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Old July 14, 2012   #39
RayR
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Cheektowaga, NY
Posts: 2,464
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Originally Posted by nativeplanter View Post
Ray and Levent, I am really impressed by the growth you are getting from DE. Especially the seedling roots! I think I'll give it a go. How do you determine the amount of nutrients to add to the water once leaves have developed? I'm unfamiliar with Drammatic, so I don't know how your dosing compares to the regular dilution rate. Is it possible to put in terms of percent strength of fertilizer? Or how does one figure it out?
I was just making an educated guess based on my original observations with DE.
DE will wick up and absorb far more water than seed starting mix, therefore it will also draw up more nutrients that are introduced into the water. It just seemed reasonable to use a lighter dose of fertilizer in the water with that consideration. Besides, in my initial experiment with onion seedlings, I used a higher dose of fertilizer at first, but that only seemed to encourage thick algae growth on the surface of the DE. In my second trial with onions, I cut back the fertilizer and the onion seedlings grew just as well and the algae growth was minimal.
On the Jiffy Mix plants after noticing the DE plants were doing better, I upped the fertilizer dosage on the Jiffy Mix plants, but that didn't make any difference, the DE plants still grew better.
I used Drammatic K Fish & Seaweed because that is what I had on hand from the previous year and it worked fine, you could use some other brand and it will probably work just as well. I didn't even try using synthetics because I have been working strictly with organics for a few years now, but I guess there is a lot of room for all kinds of experiments.
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