Do your overwintered plants need a topdress top-up?

As the New Year gets underway and we all hope that warmer, sunnier weather is on the horizon, our thoughts turn to early spring sales and how to ensure plants are looking their best, says Chloe Whiteside, Technical Area Sales Manager for East Anglia.

For plants you weren’t expecting to carry over from last season, the chances are the original nutrition programme may be running out of steam. Also, plants bought in from abroad may need a top-up. European growers generally use less controlled release fertilisers, relying on water-soluble products. Plants are therefore more likely to run out of nutrition in the spring, particularly if you grow them on outside, as high winter rainfall washes some nutrients away.

What benefits do controlled release topdress fertilisers offer?

Quality controlled release topdress fertilisers offer an easy and safe way to invigorate plants and have several benefits:

• Useful for long term, containerised plants
• Only one application is needed
• Quickly dissolves in moist compost
• Immediately available to the plant.

Top tips:

• Before applying topdress, ensure the top of the compost is free from leaves, debris and liverwort. While being good nursery hygiene practice, it improves marketability and ensures the topdress does not feed the liverwort!
• Apply topdress evenly across the surface of the compost, try not to place it in a heap
• If using drip irrigation, place topdress near the dripper, or water overhead after application.

What are the options?

Designed for container nursery stock, our controlled release Osmocote Topdress FT (22-5-6+2MgO+TE) contains fast and slow-release nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium plus magnesium and trace elements. It provides quick greening up as well as sustaining plant growth over a 4-5month period. Windy, wintery conditions can prove challenging with plants falling over. Our Osmocote Topdress FT (Fusion Technology) contains a unique component that sticks the product to the growing media surface. So, if plants fall over you haven’t wasted your time and money.

For growers simply looking for a quick green-up for overwintered stock, we offer OsmoTop (23-5-10+MgO+TE) with a 2-3month release. OsmoTop is ideal for quick greening or for fast corrections of deficiency symptoms.

Osmocote controlled release technology gives optimum results and safety in all situations.

Remember…

It is important to regularly monitor your crops for signs of nutrient deficiency, symptoms can often take a while to show. Substrate analysis will give a good indication of how much feed is remaining and will allow you to plan when to topdress so that you get maximum benefit from the product you are using.

Did you know? Nutrient deficiencies identification and corrrection

• We are now tackling topical nutrient deficiencies in Technical Matters each month.
• For a copy of ICL’s popular nutrient deficiencies poster, contact your Technical Area Sales Manager.