Seems to be a hot topic. Might anyone have a link to any lab studies that looked at growth / harvest improvement with foliar treatments of plants already growing in excellent soil?Obviously nutrient deficient soils are a different matter. The internet is full of experienced people that feel strongly both ways, but without objective lab data it's all just anecdotal.
Foliar Feeding With Excellent Soil: Worth It?
- Thread starter TJames
- Start date
In my bit of reading here this AM it seems the most consistent lab data (that I've come across... far from conclusive) points to Foliar having the greatest benefit to correct short term deficiencies, assuming the deficiency is a mobile element. Calcium and Boron were two examples of immobile or less mobile elements. It would seem that if you have the soil or root nute delivery system optimized, you will see much less benefit from regular foliar treatments.
Hog, one other tidbit. A "troll" is generally someone who has a separate agenda from pure forum question and answer. Someone who sells products or otherwise potentially benefits from directing a thread in one direction or another. Now you've previously told me you sell products that are associated with foliar feeding. Consequently, you're adverse to my discussing the possible lack of necessity of foliar feeding. You don't openly identify yourself as a vendor, consequently... YOU are in fact the living embidiment of an internet troll.Me? I sell nothing. I have no interest in the sale of particular products. No hidden agenda. I am a simple grower looking for input from the collective. You might consider simply ignoring me and my posts. That would be fine with both of us it seems.
From another thread on this forum: "When you spray the teas on the branches & leaves, you are setting up colonies of aerobic fungai - the good guys. Aerobic is stronger in anaerobic in the world of bacteria & fungai as things turn out. By establishing these colonies it is almost impossible for anaerobic fungai (powdery mildew for example) to get established. If you do see a slight re-infestation then another application may be required."This doesn't concern nutrient uptake to the plant, but does demonstrate a beneficial form of foliar treatment.
From this article: http://farmerfredrant.blogspot.com/2009/07/foliar-feeding-waste-of-time-and-money.htmlI've seen this article a couple of times and his summary seems consistent with others. "So, my opinion is that yes, plants do absorb nutrients through their leaves (neither book mentioned absorbtion through branches or trunks) but the amount is very small, nutrients do not travel far from point of entry, and there is lots of nutrient run-off during the process, which can lead to pollution. Therefore, foliar feeding is not effective as the primary source of nutrients for plants. I disagree that foliar feeding gets nutrients to all parts of the plant. There is lots of evidence that fertilizer that gets into the leaf migrates little to other parts of the plant. It stays in the leaf or travels to a strong sink like a fruit. Foliar feeding can correct micro-nutrient deficiencies in leaves and some fruit, but until the nutrition is balanced in the root zone, the symptom will continue to appear in new plant parts. Many of my students seem to believe foliar feeding is better for the plant than nutrient absorption by roots, and that concerns me. Foliar feeding can be used to correct some nutritional problems, primarily in production situations, but should not be relied on as the primary source of nutrients for the plant. If people are foliar feeding I believe most of the nutrients being absorbed by the plant are entering the roots, probably after running off the plant onto the soil."
90 minutes worth of additional reading this AM and I finally conclude that the majority of the recent data would point to Foliar being most useful as a stopgap measure to compensate for a short term nutrient deficiency or environmental stress. While there seems to be no real risk associated with regular foliar treatments, as I suspected, there is no clear recent data that would point to regular foliar treatments being particularly useful.As with so many other things that involve our senses, what I suspect is we have a segment of the population that wants to foliar feed, and so therefore perceives positive results. Very common statistical phenomenon. Without carefully controlled, measured studies you simply cannot rely on anecdotal evidence to derive the correct answer there are thousands of variables in any given grow. Any statistician, scientist, etc would agree. Standard test protocol.What I also see is that the majority of so called "test data" readily available is from sellers of these products. Not surprising or unusual. To get to the "root" of the issue, you really need to dismiss sales marketing hype, pretty labels, and unfortunately testimonials from excited growers. As mentioned by others, you would be much further ahead to make sure the basic environmental conditions are met.While many experienced growers will scoff at this (that's their prerogative) the different forums are also full of very experienced growers that believe foliar feeding to be a limited use protocol. The opinion that foliar is of limited use is not at all limited to a newbies perspective. This is not meant to be fodder for argument. I'm not going to respond to idiotic responses, as they will drag me down to their level and beat me with experience. This thread has clearly seen enough of that. My original query was for links to recent objective data. I would be grateful for any links, but I will ignore the ignorant.
mugan
Well-Known Member
well i don.t really foliar feed but i use an organic pesticide that has boiled peppers, onions and garli, and very little milk and neem oil. so the mix has a lot of trace nutes, i grow organic so as long as i keep my soil full of food and good organisms the defs never happen, so i never really seen the foliar feed do much but never give the plants a chance to get deffs lolz
https://www.rollitup.org/organics/447480-molasses-debate-thread.html
Some compelling discussions in here from Coot
Some compelling discussions in here from Coot