IS SHEEP DUNG A GOOD SOURCE OF FERTILLIZER IF I ADD IT TO THE CONTAINER DURING WINTER?


I WANT MY CITRIUS TO BE NATURAL FREE FROM CHEMICALS.

Composted animal manures can be good for citrus, but should be kept at least 6" from the trunk to avoid root rot. When it comes to fertilizer, plants only take it up in the forms supplied in regular commercial fertilizer, such as NO3 for nitrogen, so when you apply manures they have to be broken down into the same "chemicals" as supplied in commercial fertilizer.

In addition, depending on what the animals may have been eating the manure is more likely to have "pesticides" than comercial fertilizers. Even fish meal will have all of the toxic chemical commonly found in the environment--DDT, PCB, Mercury, ect. I do use composted manures on my garden and my inground citrus trees as soil conditioneres and slow release fertilizers, but the majority of macronutrients for my plants comes from regular fertilizer. -- Just my opinion based on 30 yrs experience as an environmental chemist.

Applying animal manures to citrus trees planted IN THE GROUND is common practice in tropical and subtropical countries, particularly in Asia. In the western industrialized countries it has been replaced by chemical fertilizers. The rate of manure applied normally is 25-pounds of manure per 100 square feet (10 X10). The main problem with manures on citrus trees is that manure cannot supply enough nutrition to satisfy the nutrient requirements of citrus trees. This is especially true of soluble potassium. Citrus are heavy feeders. Further the amount of manure that can be applied to a container will not come close to supplying the needs of the tree. Sheep manure is quite low in its nutrient value. GOOD QUALITY sheep manure only contains 0.7% nitrogen, 0.3 % phosphate and 0.9% potassium. Further unless the sheep manure has been kept moist and compact while in storage the first change is the loss of nitrogen by the formation of ammonia where nitrogen is lost into the atmosphere.. It is your tree and you can certainly do whatever you wish, but it is also certain that your tree will produce a lower crop, unless it receives the additional nutrition it requires. Actually, there is a history of organic citrus (planted in the ground) in the USA, and the crop from organic groves has always been considerably lower than trees fertilized by the standard method. Lastly, nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen, a citrus tree cannot tell the difference between nitrogen supplied by organic, or by chemical fertilizers. In actuality, nature has made manure from guess what?......entirely from chemicals. Good luck to you and your tree. - Millet

thanks alot for the useful tips. i was wondering what kind of fertillizers do you recomend? when to add it and how much and how often?

is urea enough?

If your citrus is in a container, you need to use a fertilizer with a 5-1-3 NPK ratio. Urea provides only N. In addition urea can contain biuret which is toxic to citrus, so if you use urea, make sure it is low in biuret.

In addition to NPK, your tree needs trace minerals like Cu, Zn, B, Mg, Mn, Fe. Some commercial fertilizers are formulated with these trace minerals, some are not--if not you need to add them separately.

You do not want to use Urea on citrus, due to the biuret content in urea. Citrus, is more sensitive than most crops to biuret, an impurity present in urea fertilizers. Biuret causes yellow chlorosis that starts at the leaf tip. Young leaves are more vulnerable than old ones, and affected leaves do not regreen. Your tree will require a complete NPK fertilizer that contains trace minerals. - Millet.

great info. thanks

do i ad NPK once a week starting from november till spring?

If it is a container tree, you can fertilize it once a month--year round-- using granular fertilizer, but cut the amount in half during winter. If you use a fertilizer dissolved in water, you can use it with each watering if you use a fertilizer concentration in water with 250 ppm N. Or, you can choose to use a slow release fertilizer like Osmocote once ever 3-4 months.