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Plant Fertilizers Tips and Ideas
Planting, Fertilizing, And Protecting Sunflowers
Even though sunflowers have been cultivated for hundreds of years, professional growers are still discovering new methods for increasing output and improving the overall quality of the crop. Plus, as new uses for the byproducts of sunflowers (seeds, oil, etc.) are developed, the crop acreage has increased. Today, nearly 3 million acres are cultivated annually in the U.S. alone.
Below, I'll describe how to plant sunflowers to ensure your crop, large or small, maintains its quality. I'll also provide a few tips for fertilizing and protecting your crop while it grows.
Planting Your Sunflowers
Sunflower crops can usually be planted as early as April, though many farmers wait for May when the weather is warmer. The higher temperatures allows for quicker drying and an earlier harvest. When you're planting sunflowers, keep in mind that the crop output (in seeds) is often inversely correlated to seed rate (or, plants per acre). In other words, sunflower heads tend to produce larger quantities of seeds when the crop is thin. As a rule of thumb, plan to have approximately 20, 000 seeds per acre. Also, the wider the rows, the more easily you can manage the weeds.
The sunflowers should be planted approximately 1 1/2 inches deep once the soil is warm enough (at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit). In some locations, this can require waiting until May, when higher temperatures are prevalent. One quick note: sunflowers are more vulnerable to birds later in the season. The earlier they're planted, the earlier they can be harvested, limiting the damage potential.
Fertilizing Your Crop
Sunflowers are normally resilient crops as long as they have a source of necessary nutrients. These include potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen. If these nutrients are not plentiful in the soil, you'll need to use a fertilizer to supply them. Your crops will respond best to the fertilizers when the soil is lacking in sufficient nutrients and the weeds are actively managed.
Most fertilizers will have a series of ratings on the packaging (for example, 20-20-10). These ratings are referred to as the "analysis" of the fertilizer. They represent the percentages of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that are found within it. A solution with a 10-15-10 analysis should be sufficient for small crops planted in late April or early May.
Protecting Your Sunflowers
There are a number of things that can impact your crop and cause damage, including weeds, insects, and disease. Weeds are an issue and should be controlled, but the size and aggressiveness of sunflowers make weeds less of a problem than insects and disease. In many locations, the crop may attract large numbers of cutworms and grasshoppers in its earliest stages of growth. But, the real problem occurs when the sunflowers' heads begin to grow. Insects often attack the portion of the stem located directly below the heads. Fortunately, you can use one of several types of effective insecticides to protect the stems and heads.
There are a few dozen diseases that can impact your sunflowers, though your crops are most susceptible to fungi (during the early stages), sclerotinia, and bacteria. One of the best ways to prevent the spread of disease through your sunflowers is to follow proper rotation methods and limit cultivating the crops in the same soil to once every 3 years.
It's likely that sunflower acreage will continue to increase as the world pursues further development of the crop as a multi-use natural resource. To maintain optimum crop output while preventing damage from insects and disease, follow the advice provided above. Over time, planting, fertilizing, and protection methods will probably change. As they do, professional sunflower growers will need to adapt.
This sunflower information is brought to you by The Sunflower Guy, the best way to send a bouquet of sunflowers anywhere.Article Source: ArticlesBase.com
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Please help! Fungus on tomatoes!?
We have five one-inch tomato seedlings growing in small pots. In an attempt to give them extra nutrients without using fertilizer, we buried egg yolks in the dirt next to the seedlings (in our defense, I've heard someone swear to god this works). Now, there is what looks an awful lot like mold growing on the surface of the soil. I'm pretty sure this fungus is from the eggs, and not from the dirt itself. Help! Is this going to harm our tomato plants? What can we do to help them? It would be awful if they died because of something stupid we did D':
On a side note, when should you start giving tomato plants fertilizer? How much of it should you use?
Thanks :)
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Black algae in my fish tank?
I have a 75lt cold water fish tank, which I have for over 2 years. Have 2 fancytails goldfish in it. (please dont lecture me on how small my tank is etc, because my fish are very happy and i never had any problems with the water balance) I have light and reflector, and a eheim aquaball filter. Recently about 3 weeks ago I added 3 new plants into the tank. The petshop guys advised me to put in "love fish plant fertiliser" since then my fish tank has started growing black algae in it. I think that it could be that plant fertiliser,my question is.
How do I get rid of the algae that's invading my fishtank and the plants! I see that it's growing everywhere, I've started doing the water changes every 2nd day. Does not seem to be helping. Help me please..
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Could I be having an allergic reaction to plant fertilizer?
Friday evening I as planting Oleander in my yard. I was using Dynamite all purpose indoor/outdoor plant food. The bottle with the cap off tipped over in the drive way. I started picking up the fertilizer pebbles and placing it back in the bottle. I was using my bare hands, and forgot to wash my hands afterwards. About three hours later when I was going inside, I washed my hands then.
I don't remember having any problems Saturday. Sunday morning I woke up feeling very tired. After church I went to sleep for most of the day. Later that night, still very tired, I started getting a very bad headache. I went back to bed to sleep for the night. Then around 3:30am I woke up needing to use the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, I started feeling nauseous. I looked into the mirror and was shocked how pail I looked. I started walking to the door and blacked out and fainted. As soon as I hit the floor I came to. I hit my head and nose on something...
I got up and just barely was able to walk back to my bed. Ten minutes later I tried getting up to change my shirt. Same thing happen, I felt like I was going to faint again. My mother took my temp, it was 99.7 and stayed that way until 11am.
