Fertilizer Injectors - What's Best For My System

[farmer d]

John thanks for the further input.  I just changed the inflow setting to the second lowest now in hopes of prolonging the life of the fert mixture in the tank.  My guess is that I was getting fert burn from the Quelant-K as I am using the same amount of special blend as Erny and I don't believe he has had any burning to date.

What I found very interesting and I think useful for others to know is that the last several days I have been getting yellow leaves again and the only thing I have changed was the feeding intervals from 1/2 hour once a day to 6 minutes 4 times a day in hopes of a more constant feeding schedule.

If I'm seeing yellow leaves after this change then I'm thinking that the soil isn't getting enough time to drain and allow the roots to breathe.  So I am switching back to once per day and let's see if the yellow leaves stop. 

Boy you sure learn something new everyday and you can't get frustrated easily.  Lots of twists and turns...

Farmer D

[Charlie]

If the yellow leaves get worse, please post some photos as there may be an altogether different problem getting started.

Charlie

[farmer d]

Thanks Charlie for the concern.  I feel confident that a bit too much water is the reason as when I got back from vacation it was obvious my plants were under watered and thinning out.  It is hard to know what that right balance is especially after just installing a drip system for the first time.  So I've been tinkering with different amounts of both water and fertilizer and the small amount of yellow leaves let me know I went a bit too far on the watering part in my book.

I see lots of new growth starting on all the plants now and we are about to begin our first hot stretch of the year with decent humidity so I am very excited about the next few weeks.  

By the way I added another 25 emitters to my back yard drip system so that makes a total of 52 there so that one month interval of changing out the fert mix might be too long now.  Wow that makes a grand total of around 130 emitters now for my two drip systems.  I am so glad I no longer have to hand fertilizer 130 plants which actually counting all my seedlings and others is pushing 200 now...

Farmer D

[davidwood]

Talk about learning and frustration Darren, I think getting the watering right is easily the biggest problem to overcome and get right, it certainly is here for me.

Its took me 5 years and I am still struggling, thing is I think growing Tropical Hibiscus in the Tropics is much different than the conditions most of you have in the US and most of the difference is the humidity, I read what Charlie says on the Website about watering twice a day in the high heat and I see you and Erny now have a system, if I was to do any of those things you all do I would have and have had problems.

Try and figure this Darren, if me and you where to have identical cv’s in the same pot, both left out in full sun [and remember the heat here is hellish hot, in fact unless you have been here you cant imagine how hot] you would need I reckon double the water I need, how strange is that.
I have Plumeria that need in this heat watering twice a day yet Hibs sat next to them that need watering twice a week. These cv’s are healthy, they are not suffering, in fact there biggest problem is me, I just cant get my head round the fact its so hot and they don’t need watering and stopping myself from giving it to them.

The only time I have to give plenty of water is the winter [72 to 80f and low humidity], like I say it’s took me 5 years to figure out just what a huge massive impact the humidity is having, problem is I am no scientist and it can’t be measured.
Strangely enough everything Charlie writes about high heat and watering applies to all the other none tropical plants in my garden, it’s just the Hibs and a few truly tropical plants that seem to have this ability to capture and use the high humidity effectively.

People may think that not having to give so much water is good, but the problem is how are they to be fed and Hibs love to have water running over the roots, that’s why I am trying to create a potting mix that will dry out fairly quickly, it may be ok that they are taking all there moisture from the high humidity but they are then unable to be given all the goodies they need.

Charlie wrote a good piece in the newsletter saying how they like a once a week spray, I will go further and say they absolutely love it, also Darren you spray a lot with Supernova which is a huge benefit but I think the water that’s with the Supernova should not be underestimated.

Like you say frustrating and trying to get it right is hard, which got me wondering, now you have your system are you still spraying as much? Also if the humidity is gong to get higher for you do you ever consider that that they may need less water from the drip?

I don’t know what you call high humidity, but I consider it high when my glasses steam up and I can’t see, which is most days here.

[Doll]

David, one thing you have to be careful of is potting your plants in too large of a container. I have found it very risky to take a one gallon plant and transplant it into a five gallon pot. I think it is much better to go from a one gallon pot to a two gallon pot. At least for me the chances of root rot are greatly reduced.

[farmer d]

David I think out of all of us you have by far the most challenging conditions - just look what you have to do to get new plants from Charlie.  My hat is off to you for your unwavering perseverance!  

Here in Southern California the key for Erny and I is the Pacific Ocean.  We both live roughly 8 miles inland from the ocean but there are no mountains to block that ocean air which is key as it acts like a giant refrigerator in summer keeping the temps from getting too hot - very rarely over 100F and in the winter it keeps the temps from getting below freezing except maybe a day or two each year.  So we don't get too high or too low which makes it possible to grow in the ground.  If you hop over the mountains directly behind our locations into the neighboring valleys just 5 miles away it is a totally different story as that ocean air isn't so dominant and you get stretches of sub-freezing temps every winter along with some very hot and dry weather off and on from April - Nov.

