Hey, this is Nate Storey at Bright Agrotech.
Today is part of our nutrient series, I'm going to talk quickly about sulfur.
We have the primary plant nutrients and everyone seeing this as NPK.
Then our secondary macro nutrients are calcium, magnesium and sulfur, we've already talked
about calcium, we've chatted about magnesium pretty quickly, today I'm going to quickly
address sulfur because a lot of people are concerned about it.
Sulfur is present in our system in the form of sulfate or SO4.
Sulfate is just floating around our system and the plants are taking it up, and they're
reducing it, and they're using it for things, mostly things like building amino acids and
other chemicals that are very important to the plant.
This is how sulfur occurs in the system.
Now you'll also notice that a lot of the amendments that we've talked about over the years are
sulfate-based amendments.
Potassium sulfate.
In the last video, we talked about epsom salts, magnesium sulfate.
I've heard it from a lot of different people.
I say "oh, well, use a potassium sulfate to help supplement potassium" and they say "okay,
that's great".
I'm really, really worried about having too much sulfate in my system.
Today I'm going to talk a little bit about that.
Sulfur toxicity, sulfate toxicity and we're just going to kind of debunk the idea that
sulfate is a problem in most aquaponics system.
Sulfate is almost never deficient.
I have yet to see an aquaponics system where there was a problem with sulfate being too
low.
I've also never seen a system where there's a problem with sulfate being too high.
Now, I will say that in aquaponics system, sulfates tend to run pretty high.
Some folks have systems that run up above hundreds parts per million, some even 180,
200 parts per million.
That's not necessarily a problem.
I will say, try to keep your sulfate below 60 parts per million ideally, but if it bumps
even way up above that, you're not going to be hurting your plants and you're probably
not going to be hurting your fish.
Now the worst thing that can happen is you'll start to see a little bit of a nitrogen deficiency
because what happens is this sulfate starts to interfere with nitrate uptake in the plants.
Long before you actually see any kind of toxicity, you're just going to see a reduction in your
nitrate use.
The way you recognize that is that nitrogen deficiency but when you test your water, you've
got high nitrates consistently.
That's one way to diagnose the fact that you got a little bit too much sulfate in your
system.
Is this something to be worried about?
Probably not.
Like I said, I've seen very few systems where sulfate is a problem.
Either too much of it or too little of it.
Remember, the plants can take up variable amounts of these compounds, if you've got
a little bit too much of something, often times the plants are just taking up extra,
that's called luxury consumption.
It's more than they need but it's not going to hurt them, it's not always going to help
them but it's certainly not going to hurt them.
That's important to remember.
When you're adding sulfate based supplements, a potassium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, that
kind of thing, most likely you're not going to have to be worrying about having too much
sulfate in your system, any kind of toxicity.
Feel free to add away until you start to see a loss of efficiency when it comes to nitrate
uptake.
Again, this is a really important plant nutrient.
Sulfur, plants use almost as much as of it as phosphate at different times.
This is definitely something you need in your system and you'll probably be supplementing
it in some form or another.
If you have been worried about sulfate, if you are using sulfate based supplements, stop
your worrying, keep an eye on your nitrate consumption.
Enjoy being able to supplement really potent forms of certain elements in combination with
sulfate and just enjoy the fact that you can have a really healthy system in a hurry using
sulfate-based supplements.
Hey, hopefully this video is really useful to you.
Definitely check out the vertical food blog after this video or post.
We'll definitely do a blog post on sulfate, on sulfur, why plants need it, how much is
too much, how much is too little, we'll go through some more of the details on the blog
and so check that out.
Also check out the store, if you're interested in towers, we've got a lot of new kind of
products coming out here in the next couple months so keep an eye on that.
Thanks so much for watching.
If you find these videos useful, do subscribe.
Hey, this is Nate Storey at Bright Agrotech.
Today we're going to talk a little bit about Magnesium as part of our ongoing series on
managing your nutrients in your aquaponics system.
We're adding potassium to the system.
Many folks who are adding like seaweed extracts, that kind of thing, they don't realize that
they're also supplementing potassium.