Aaron, why not make one for citrus? The ratio 5-1-3 can be easily achieved with ammonium sulfate, complete fertilizer and sulpomag, and all you needed to do is add some micronutrients. The ratio would also be perfect for avocadoes.

The reason why Four Winds Growers should do it is that the ratio cannot be found from the local stores that I know of, although there are citrus/avocado fertilizers but they don't fit the ratio billing. It would be easier for us to recommend rather than showing the mathematical calculations to novices on how to arrive at such ratios from other commonly available fertilizers. The ratio 5-1-3 is not patented as there are tons of previous literature about it. While I truly love mathematics, statistics, operations research and other actuarial type problems, a vast majority doesn't want to deal with the calculations. So customers will be buying convenience rather than exercise their brains on Math. And we would be recommending such ratios if they are easily available as we can tell specific brands. This is just a suggestion.

When citrus is growing perhaps a higher N ratio is needed which can be easily supplemented with cheapo ammonium sulfate, but for maintenance and production, 5-1-3 is ideal

Believe me Joe we have tried to convince Romeo to make us a citrus specific food that we could sell directly to consumers, but with no luck. I’ll have to bring up the topic again because there is clearly a need.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Just about everything written on this thread is more or less correct. In actually, citrus is really not all that fussy about the type of fertilizer used for trees planted in the ground. A healthy citrus tree absorbs 5 parts nitrogen to every 1 part phosphorus and 3 parts potassium. Therefore a 5-1-3 ratio is an optimum ratio to use especially in an enclosed container. However, 5-1-3 is not written in stone. Many container growers have produced very nice trees using formulas such as 30-10-10, 27-6-12, 6-6-6 and so on, plus various Osmocote formulations. Nitrogen and potassium can easily be flushed from the growth medium when out of balance, and phosphorus also if it is in the water soluble form such as monoammonium phosphate. More and more companies are using water soluble forms of phosphates in their fertilizer formulations.. In fact the European Economic Community requires 93% of the available P in commercial normal and triple superphosphate fertilizers to be in the water soluble form.

Hi,

I'm new to this site and enjoy reading (and learning) new things from you guys here (JoeReal, Millet, Skeeter, Laaz, bencelest, etc).

From my reading in the Citrus Growers Forum archive, it seems 5-1-3 is the magic ratio citrus people shoot for.

I bought a CaraCara citrus tree from HomeDepot and a LisbonLemon tree from Regan Nursery (both FourWindsGrowers trees). On the information tag from FourWindsGrowers, it states:

"Growing Tips - Regularly use a balanced fertilizer with trace minerals, N-P-K ratio at 3-1-1 is best. "

Because I couldn't find the 5-1-3 formula fertilizer, I decided to use "what's left in my garage" Schulz Greenhouse 30-10-10 (or 3-1-1) acid-loving fertilizer for Azalea, Camellia, Rhododendron on both the citrus trees. It has been several months and they haven't died on me yet (knock on wood ). The CaraCara seems to like the stuff because it's growing like crazy right now. The tree is still putting out new leaves and the branches are getting longer. Also, my once-yellow-leaves-on-the-top LisbonLemon tree (from the store) now is getting back its greenish color. No leaf drops.

I'm what one would call a lazy gardener. Anyway, I use the 30-10-10 fertilizer on my Keitt Mango tree too and it hasn't died yet. I'm in Northern Cal and we have been getting chilly 40-45F nights and 60-65F days. My citrus and mango trees (all in containers) are outside in the backyard.

1) I'm wondering why FourWindsGrowers is recommending 3-1-1 when the magic ratio among Citrus Growers is 5-1-3 ???

2) Side topic: I've read in the archive that one should NOT be using "play sand" with their soil mix. When I studied the soil that FourWindsGrowers use for their trees, their soil is very very sandy. The sand seem to be finer than "play sand" and they use a lot of it. I am wondering why most of their trees look so healthy at the store...

Your input is greatly appreciated....

The ratio is not magic. It was done scientifically by several researches mentioned by Millet. I used to work with Rice Research and we do that kind of studies, and we call it mass balance. We use radioisotopes of nutrients in order to account accurately for everything, and what gets retained by the plant, what goes into the soil, what has transformed, what has lost, what has harvested, what goes into dead leaves, etc. In mass balance, everything will be accounted for.

