Video: How Do Crops Respond to Phosphorus Fertilizer?

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Phosphorus fertilizer will give crops more blooms and provide a little extra nutrition in the late fall and winter. Feed plants with a rich compost, plenty of water and lots of sun in order to avoid having to use artificial phosphorus fertilizers with advice from a sustainable gardener in this free video gardening and fertilizer.

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Video Transcript

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we are going to talk about how do crops respond to Phosphorus Fertilizer? Now we all know about nitrogen because that is what most fertilizers have a large percentage of nitrogen in them. So my theory about fertilizer is just like our diet. Fertilizer is like a vitamin so if your plants have good compose or really good organic matter that means leaves or grass clippings or any type of foliage that is dying back it breaks down and it gives them their energy and gives them their vitamins that they need for the next year. So you really don't need to fertilize your plants if you are giving them good organic composts. That's number one and when you are giving them compost in the cycle of the plant, they grow, they are beautiful, they bloom, they die back in the Fall and they mulch themselves. When they die down all the leaves drop and they mulch themselves and then in the Spring the mulch dies back and makes great soil. It is organic and then when the plant grows in the Spring it needs nitrogen. Nitrogen is for the greenery so it will take all the nitrogen out of the soil to grow the lush greenery. Well by the time Summer hits nitrogen is gone. There is not a lot of nitrogen left in those grass clippings or in your compost or any type of organic matter, it breaks down and that is when the Phosphorus is important because Phosphorus is needed for the bloom so for a plant to bloom well it needs Phosphorus so it is a wonderful mineral that is needed for your plant and then in the Fall your plant needs Phosphorus to survive the Winter so if you give it, keep giving it nitrogen based fertilizers through the Fall you are not really doing the plant any favors because then they are getting rid of their Phosphorus. They are not using, they are not saving up for the Winter. So if you let them use their own energy and use their own Phosphorus out of the ground that's the best way to do it but you can always add some Phosphorus fertilizer to your plants to get more blooms and to give them a little more oomph for the Winter and a little bit goes a long way with Phosphorus. The plants will bloom a lot better and be more colorful if you give them a little Phosphorus but in the end you don't want to give them too much either because you can actually poison them because plants are just like us. They can't handle too many minerals at one time. So in the end if it is not broke don't fix it. Give your plants really good compost, let them go through that cycle of taking in the nitrogen and then the Phosphorus in the Fall and they need that Phosphorus to survive the Winter because they have found that plants have the most Phosphorus in their system in the Fall so that they can survive the cold Winters. So it is a good way you can help your plant by giving them fertilizer but in the end compost is all they really need.

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How Do Crops Respond to Phosphorus Fertilizer?

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