Friday, June 28, 2013

Why Urea Fertilizer is The King of Fertilizers?

What is Urea Fertilizer?
We all know that most fertilizers provide three primary nutrients: NPK. Nitrogen initiates vegetative growth. Phosphorous improves roots and flowering. Potassium can strengthen resistance to shock such as extremes in temperature or insect attack. Urea is one concentrated source of available nitrogen.
Why Urea Fertilizer is The King of Fertilizers?
Urea fertilizer is the most important nitrogenous fertilizer. There are two main reasons for urea fertilizer to be the king of fertilizers.
Firstly, it has high nitrogen content about 46 percent.
Secondly, it is a white crystalline organic chemical compound. It is neutral and can adapt to almost all the land. It is a waste product formed naturally by metabolizing protein in humans as well as other mammals, amphibians and some fish.
Thirdly, urea is widely used in the agriculture sector both as a fertilizer and animal feed additive.
The main function of urea fertilizer is to provide the plants with nitrogen to promote green leafy growth. It can make the plants look lush, and it’s necessary for the photosynthesis of plants. Urea fertilizer can provide only nitrogen, no phosphorus or potassium, so it’s primarily used for bloom growth and vertical height may not be desired.
Advantages of Urea Fertilizer
* Highest nitrogen content. This percentage is much higher than other available nitrogenous fertilizers in the market.
* The cost of production of urea is relatively low .
* Not subject to fire or explosion hazards, so there is no risk in the storage of urea.
* Wide application. Urea fertilizer can be used for all types of crops and soils and has no harm the soil.
Disadvantages of Urea Fertilizer?
* Very soluble in water and hygroscopic water, and requires better packaging quality.
* Not as stable as other solid nitrogenous fertilizers, decomposes even at room temperatures that results in serious loss.
* If urea contains impurities more than 2 percent, it cannot be used as a fertilizer, since the impurities are toxic to certain crops, particularly citrus.

How to Use Urea Fertilizer?
1. Urea should be applied at the time of sowing. It should not come in contact with the seeds. It also can be applied as a top dressing.
2. Since urea is highly concentrated, it should be used in combination with earth or sand before its application.
3. It should not be applied when the soil contains free water or is likely to remain wet for three or four days after application.

Tips of Blending Urea with Other Fertilizers
Urea is readily blended with monoammonium phosphate or diammonium phosphate. But, urea must not be mixed with any superphosphate unless applied immediately after blending, because urea reacts with superphosphate liberating water molecules. This will produce a damp material that is hard to store and apply.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

How to make rational use of fertilizer?

All fertilizers supply plants with the nutrients they need to be in tip-top shape and for normal growth. Proper fertilizer use in agriculture can not only improve soil quality, promote healthy growth, increase crop yields, and improve the utilization rate of fertilizer.
 Organic fertilizers are composed of natural ingredients from plants or animals. Examples include manure and plant parts such as leaves and peanut hulls. Compost, a blend of plant debris broken down by natural processes, is also considered a natural or organic fertilizer. Inorganic fertilizers, on the other hand, are manufactured from minerals or synthetic chemicals. Both organic and inorganic fertilizers supplement the soil and feed plants with nutrients.
However, organic and inorganic fertilizers supply nutrients to soil in different ways. Organic fertilizers create a healthy environment for the soil over a long period of time, while inorganic fertilizers work much more quickly, but fail to create a sustainable environment. Choose the one that best fits your needs, or consider combining them to get the best of both options.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

How to Grow Our Plants Well?


We all know that our crops and plants need a number of different chemical elements to grow and thrive well and luxuriantly. The most important are:
* Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen - Available from air and water and therefore in plentiful supply
* Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (a.k.a. potash) - The three macronutrients and the three elements you find in most packaged fertilizers
* Sulfur, calcium, and magnesium - Secondary nutrients
* Boron, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc - Micronutrients
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are needed in the largest quantity by a plant. They are important because they are necessary for these basic building blocks. For example:
* Every amino acid contains nitrogen.
* Every molecule making up every cell's membrane contains phosphorous (the membrane molecules are called phospholipids), and so does every molecule of ATP (the main energy source of all cells).
* Potassium makes up 1 percent to 2 percent of the weight of any plant and, as an ion in cells, is essential to metabolism.

Without nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the plant simply cannot grow. If any of the macronutrients are missing or hard to obtain from the soil, this will limit the growth rate for the plant. In nature, the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium often come from the decay of plants. The recycling of nitrogen from dead to living plants is the only source of nitrogen in the soil.
The goal of fertilizer is to make plants grow faster. We can supply the elements that the plants need in readily available forms to meet the plants need. Most fertilizers just supply nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium because their availability has the big limitation to growth. And the other chemicals are needed in much lower quantities and are generally available in most soils.
The numbers on a bag of fertilizer tell us the percentages of available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium found in the bag. So 12-8-10 fertilizer has 12-percent nitrogen, 8-percent phosphorous and 10-percent potassium. In a 100-pound bag, therefore, 12 pounds is nitrogen, 8 pounds is phosphorous and 10 pounds is potassium. The other 70 pounds is known as ballast and has no value to the plants. Plants are factories that do all of the work to process the basic elements of life and make them available to us.