It's Jason here at Fraser Valley Rose farm
I wanted to take a quick video today on
Fertilizer and more specifically, I'm going to be looking at how not to over fertilize your plants
I'm going to show you with this gadget
called the direct-stick EC tester
And that'll show me when I've got too much fertilizer going into the soil so
Stand by and I'll get set up here
This is the gear I'll use to show you what I do for testing fertility and soil the
Tester itself is this one here. It's a
soil direct
EC probe now see it's built a little differently than some of the other ones on the market
The other ones usually have kind of a detachable probe or one on a wire that goes right down into a water solution
To test EC I find this very convenient, but not as accurate
to test directly in the soil, and I'll explain why in just a minute here
So I guess going back to the basics when you look at a plant that you're testing
the fertility. What you're not testing is the soil itself you're testing the water
that's in the soil because the water is what carries the fertilizer so to get a good reading of
what the fertility is in the soil what a lot of people use is what's called a pour-through EC test
And a pour-through EC test
I'm just opening my bottle of water here and
Ideally you should use distilled water for something like this
What you would do is pour a
Known amount of water in through the top of the pot
To force the water out from the bottom or the inside of the pot so then it dribbles through to the base
and I want to take a second to talk about the impracticality of this kind of test as
You're working in a nursery or greenhouse. So let's say I'm walking around and I'm trying to test
Many crops and I don't know whether any of them are in trouble
over fertility issues
going and walking around with a bunch of bowls like these or a bunch of pie plates or trays of some sort , and a
whole bunch of distilled water
Taking the time to make sure they have the right moisture level before I do it then
Pouring through and then waiting the allotted amount of time and then coming back
can be
A fair amount of time and follow up. Especially if what I really need to know is just if they're in trouble
So
going back to how to test with this thing this can test directly in water as well and
I've just stuck it in some water there and you're going to see that even water this waters directly from a water bottle
So even coming directly out it has some conductivity so that's what it's measuring is how electricity moves through water
If you remember your high school science classes if that were distilled water in there
it will probably be a much much lower rating, but just
be
conducting based on impurities that are in the water
so salts are what helps the water to conduct electricity. I
will show you here
that
I'm just adding in some calcium nitrate
to show you what happens to the to the
Reading there because it it definitely will go up. the other thing
I want to show you is that these are what I use a fair amount
For fertilizing and these are controlled release fertilizer
So when I incorporate that into the soil
usually at a known rate as I as I as I bag the soil or or mix the soil and
What will happen is over time it releases depending on moisture and temperature
So if the temperature went way higher than I was expecting or the roots aren't well enough established yet
And it's not taking up the fertilizer. What can happen is the controlled release fertilizer can begin releasing
faster than let the plant can take it up and so whereas you might expect to see a
fertility rate in your soil
Through the pour through test
and you found that the fertility were somewhere around 1.0 or
below 1.0 that will be appropriate for
the seedlings and cuttings and plants that don't need high fertility levels as you push up towards 1.5 and
2 and 2.5 you're moving into plants that require
Or that would be an appropriate level for plants that require a lot more fertilizer
So if you had a reading of two on a tomato that'd be okay
But if you had a reading of two on a brand-new stuck seedling, it would not be okay
That'd be that would probably not allow it to develop its roots properly so
That's what I'm looking for is that I'm trying to establish new plants, and I find that number through the pour through tests
to be very very high
Like in that two or three or four range, then I'm concerned that the plant isn't going to make it. here
I've taken and added and
Holy! five point five and five point four so just by adding a teaspoon of
That was calcium nitrate
The the water solution has become toxic to plants if you put that into a plant and try to grow it with it
that would burn the roots and
You've over fertilized your plant
So I'll return to this guy here in a minute. It hasn't really dribbled out
enough yet to give me a proper reading, so I want to show you how the
meter works as direct stick in
Soil if I'm testing it directly in the soil you're gonna see a very very low reading in fact
You're gonna see a lower reading trying to test and dry soil
then you would see as
water that comes directly out of the tap
If you think about it that makes sense the probe is gonna
Have a much harder time pushing electricity through soil that has all its air pockets and solids in it
then it would pushing it through the
The liquid what I've found in the past is that if you use a multiple of around four
You're gonna get the proper level. It's not accurate to the degree that pour through would be
But for my purposes, I don't actually need it to be accurate. I just need it to tell me when my plants are in danger
sticking this one through
0.3. What does that mean so times it by 4, and I get a 1.2
1.2 as I mentioned is an appropriate level for a plant that isn't requiring a whole lot of nutrients so
That's good. I'm
Happy with where that is you can see even with small movements in the soil that this fluctuates a little bit
that's ok if I'm doing that I can just stab it a few times and
sort of average it and as long as it doesn't make the
The results change too much. I'm happy to go with it now
I'm in winter now, and I wouldn't expect that a whole lot of anything
I have here because I haven't been fertilizing it recently is going to have much more
than if the equivalent of a point 8 to a
1.2
So I'm not able to be able to show you anything that actually is in danger unless I spiked it
purposely, so I'm gonna return back here and
show you
From the pour through test
And that's the leachate there
And see if I can get a number off of that one
Within the safe range
which is
Really all I needed to verify
So I'm gonna return this one back to its tray
And that is my quick and easy or fast and dirty way to
Check whether I've over fertilized the plants in my greenhouse
I hope this was helpful to you. I understand that it can get a bit messy when you start talking those numbers and conversions
But if you do have any questions
Or comments, please leave them below. Thank you