might want to read a better book ;).

To that, I'd love to know what the 'standard application rate' is. Care to share?
 

bravedave

Well-Known Member
If you don't understand the concept of ratios, dosages, or concentration levels, you might want to read a better book ;).

To that, I'd love to know what the 'standard application rate' is. Care to share?
Friend, I have understood the concentration numbers since that tree-hugger Nixon was president. One of my degrees is in Quantitative Method with a minor in math. I also would bet that I have read 100x more books and increasingly more growing books than you. Let me know if you want to exchange reading lists. I assume that because you obviously feel that organics has nothing to offer I will leave off the likes of Lowenfel.

"Standard"? Read the package. I am looking right now at Fertilome 20-20-20 and Jack's Citrus 20-10-20. Both "veg" ferts. Both suggest 1tsp per gallon when feeding with every water. Lowenfel would suggest that the Fertilome would be harmful to my added Mykos fungi. Not that difficult.
 

skunkd0c

Well-Known Member
Man, Like I said, i really don't want to turn this into a big debate, but first off, you can't flush organics, yellowing at the end is not what you want, Just watched a kyle kushman video where he even says so. green is healthy, healthy is growing, yellowing is dying because you starved it. If organic, you just killed everything good in your soil that you should be using for your next grow.
organic is feeding the soil, soil feeds the plant
synthetic is feeding the plants and not the soil

about 1.49

i read recently that it is ok to use human waste in a veganic garden
although the human waste must come from vegans only

only vegan i know is @sunni, could be a nice little money spinner, selling waste to veganic growers
 

az2000

Well-Known Member
So books arn't your thing then. What were the odds?
I like Teaming with Microbes. But, the part you quoted could have been written better. NPK numbers on the box are merely percentage of weight. The way the book describes it, they must mean "if the same dosage is used." But, when the book only says "nothing higher than 10-10-10" it's confusing because someone could buy 20-20-20 and use it at half the dosage, and they'd have the same strength as using 20-20-20 at full strength.

They should say at what ppm concentration myco is killed.

Either way, this seems to support my concern about the popular practice of feeding strong followed by one or more water-only feeds. If some ppm strength of P kills myco, seems like it would be better to feed half-strength all the time instead of full strength once (followed by zero strength, water only, the next).
 
Chemicals usually burn faster and have a greater chance micronutrient deficiency. There isn't really any benefit, other than price, to using chemicals that you can't also get with the right organics. There is a more universal solubility than with organics.

Fresh organic teas can be as strong as you like. If you aren't getting good results with what you're using, you should really just ditch the brand instead of the whole category of fertilizers. While it's more work to make them, one good, freshly made organic tea will definately give you everything that you & your plants have been missing.

Whatever you end up trying, I'd use the new stuff either mixed with the old stuff or alternated with it. That way you can get all the benefits of the new stuff and still get some use out of the old ferts.
Bugs like organic, and there is a smell also..
 
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