The other thing the ocean here does is it drastically affects the humidity.  The current off our coast is the California current which is cold - comes directly down the coast from Alaska.  This cold current keeps the air cooler and much drier as a result so we don't see much in the way of high humidity except for a couple stretches during the summer when strong high pressure systems build over the southwest and create a clockwise flow of air that picks up subtropical air over Mexico and pushes it towards us.

Bottom line is we don't get a lot of humid conditions here, in fact it is pretty dry a lot with winter being the driest time as far as humidity goes with many days under 20%.  The impact on my hibiscus is interesting as it could be a long mild stretch of dry weather so you would think you don't need to water much but with that low humidity the soil is quietly drying out and you wouldn't really suspect it.

I was shocked when in March I dug up the soil around my plants in the backyard in a south facing planter that gets lots of sun and the soil was totally dry around and below the rootball.  Tricky part is the top of the soil was wet from recent light rains and my watering but underneath was a disaster unfolding.  No wonder the plants there were doing nothing for many months but you wouldn't know if by looking at the top 3-4 inches of soil and that is with a protective layer of wood chips too.

So what I've learned is that I need to proactively water the soil through the entire planter as the drip system only gets a small area directly around the emitters and of course below as it soaks through the soil.  The rest of the soil needs to be hydrated in addition so that is where my sprinklers help out a lot as well as me just manually watering the "hot spots" regularly.

The other challenge here is that from one side of my yard to the other is like night and day difference in growing conditions.  South facing planters get very hot and dry out fast where as north facing stay much cooler and wet all day long.  In fact during winter when we had an unusual week long stretch of night temps around freezing in January all the plants that got hit were in the north facing planters.  With the low sun angle and the wall behind the plants shading the entire planter they didn't warm up quickly enough each day like all the other planters.  Even my 6 ft tall Palm Springs is just now starting to have it's first growing success of the year so significant effects even though it is much much taller than the wall behind it so it got plenty of sun but just not where it needed it most- the ground.

This also means that some planters I need to water a lot and others I need to be very careful and water lightly most of the year until the sun angle is high enough where the ground gets direct sun then I can water normally there too.

So we are in very different conditions from each other and the results on how we take care of our plants in my opinion are very different.  I must make up for lower humidity with more watering and when it gets hot here it is usually a dry heat so even more water is needed.  The trick is not going too far and seeing negative effects like I just did recently when I was trying to rehydrate the plants after being gone for three weeks.  It's tough to identify that balance point...

For you it is hot but you have the humidity so it makes sense that you don't have to water as much.  That is tough when the consensus is to water more as it gets hotter - I give you credit for hanging in there and figuring out that that is not meant for your conditions.  So now how do you deliver the fertilizers?   I am lucky I can combine mine with my drip system.

Maybe for you a spray approach where you don't have to spray the plants but maybe the soil?  I find that wood chips are great for slowing down soil evaporation so maybe that would help you if you decided to spray the soil directly and then cover it up?  By the way once we had our really cold stretch in January all the plants slowed down to a crawl and after that I used my SuperNova spraying as the primary means to hydrate the soil except for the south facing planters which needed more water as they get sun all year round.  Up until now it has been enough.

Even recently after I figured out I over watered a little bit since being back I stopped spraying for about 2 weeks now until I see the plants are back where they should be (no more yellowing leaves, tip die back and dropping buds).  Starting today it is going to really warm up so I'll probably begin spraying again shortly.

I know this is long and a lot of rambling but I hope there is some good information here for others to use.

Farmer D

[Ernest]

Very interesting and useful discussion. I think it points out that humidity is a huge factor in determining watering schedules--perhaps as important as absolute temperature level. Southern california is basically reclaimed desert so we have little or no humidity to speak of. David in Viet Nam and John in Houston would get a good laugh hearing life long residents here complaining about the humidity at times. The weather conditions here certainly make it easy to grow tropicals in the ground year round. The Sunset Western Garden book refers to the area several miles inland from the Pacific as the Protea belt because of these favorable conditions.

Erny

[davidwood]

David, one thing you have to be careful of is potting your plants in too large of a container. I have found it very risky to take a one gallon plant and transplant it into a five gallon pot. I think it is much better to go from a one gallon pot to a two gallon pot. At least for me the chances of root rot are greatly reduced.

Very good point John and one I figured out a couple of years back, I do have these 2 gallon pots now, they are pretty cheap rubbish but as they are sank in another larger pot they do the job.

[davidwood]

Very interesting and useful discussion. I think it points out that humidity is a huge factor in determining watering schedules--perhaps as important as absolute temperature level.
Erny

Also spot on Erny, that sentence above says what it took me a page to try and explain haha. The difficult bit for me is trying to believe just how important and true it is, it goes against all you think is right and normal, you go in the garden with your loved Hibs, and that same humidity that is making you sweat buckets is actually watering them and watering them a lot more than you can imagine.

