1 foliar fertilizer
2 Urea
3 MKP
4 Soluble NPK
5 Potato fertilizer

Potato fertilizer

Urea

MKP

soluble NPK

TRACE ELEMENT

 Foliar fertilisation is any fertilising substance applied in a liquid form.

Foliars in their most basic form, often used by home gardeners use animal manures, or seaweed collected from the beach, suspended in water, until all the 'goodness' has been extracted.

This is time consuming where a lot of effort is required for a small amount of nutrient.

By contrast, modern foliar fertilisers are concentrated solutions using very high grade technical elements, in which the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are combined to the desired ratio in a controlled environment.

The fertilising elements in this method are true solutions, soluble, and thus very plant available.

This is in contrast to soil applied (solid) fertiliser, which is applied as a powder or granules to the soil in dry form. This then, has to be dissolved, by moisture (rain) to be plant available via the roots. In other words, it has to dissolve into the soil solution to be available.

To these foliar solutions, trace elements in the form of chelates are added, along with seaweed and /or humic acid, or other additives depending on preference, to give a balanced fertiliser, supplying not only NPK, but all the trace elements as well as growth hormones, vitamins etc.

Many different NPK formulation combinations can be made, depending on the application required. The same elements that make up foliar fertiliser are required for plant growth and development, and are formulated to meet quite specific plant requirements. (see Table 1.)

  Plants are composed of the various elements in the proportions indicated below on which modern  foliar fertilisers are based.