KNO3 as fertilizer

[David_K]

Hello, i got at home a 1kg of potassium nitrate which i bought for some "experiments" but i unexpectedly ran into some problems with fertilizing, lack of potassium with some plants. Can be a solution of KNO3 used to fertilize palms and other plants? Its not a corrosive as other salts and does not contain any chlorine, so it looks promising to me but i would like to know if you tried it and how it worked.

[Monòver]

Of course, you can use potassium nitrate for lack of potassium. I am using this fertilicer and it is a good source of potassium, but not as complete fertilicer.

[Alan_Tampa]

Potassium sulfate is fine too as a source of K

[fiji jim]

We have used Potassium sulfate quiet heavily when soil has been too alkaline for some plants and it has not had any bad effects.

[Hamal]

I used it a lot to fertilize aquatic plants when I was still in the US. It is a great N and K fertilizer. Unfortunately, you cannot buy KNO3 in Germany (if you can buy it at all) without getting questioned by the police, especially in these times. It is not only an excellent fertilizer, but also great for building bombs.

Potassium sulfate (K2SO4) is a different story though. That works as a K fertilizer as well, but no N.

In both cases, you still need phosphate and trace elements, especially Mg for palms.

[David_K]

I originally bought it to make sugar rockets. You can buy it here in Czech republic only if you have valid IC number => you are a company. Thanks to my chemistry interests i can get my hands on wide variety of salts so i can make my own fertlizers. In the worst case i have 96% H2SO4 and 65% HNO3 so i can make the salts myself.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Potassium nitrate is a one of the foundational nutrient sources for many fertilizers.  Its also in very short supply globally, at the moment.  Potassium sulfate is also great.  Potassium chloride is fine in some situations, not in others.  Avoid using it in dry soils, desert climates, or clay soil.  In those areas chlorides accumulate in the soil and that may eventually cause problems.  General thoughts about plants and Chrlorides:  Plants native to areas near the sea will tolerate the Chlorides, plants native to rainy, wet regions away from the sea usually will not tolerate many chlorides, though exceptions exist, surely.  

[David_K]

I would never ever use potassiun chloride because in our country there is a lot of salt used on roads and it can eventually get washed into the ground and then a lot of chlorine in the soil during summer (dry as hell and hot) will cause way too much problems. Thank you all for the info about potassium sulfate, i will use it before autumn to harden the palm leaves (i dont want to use nitrates in that time)

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

3 hours ago, David_K said:

I would never ever use potassiun chloride because in our country there is a lot of salt used on roads and it can eventually get washed into the ground and then a lot of chlorine in the soil during summer (dry as hell and hot) will cause way too much problems. Thank you all for the info about potassium sulfate, i will use it before autumn to harden the palm leaves (i dont want to use nitrates in that time)

What you say, David, makes sense to me:  salt applied in winter during the wet season remain for summer growing season.  Since summer is dry, no leaching.  

[David_K]

On 5/28/2017, 8:03:07, Keith in SoJax said:

What you say, David, makes sense to me:  salt applied in winter during the wet season remain for summer growing season.  Since summer is dry, no leaching.  

Yes, there were some problems with landscape soil degradation like crop fields etc. when the salt from roads gets washed into the soil, so i am careful when using chlorides to fertilize sensitive plants in free ground.

You get the idea. . .