When I mention steady state, it means assuming constant harvest, constant growth on an annual basis, and this means you need to replenish constantly what is lost. And the ratio of the things that were lost is 5-1-3 and so what you should supply is 5-1-3.

Of course citruses, like other plants, will tolerate other ratios, and assuming if most of your fertilizers are soluble, then most of those will leached out, with the plant taking only what it needed. Thus I mentioned, in case there will be wastage of one form or another. Plus the fact that you would have to repot the citruses at one point or another, that helps in the balance with a new potting media.

There is no magic as there are good scientific explanations for each one.

There are two reasons that Four Winds recommends 3-1-1 vs. 5-1-3:

1) Unfortunately, 5-1-3 is not readily available to the home gardener (see the discussion above, that is how this whole thread started). Four Winds is not going to recommend products that our customers can not find.
2) My grandfather, Don Dillon Sr. who was been growing citrus since the 1940’s, swears that in all his years of experience 3-1-1 is the best fertilizer for citrus in the home garden. That recommendation is based on past experience and feedback from our customers. It may be something that we should consider revising, but the feedback from that recommendation has been positive for years.

In our experience, many of the problems inexperienced citrus growers face can be traced back to simply under fertilizing their trees. If citrus trees are undernourished they can be susceptible to a vast myriad of issues from pests to poor performance in terms of fruit or growth, you name it. It is also our feeling that well feed trees will have a better chance of surviving cold periods than trees that are undernourished.
Giving citrus plenty of nitrogen will help encourage vigorous green growth leading to strong healthy trees, which it sounds like you have experienced greenz. The use of a fertilizer that contains trace elements and/or micro nutrients is key to a complete feeding program.
Citrus nutrition can get complicated so Four Winds tries to keep the information we put on our tags simple, so as not to overwhelm inexperienced citrus growers but still put them in a position to succeed. More detailed growing information can be found on our website. www.fourwindsgrowers.com
Our recommendations are based on our fifty plus years experience of growing and selling citrus trees as well as helping our customers care for those trees.

As for the use of sand in our planting mix, it serves the purpose of adding weight to the cans. We have to keep the plants from blowing over. As a grower we face different challenges and limitations when it comes to our growing media, than home growers. Sand is not the main ingredient in our planting mix. Check out the planting mix other citrus growers use and compare, you might be quite surprised. It is true that citrus will not thrive in sandy soils, they prefer well drained potting mixes with plenty of organic material.

The reason that the Four Winds Growers trees look so good in the store is because that is what we do. We provide our customers with the highest quality citrus and edible ornamental trees that we possibly can. This is the #1 priority of Four Winds Growers. Our trees are well cared for from the beginning and we pride ourselves on maintaining highest level of quality.

I appreciate everyone’s contributions on this discussion thread and welcome feedback on ways that Four Winds can better serve the citrus growing public.

I have posted a FAQ, complete with calculations on how to use almost many kinds of fertilizers and turn them into a 5-1-3 ratio. Thus anyone who can handle a calculator or spreadsheet should be able to mix their own out of available fertilizers from retail stores.

In there, I have shown selected samples on how to adjust Romeo's 24-14-14 formulation and also the cheapest one that has almost all of the micronutrients in them.

See this link:

link

Just six days ago I received 4 new trees from Kerry at Four Winds Growers (FWG), bringing my total to 131 different varieties of citrus in my collection (just trying to keep up with Gene Lester) LOL. As mentioned by Greenz, the FWG trees were certainly very nice and healthy. They arrived right in the middle of a Colorado snow storm, but as I had requested that they ship using cold weather shipping, all the trees arrived in excellent condition. They have been transplanted into 7 gallon Root Maker containers using a growth medium of 4 parts CHC and one part peat moss, with 27-6-12 Osmocote w/miners. Now what we need from Joe Real is a 5-1-3 formulation containing minors made out of slow release fertilizers, preferably 3-6 month release rate.

You asked, Aaron!

I have a few FWG trees, nowhere close to Millet (geez!) number, and wish I could afford more.

I think it's very thoughtful that you include shavings to be included with the soil mixture for container plants- but does it have to be Redwood? I try to avoid using anything made from Redwood trees.