A couple of years ago I was "mostly" organic - everything that I would eat was given all-organic nutrients (unless my hubby decided to toss in some synthetic fertilizer), but some other items like ornamental flowers and roses were given half organic and half commercial fertilizers. Indoor plants were fed the Blue Goo.
I often have cuttings sitting in glass jars on my kitchen windowsill. I actually have pretty good success with rooting cuttings and enjoy checking them every day to see their root growth.
In this one instance, a few of the cuttings were ready to put into soil. They had beautiful roots going. But - I was out of nice, soft potting soil, and my compost heap at the time was way too new to provide me anything just yet. So until I could get to the store (I live in a small town in the middle of nowhere), I thought I would give them a little nutrients in the form of Blue Goo. I made sure the dose was very much watered down, plus the water in the jar, because I didn't want to OD the plant.
A few days later I noticed something that made me swear off EVER using a synthetic fertilizer again.
All of the finer root hairs had died back to the stronger root. Maybe I still had it too strong, but there was so little of that stuff in there that it barely tinted the water. There's enough dye in Miracle Gro to turn any part of you that comes into contact with it into a Smurf.
I could even see the main root now had a blue tint to it as well - as though it had absorbed most of the coloring in the water, traveling up to the leaves, which now looked a beautiful, strong and healthy green. Reminded me of that old science experiment in elementary school, where we put celery into bottles of blue or red tinted water to see the stalk change color (some process of absorbtion, I forgot the name).
I'm no biologist or botanist, though I did love my biology classes in college. But my guess is, the blue tint is there to color your plant into looking healthy, disguising what damage has happened to your finer roots. It stands to reason that root hairs and far more fiberous, young offshoot roots (what's the name for those?) would be much more sensitive to a chemical reaction and die off.
Now, I know that ordinarily, this stuff does promote root growth. But I wonder if it's truly healthy root growth, if the plant is always given synthetic stuff? Are the roots mostly larger ones, rather than some nice finer ones?
I think I just gave some kid a great idea for a science project. I may just do a little experimenting myself...
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opabinia51
- Super Green Thumb
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- Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:58 pm
- Location: Victoria, BC
So you're asking if plants that are only fed synthetic (water soluble) fertilzers would have the finer root hairs?
I would hypothesize that this would depend on the concentration of the dose that the plants were given. To high of a concentration would burn the plants, resulting in retardation of the root growth, an interesting idea, though.
I look forward to hearing your discoveries.
What would be interesting to do would be to set up replicates of your plants and feed them differing concentrations of the synthetic fertilzer on a regular basis. And doing thte same with an organic fertilizer.
I would hypothesize that this would depend on the concentration of the dose that the plants were given. To high of a concentration would burn the plants, resulting in retardation of the root growth, an interesting idea, though.
I look forward to hearing your discoveries.
What would be interesting to do would be to set up replicates of your plants and feed them differing concentrations of the synthetic fertilzer on a regular basis. And doing thte same with an organic fertilizer.
Last edited by opabinia51 on Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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opabinia51
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 4659
- Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:58 pm
- Location: Victoria, BC
Well if you want to be scientific about this:
Here is what I would do:
Set up a series of say five groups of five plants
1
2
3
4
5
For eases sake give plants in group 1 1 liter of water as your control
plants in group 2 1 tablespoon of liquid fish
plants in group 3 2 tabespoons of liquid fish fert and so on.
Then have 5 groups of 5 plants with the synthetic fertilzer you described in 1 liter of water as per the organic fertilizer.
If you were really scientific you'd probably try out different types of each type of fertilizer but, you don't have a big budget or work study students to help you
Visually measure the root growth before the experiment and each day in the experiment. Let's say the experiment will last 15 days. Be sure to give each plant the same amount of water each day.
I think this would be great for some science class in grade school to perform as well!
Here is what I would do:
Set up a series of say five groups of five plants
1
2
3
4
5
For eases sake give plants in group 1 1 liter of water as your control
plants in group 2 1 tablespoon of liquid fish
plants in group 3 2 tabespoons of liquid fish fert and so on.
Then have 5 groups of 5 plants with the synthetic fertilzer you described in 1 liter of water as per the organic fertilizer.
If you were really scientific you'd probably try out different types of each type of fertilizer but, you don't have a big budget or work study students to help you
Visually measure the root growth before the experiment and each day in the experiment. Let's say the experiment will last 15 days. Be sure to give each plant the same amount of water each day.
I think this would be great for some science class in grade school to perform as well!