What Is Liquid Fertilizer? A Detailed Guide to Its Correct Use

In recent years, with the growing advantages of liquid fertilizer and strong national advocacy, more and more large-scale growers are choosing to use liquid fertilizer. So what is liquid fertilizer? How is it used? Let's take a look below.

1. What is liquid fertilizer?

Liquid fertilizer is a kind of liquid fertilizer, made by mixing organic fertilizer or chemical fertilizer with water and spraying it directly on plant leaves or roots so that it is absorbed relatively quickly.

Liquid fertilizer can regulate the physiological functions of crops, promote priority development and early maturity, and can effectively supplement crops' deficiencies in various trace elements, ensuring normal crop development.

Liquid fertilizer contains a variety of plant vitality factors, effectively inhibits soil compaction caused by chemical fertilizers, improves garden soil conditions, builds soil fertility, activates soil, promotes underground root development, stimulates self-pollination and cross-pollination, increases the fruit-setting rate, and ensures ripeness and yield.

2. How is liquid fertilizer used?

Because direct contact between plants and fertilizer can easily cause fertilizer burn, whether it is solid fertilizer or fertilizer already mixed into liquid form, when mixing it with water, the mixing ratio must be handled very carefully and must not be taken lightly.

Liquid fertilizer is not an ordinary foliar fertilizer; it is named only by its physical form. At present, many foliar fertilizers on the market are not what developed countries call liquid fertilizers. In agriculturally developed countries, liquid fertilizers have already reached about 40% adoption, while China has only just begun. Liquid fertilizer is simply solid fertilizer in liquid form. It conforms to the development trend guided by the state: that is, ultra-concentration, liquefaction, being conducive to absorption, and helping reduce transportation costs, such as American liquid fertilizers and others. It has already opened the way for liquid fertilizers in China.

3. Precautions for using organic liquid fertilizer

1. Pay attention to soil characteristics

The effect of fertilization is affected by the physical and chemical properties of the soil. When there are adverse limiting factors in the soil, they should be eliminated first in order to improve fertilizer efficiency; for example, when soil alkalinity is high, ammonium nitrogen fertilizer applied is easily lost through volatilization; acidic soil has a very strong capacity to fix phosphorus fertilizer, and the phosphorus applied is very easily fixed; another example is coarse-textured soil, such as sandy soil, where fertilizer loss is relatively large.

2. Pay attention to the dilution ratio

When the concentration of the liquid stock solution is very high, applying it directly to crops will cause damage, so it generally needs to be diluted before use. The concentration for spraying leaves and the whole plant must be paid special attention to.

3. Pay attention to ensuring organic materials are fully decomposed

Liquid organic materials must not contain large amounts of decomposable carbon sources; otherwise, application can easily cause eutrophication of the soil, produce massive microbial reproduction, and lead to problems that hinder crop growth.

4. Pay attention to the balance of fertilization

Fertilizer application should pay attention to the balance of nutrients, and it is not advisable to excessively apply single-element liquid fertilizer, especially fertilizer containing too much nitrogen, which has adverse effects on some crops. Pay attention to the content of the main nutrient components, and also to the content of secondary components.