I'm a healthy person. I haven't had any medical problems and I'm not over weight. This is the only thing I can think of.
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The concentration of copper (II) sulfate in one brand of soluable plant fertilizer is 0.070% by weight.?
If a 22.0 gram sample of this fertilizer is dissolved in 2.0 L of solution, what is the molar concentration of Cu2+?
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hardiest carpet plant?
I want to try and grow a plant carpet in my tank, but I want to try with the easiest possible! In my tank are two 30W tube lights. Is this considered 'high' lighting? The ph is about 7.5. Any help? Thanks. Also, would I need to buy any plant fertilizer's? I also have common amazon sword, could this do with them also? Oh and I have a sand substrate, is a carpet still possible?
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Are these levels ok in my aquarium?
pH 7.40
Nitrate 10-20 PPM
Nitrite 0.50
Ammonia 0.00
I have two goldfish (small commons), three mollies (swordtail, black, and balloon), and two gouramis (pearl dwarf, and tri-spot). I keep the temperature at 76 F and add 1 teaspoon of salt for 5 gallons. I also have a 55 gallon and I have live plants and use a water conditioner with plant fertilizer added.
If any of the levels shown above should be different please let me know. Thanks.
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Concerns about PCP/ or just harmless fad?
My younger friend has recently began hanging out in the smokers community. She recently said she found a "new awesome drug that is legal, and doesn't show up on drug tests". I'm *HIGHLY* trying to discourage this behavior. Here's the thing:
This "legal drug" she's been smoking with her friends she says is a combination of "tea leaves and sherm", which she says is a bonsai plant fertilizer. Upon googling it I saw that "sherm" is actually PCP.
So can anyone tell me: Am I being naive and this stuff actually exists, or is she smoking a very harmful substance that I need to warn her against? Thank you for your help!
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Is it safe to mix and store plant fertilizers?
Let's say I have separate plant fertilizers for nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Each fertilizer may contain a little of each element, but each will be stronger in one that both others and all may contain smaller amounts of other elements such as calcium, magnesium, etc.
In other words, fert1 is mostly nitrogen, fert2 is mostly potassium and fert3 is mostly phosphorus.
Is it safe to mix these three fertilizers and store them?
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Element questions please help?
Name each of the following binary covalent compounds
A. N4O6
B. SiO2
C. S2F10
D. SbCL5
Calculate the formula mass for the following household compounds.
A. Lye drain Cleaner, NaOH
B. Epson salts, MgSO4
C. Aspirin, C9H8O4
D.Plant fertilizer, CA(H2PO4)2
E.Dampness absorber, CaCL2 . 6H20
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I used aquatic plant fertilizer tablets?
Well I put some fertilizer tablets in my aquarium, buried them under the substrate near the roots. But then my pH went waaay up to 8.2 and caused a spike in nitrite. Is this supposed to happen? I'm guessing it's from stuff in the fertilizer? Anyways my fishes weren't too happy with that.. one of them died and I did a partial water change and then the next morning my other fish had bacterial infection in its fins (red spots and streaks). They were perfectly fine before I added this stuff. It also clouded the water (a brown color) but it settled the next day and wasn't as cloudy. It's been several days and all the levels are almost back to normal again. So was it from the fertilizer? Should I like.. never put this stuff in my fish tank again or what??
Since I added it I've done partial water changes every day to accomplish getting the levels this close to normal again BTW.
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I need an idea for a lab, please?
I have to maka a design for an experiment and I can't think of an experiment!
Some examples were: do carrots improve eyesight? which plant fertilizer works best?
Any ideas? Thanks!
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can you solve this math problem better than brute force?
Okay, here's the problem. Let's imagine you have 3 plant fertilizers. Each of them has a different amount of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Let's say these are the amounts:
fert1 has N: 15, P: 4, K: 6
fert2 has N: 2, P: 40, K: 5
fert3 has N: 0, P:9, K: 18
You can see that fert1 has mostly nitrogen, fert2 has mostly phosphorus, fert3 has mostly potassium.
Let's say my ideal fertilizer would have values 7,7,7.
Let's say I wanted to mix certain amounts of these three given ferts together to get a fertilizer as close to 7,7,7 as possible. How would you solve this?
I used matrices and found a solution, but the solution gives me negative amounts (as in use so much of fert1 and remove so much of fert2) which obviously is of no use. So a constraint is that the proportion of each fertilizer must be a positive number.
I also tried brute forcing it in a program, but it's really slow.
I doubt anyone will give me a sensible answer, but it's worth asking just in case.
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How do I get rid of blue green algae in my 20 gallon planted tank?
4 months ago I changed my substrate from black gravel mixed with iron supplement, to black flourite sand. At the time I was very impatient and didn't wash the flourite before I put it in the tank, the water only cleared after heavy filtration and filter floss. Then I installed 2 new 30 watt fluorescent bulbs. Since then I've been having blue green algae grow all over my plants and in thick carpets on the substrate. My lights are on for 9 hours a day, I haven't been using plant fertilizer for several months.
Is the unrinsed flourite the cause of the blue green algae? What can I do to get rid of it?
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CHEMISTRY EQUATION?!!?!?
One essential step in the manufacture of many plant fertilizers is the production of nitrogen monoxide gas, NO(g). This step is represented by the following balanced equation:
4 NH3(g) + 5 O2(g) ---> 4 NO(g) + 6 H2O(l)
Determine the amount of oxygen needed to produce 1.2 X 104 mol of nitrogen monoxide gas.
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In plant fertilizers why would the metals be present as compounds? and what metals are they?
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