You can do, there isn't any chemical reason not too.
Hi Darrel, I am trying to teach myself how to dose Urea, and came across this post. You stated 22.5% N in KNO3, but when I did the math I got around 14%.
Do it carefully would be my advice, kno3 is safer, and gives similar results. 🤔
Your calculation is correct.
I just can't add up, even more bizarrely the RMM of KNO3 is near enough 100, so it is always going to be ~14% N.
I definitely think urea seems to result in stronger and larger growth (i.e bigger leaf size). I prefer this growth when using urea, but I do also think it comes with risks. It does seem to amplify the growth of already existing algae, I'm undecided on whether it can outright cause algae, but I don't think it does - so long as the plants are growing healthily.
Yes, I was using KNO3 and with my plant mass I had problems with high potassium build up.
Ha! This leads to my eternal question: should my plants look and grow ideally (for example relatively common bacopa xyz growing and reaching full maturity leading to flowering etc. within 6-8 months as it does in nature) or should they look like and be overgrown (as you said bigger leaf size, most probably quicker maturity etc.) by using excessive amounts of specific ferts? Do we want our plants look like healthy cheetah quickly jumping through savannah or like Katie Price not being able to move quickly because of her overgrown boobs? I find urea and any other potent ferts as very useful tools but excessive amounts lead to rather undesired effects, not necessarily leading to healthy growth. In my opinion there is absolutely no chance for plant (which usually gets matured within let's say 8 months) to be healthy if it matures 2x or 3x times quicker - same like with human usually being matured within 25 years or so (including mental development) - what happens if for some reason human gets fully matured within 10 years including his or her brain? Not to mention chicken and other extremely quickly grown food we eat every day.
I would suggest using MgNO3, KNO3 and Urea combined. You can also combine CaNO3 in the same mix if you like. for those who usually get algae with Urea, they are either adding way too much urea to begin with or there are other factors at play. Urea or NH4 alone usually doesn't cause algae unless present in excess amount along with other nutrients.
Hi,
I've made an experiment, comparing growth of multiple species with urea, ammonium, ammonium+nitrates, and nitrates exclusively. I can say that Mayaca fluviatilis and Tonina fluviatilis preferred ammonium (or urea, which is the same). Other plants seemed as if they didn't care.
That's a topic I'm interested in. What were the visible effects of excess potassium?
I'm afraid it works poorly as far as micronutrients - transition metals are concerned. They accumulate in the substrate. I consider it a potential danger, and I believe it happens, but it's extremely difficult to prove. Visible symptoms of micronutrient toxicity are difficult to distinguish from damage caused by other factors.
I wonder whether this analogy with animal 'obesity' truly exists. I've never stroke on anything resembling this problem in literature.
That is what I've been believing as well, until now. My currently running experiment suggests that this assessment might be wrong, or perhaps valid only conditionally.