[farmer d]

Erny great summary!

One other thing - spraying regularly with SuperNova is also a fantastic means to controlling the pests.  As I have not sprayed now for 2 weeks I am amazed at the amount of spider web nests all over my plants.  The leaves don't like it at all so I'm manually cleaning them...SuperNova is a great bug blaster so just another reason to spray regularly.

Farmer D

[davidwood]

Erny great summary!

One other thing - spraying regularly with SuperNova is also a fantastic means to controlling the pests.  As I have not sprayed now for 2 weeks I am amazed at the amount of spider web nests all over my plants.  The leaves don't like it at all so I'm manually cleaning them...SuperNova is a great bug blaster so just another reason to spray regularly.

Farmer D

It seems you are still spraying Darren but you never answered, do you still spray the same with the drip system, and sort of what I was getting at is if you go away for a week or 2 and are not spraying do you adjust the settings so it gets more water from the drip to make up for what its not getting from the spraying.

If you haven't then maybe that's why you had the yellow leaves, like I say I don't think you can underestimate the water it gets with the Supernova, if you are doing it regularly it becomes very valuable to them as a means of hydration and a bit like the high humidity here.

[farmer d]

David I literally finished installing my drip system the night before we left on vacation and just put the same settings as Erny has on his without any time to test out how different settings combined with spraying would affect the plants.  When I got back after three weeks and saw the signs of dehydration and thinning out of my plants it was obvious they were not getting enough water and humidity while gone.

They were missing the almost daily sprayings of supernova even though I added the drip system it wasn't enough to compensate for that loss of humidity as well as water it adds to the soil.  Sounds like you're right on regarding them getting used to the spraying.  It really is a key point that it creates the same type of localized high humidity and that is a big reason why I spray so often.  I really believe hibiscus need that especially here in arid Southern California.

A drip system only waters the soil in a small perimeter around the emitter unless you get emitters that sprays or mists instead of drips.  Mine all are drippers because I have sprinklers that get most of my planters additional water too which is another supporting point that the spraying really creates a better humid environment as the sprinklers I guess can't duplicate that same effect.

Being my drip system is new after getting back I then had to tinker with how much water is enough and went a bit too much but how are you going to know what the limits are with something new?  That is when I started seeing yellowing leaves (not a whole bunch along with bud drop and tip die back) so the plants have their way of telling you "too much now".  What is really interesting to me is this really showed itself after I changed my drip system to go on 4 times a day at 6 minute per session.  My thinking was the more constant feeding the better for the plants as it is more gradual and the system max permits 4 timed settings per day.  Seems that the soil didn't have a chance to drain enough for the roots to breathe coming on every 3 hours.  I guess once a day gives the water a chance to percolate down more - one would be hard pressed to anticipate these things ahead of time until they actually happen.  

Going forward I will still spray the same with the drip system on for 15 minutes once a day and see how that goes.  Right now I should be fine as it will be hot the next week but then it will cool down into the 70s again and I'll have to see if that requires some adjustments.  I'll update this thread if I do have to make any more adjustments.  Bottom line is spraying with supernova has several key benefits the biggest to me being the humidity factor which a drip system cannot compensate for.

Next time I'm gone I'm not sure how to make up for the me not spraying especially in October when it is more unpredictably hot here and dry.  My thinking is I need to have someone spraying at least 3 times a week where as this last trip I had someone spray just twice in three weeks.  I don't see the drip system as the answer to this issue, in my mind it is good for feeding and very localized watering.

One other thing too - I covered all my planters with wood chips to keep the soil moist and from drying out after losing my giant Bonnie Lass last year from severe under watering. So I learned the hard way soil moisture/humidity is very important but a separate thing compared to air humidity as I know while gone my soil was fine but no one was spraying which points to above ground humidity as another key focus.

Farmer D

[farmer d]

One major alteration to the changes I am making as I figure out the new balance with my drip system.  I am going to put it on one day a week for 30 minutes and see how that goes.  I gave this a lot of thought today and seeing the quick results already of having it shut off for a few days now while I have resumed spraying again shows that I have plenty of moisture already in my soil without adding the drip system.  Kind of following what I did last year that was successful here, feeding once a week.  Just now I turn on a switch - very nice!

Farmer D

[jpiper82]

Darren, Erny, David, I just completed my major install of 24 HVH cultivars, along with the install of a 2 gal EZ-Flo injector system. There are also 4 Hibiscus trees on the system, started it up and it works like a charm. I used 5 lbs of HVH Fert. and 5 lbs of HVH booster, along with a little over a quart of SuperNova. running it 30 min a day using 1GPH drippers . Here are a couple of pics

[Ernest]

John, that's great that you have that up and running. The set-up really looks nice. I especially like the grouping around the palm tree.

Erny