Can someone please educate me about Liquid Organic Fertilizer?

Question

I want to know about the advantages and disadvantages, and the researches that can back them up. Where have these researches been done and in what countries is the fertilizer been used now. Is it better than the normal chemical fertilizers?

Answer 1

If you are referring to liquid organic fertilizers that you can buy, the advantages are readily available nutrients and of course it is organic, whatever you think that is worth. The disadvantage is the cost you will be paying for the nutrients you receive. Price per unit of nutrient would make using this fertilizer on a large scale farm prohibitive. If you are raising a small garden or flower bed you may be able to afford to go this route.

A much better and much cheaper way would be to make your own. A compost tea or a manure tea can be made by soaking a burlap bag filled with compost or manure and soak it in a barrel of water for seven days to two weeks. The primary benefit of the tea will be a supply of soluble nutrients, as well as bio-active plant compounds, beneficial microbes, and the beneficial metabolites of microbes.

I can't see much advantage to the compost tea over applying the compost its self, unless you are growing hydroponically. With the compost you would get everything that is in the tea plus more nutrients and the advantages of the organic matter.

If you need references Goggle liquid organic fertilizer and/or organic teas, and you will find plenty.

Answer 2

The only thing I can add to Johns answer is the compost tea has an increased advantage if it is aerated, thus increasing the beneficial bacteria in the organic fertilizer.

Also when you use chemical fertilizers you render the soil sterile, and the microbes that would normally be alive in the soil to convert organic mater to nutrients just doesn't happen anymore. You can tell this by smelling the soil, a commercial farmers soil has no smell and looks like lifeless dirt. An organic farmers soil is very rich looking and has a very pleasant earthy smell.

Answer 3

One problem about these liquid organic fertilizers that are produced and marketed is that they completely defeat the purpose of organic farming/ gardening. The are all so outrageously expensive for a product that we all can find local inexpensive sources for. They are shipped at great expense (liquids are heavy and costly) by truck and train and boat and that requires fuel (and all the implications of fuel burning, fuel use and procurement, etc). They are packed in plastic (sometimes glass) with boxes and protectors that are just more items to discard, reuse, or recycle. They all claim to be such superior forms of miracles in the way they cause plants to grow with all kinds of manipulated statistics and wild claims. Seaweed super-hooey, emulsified fish gurry cookie dough, the names go on and on and the money is HUGE!

Here is the real deal and trust me because I know. I spent a lot of time and money on a great education and have been in the industry. The products are all fine and dandy but when you learn how they work you will see what I mean. Plants grow in the ground, for the most part, and the roots of the plant are responsible for taking in the nutrients in the form of the SOIL SOLUTION. The roots take in the elements as they exist, dissolved in water. These elements are basically the anions and cations, positively and negatively charged components of molecules, and the elements themselves. They must be in solution and they are not used any other way. A root will not take in a solid. A root also needs oxygen just as much as the leaves do, and even in hydroponics they still must have some or they will drown. Period! All I have said above is fact, law which may not be broken. So what makes all that stuff good?

Plants need the major 3 components that are the basis of the bag specifications that we see today; in order they are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. In short they are given as percents but not really in reality, but close enough for this discussion. There are also 12 minor nutrients which (all) plants need. Without them in the right amounts the major 3 are useless. That is the difference between a good fertilizer and a cheap useless one. Keep in mind that the best fertilizer is of no value at all if the pH of the soil solution at each different plant's root system is not right. Each of the fertilizer anions and cations will only be available in the right amounts if it is in the right pH. Too high or too low and it is out of whack and when one is screwed up it throws the other off. That is why a plant likes to have certain soil pH. It evolved like that over millions of years and if you don't give them that they will do poorly and may even die. Threw breeding we can change it some, but not a lot. It is just the way it is for more reasons than I can go into. What does that have to do with all the liquid organics? I'm getting there! Don't rush me!

Those products are good in that they supply a lot of those great micro-nutrients that can be missing due to poor soil, or used up soil, or inert potting medium, or any number of problems. The point of building up a good compost or adding manure, encouraging soil bacteria/ fungus/ worms and all the good practices is that it does right in your soil what these liquids "claim" to do but can never really accomplish because you are getting the product when you really want to encourage the live soil for yourself. A good alive soil makes all the micros and macros, makes the humus and humic acid components that it vital. A jug can mimic but won't do it. Plants evolved to take advantage of the niche that is that rich living soil that covers everything, and it incorporates it into the cycles of life (and death). Those expensive products? When you know about nutrients you see that you can make your own manure tea, and you can make your own seaweed and fish gurry tea, and encourage your own humus and humic acid contents with soil bacterias and worms and other soil flora/ fauna. Don't fall for the trap of foliar feeding beats all! It is not proven! Plants do not take those nutrients into their leaves. If anything it is the shape of the upper plant that guides the liquids to the best place in the soil to find the root ends and root "hairs".

In short and for the most part, plants don't really care where the food comes from and in what source, organic or chemical, except to say that there is more to be had from an organic living soil and the huge numbers and differences in organics, as was meant to be. With knowledge you should be able to find all of the components you need in your own home town either free or at reduced cost and get so much more out of them. Spend your change on that and on a good book about composting and organic gardening. That is even free at the library! If you need more on this, give me a hollar! Obviously I like to talk about it!

Answer 4

In southern Ontario a lot of farms do use liquid organic fertilizer, or let us otherwise describe it as manure that has been stored covered with liquid, and which is applied as a liquid, pumped down tubes affixed to the back of  cultivator tines.

This storage method is often part of a methane production system, and because so much of the solid material has been digested away, we have a fairly concentrated form of plant nutrients.

When it comes time to plant the corn, the liquid fertilizer is tested for  nutrient content, and diluted with water to a standardized level, then applied in accordance with soil test recommendations.

We are concerned that the use of the methane digester may leave the soil deprived of carbon content, as compared with simply distributing the whole manure.

However, the digester invariably heats the manure to 60C for a week or more, so concerns about pathogens is minimized.

Is this better than chemical fertilizer? It contains all the elements used to grow the crops in the exact ratios required, including every micro nutrient. So, repeated use of the soil would not produce a depleted soil.

But in a very real sense this manure derivative is a chemical fertilizer.

Cost? Farmers and feedlot operators absolutely must use the manure they produce, or find someone else to use it. They are not permitted to leave manure piled for years to become well rotted manure. So, these methods provide the farmer with moderately priced plant nutrients, spread thinly enough to avoid burning of crops.