Osmocote, my favorite plant food - easy peasy, complete

Fantastic string of interesting information here!

Going to have to revisit all this weekend :nerd_face::slightly_smiling_face:

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I have not yet! I was thinking to save a sample of my dirt from the garden mix and also from the cannabis pot I topdressed with some Osmo that needs testing as well. Our local university has a very good soil lab but I haven’t used it yet since moving here.

Man…I’m a facts/data guy…but I got a fucking TILT from reading this thread :nerd_face: :rofl:

I’m behind this year due to going back to work (long story), but getting ready to harden off some babies and get them out in soil. I’ll be doing a few in containers, so good chance to test out the Osmo vs Fish in a side by side.
I like the “set it and forget it” aspects of it. My beds get covered with wood ash during the winter from cleaning the wood stove…so I think I’m going to do a soil test if I can find the time.
Right now I’m just trying to find the time to plant something.

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I here ya about being busy.

If you’ve been dumping wood ashes where you’re going to plant then you need a soil test. K locks out nutrients like Ca and N. Ward Labs is who I do biz with. Cheap too. Send in a water sample while you’re at it just for grins.

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That bag is till there haha. Guess a little goes a long way.

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isn’t the potassium mostly tied up in salts? If I had to guess I’d say the rains over winter would be enough to leach out any excess. At least here in cali, we had an extremely wet winter this year

Only one way to find out - lab test.

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These gals still going? Looks like this stuff works great. Did you top dress at all or hit them with anything else or just water?

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No top dressing at all. in veg maybe every 3rd watering hit them with aloe water rather than pure water and in flower same thing with coconut water. If i ever had a super hard dry back id hit with microbes (maybe every 2-3 weeks or so if that). Took them 65 days and harvested last saturday everything is hanging to dry currently. These pics are from around day 60.

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Looks like they came out great. I’m gonna have to give this a try for my next round of plants and some outdoors.

@Thats_bank they’re making a believer out of me lol

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I used to use osmocoat, still have little plastic hulls all over my outdoors garden 25 years later… the plastic coating just doesn’t degrade. And sadly the high level of N is majority Ammoniacal and that can also cause issues if it leaches into the environment

But I quit using ferts with high ammoniacal content as they have been shown to decrease yield, terpenoids, and THC levels in cannabis and Osmocoat is over 50% ammoniacal NH4 which has also been noted as causing late term toxicity in cannabis plants.

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My greenhouse is loving it. Figs, quinces, strawberries, blackberries and lemon. All so very happy. I think I’ll try to bonsai a clone I have.

Good stuff.

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Nice!

Everything loves it. My greenhouse tropical trees are going nuts. Got 500 oranges off 2 trees, most are grafts I did on a key lime tree, 255 Meyer lemons off one tree, am harvesting avocados now, pitaya, etc.

Pitaya (dragon fruit) flower. Is 8-10" across.

My curing re-vegged Lapis Mtn. indica is pure goo. Can’t wait to taste it.You need to grow some mangos. Look for the Zill varieties like Fruit Punch, Sweet Tart, Lemon Merinque, Pineapple Pleasure. Pickering is a productive small tree with excellent fruit that has a background of coconut. These are eyes closed, eat over the sink OMG fruit.

Uncle Ben

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that’s something I’ve been curious about ever since I saw this thread and the linked john kempf video

the tl;dr being sources of nitrogen and levels/timing of calcium application might have a strong influence on node count and spacing, which dyna-gro also claims on their product page for their 9-3-6 foliage pro. And like you said, it might also affect cannabinoids

It really makes me wish osmocote would release a version of the plus with calcium and little/no ammonical nitrogen, it would be the perfect one stop shop for cannabis growers

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I would agree with less ammonia content, but I would hope they also change the plastic coating to something a little more biodegradable. In northern California we have issues with growers overusing these delayed-released chems in public areas, and their visibly discernable plastic fertilizer balls often end up on the news as polluting the public lands and waterways :sweat_smile: Calcium I prefer to amend only when needed, as I only supplement up to day 30 of flower

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If you’re seeing plastic shells, that’s not Osmocote. Osmo uses a biodegradable polymer shell as do many other CRF fertilizers. What you’re probably seeing is dirt cheap polymer coated urea, which uses EVA or other non-degradable plastics as the coating. Or sulfur-coated urea (or sulfur/wax, sulfur/wax/polymer), the oldest cheapest form, which leaves behind sulfur shells, not plastics. Also, that stuff is usually mixed with urease (NBPT) and nitrification inhibitors to make the ammoniacal conversion slower. Still not great to see on public lands for sure, but I would guess that it’s probably shitty conventional ag stuff of the lowest quality bought or stolen by the pallet or truckload by cartels or gangs.

Here’s a good diagram on how CRFs (including coated and treated ureas work from this paper:

IMG_3287

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168365914001205

Babar-jcr2014.pdf (460.8 KB)

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In the REAL WORLD, there isn’t an issue. Ammonical salts are good by design and used by all high quality manufacturers like Peters, Dyna-Gro and Os. They are released slowly and converted into nitrates via microbial action over time. I’ve added blood meal to my mixes for years. It too is ammonical. Can get damn hot if you use too much FWIW.

Then you have the kids, the experts you know, that have never used it but claim Os. produces harsh smoke while theirs is the smoothest taste this side of Swisher Sweets. :rofl:

My homegrown is potent and the “taste” is silky smooth. No one complains.

I still maintain that cannabis is indigenous to non calcareous soils, those of a volcanic origin, usually found growing in highlands. If you FEEL you need Ca, then throw some gypsum into your mix. Can’t hurt, unless you get carried away,

Facts over feeling,
Uncle Ben

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Understood…dicyclopentadiene and glycerol ester dissolved in an aliphatic hydrocarbon solvent

That’s from 1993, we are on Generation 5 of Osmocote nowadays, technology advances:

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Fine, then don’t use it. No matter what you use, it’s all about degree, amount.

I’ve used Osmocote on greenhouse grown large tropical fruit trees since the greenhouse was erected in 2012. It’s just not a problem, again, in the REAL WORLD. Could care less about some cherry picked paper that is not relevant to my situation.

UB

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