AusBonsai

I have been growing Japanese Maples from seed for about 10 years.

I regularly add Osmocote slow release fertiliser and I water with Powerfeed and Seasol every other week. But I often wonder how much difference these products make.

So I decided to do a little experiment with 4 Japanese Maple seedlings, to test the impact of these products.

From left to right:
Seasol, Slow Release, Control, Powerfeed.



All 4 trees came from the same seed and germinated at the same time. They are all in the same size pot and have the same soil (approximately 60%/40% organic to inorganic).

The trees are all roughly the same size except the Control plant has a few more leaves, so has a bit of a head start.

I will water all plants daily and at least once a week I will apply Seasol and Powerfeed to the appropriate trees.

The Slow Release tree has a good layer of Slow Release fertiliser on the surface of the pot and 2 fertiliser baskets, which I will keep topped up.

The control will just get water.

I'll report back every few months.

I’ll be following this with interest! I’ve wondered a few times how much good my liquid feeding is actually doing compared to fertiliser cakes

Great idea to test these things rather than just assuming they're doing something.

I'm just so pleased to see you using the word impact as noun and not a verb.

Looking forward to the results. Excellent idea.
Thanks for sharing this.
Greg

Hey Aquaman ... any initial updates on your test. Perhaps a bit early to see any difference


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Aquaman,
As we are now in Autumn, how have the maples travelled?
I have a couple of seedlings and planning on potting up more in spring, plus a heap of trident seedlings that will be due for repotting.
Any feedback will be welcomed as planning activities start to include actions for spring.
Thanks,
Sisto

Hey. Just wondering what the end results were for this experiment.

He hasn’t been on here since 2019 so you guys may not get a reply
Cheers