fish fertilizer

   / fish fertilizer #1  

big lar

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Location
mendon,mass.
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new holland and a ford
Has anyone out there used fish emulsion products for hay fields? I only use a couple of tons of commercial fertilizer on my 20 acres or so of grass hay; but my fertilizer was $800.00 a TON, 50# bgs)and I had to travel 35 miles to pick it up. (No farm/crop stores here in Eastern Mass.)

Fish emulsion fertizilers ads say use only 1/3 of the cost of commercial fertilzer. Is that true, has anyone had any experience with it. I have a 15 gal spreader, would that work?
 
   / fish fertilizer #2  
Has anyone out there used fish emulsion products for hay fields? I only use a couple of tons of commercial fertilizer on my 20 acres or so of grass hay; but my fertilizer was $800.00 a TON, 50# bgs)and I had to travel 35 miles to pick it up. (No farm/crop stores here in Eastern Mass.)

Fish emulsion fertizilers ads say use only 1/3 of the cost of commercial fertilzer. Is that true, has anyone had any experience with it. I have a 15 gal spreader, would that work?

I would believe you would have to make several trips with a 15gallon sprayer. I mean it can be done but how much water to how much chemical per acre? May take you 20 trips or more,would just need some info.on fertilizer.
 
   / fish fertilizer
  • Thread Starter
#3  
AGGRAND brand fish emulsion says 1 gal of product to 25 gals of water per acre, so I'm thinking my 15 gal would work. Yeah it might take time but to buy a bigger sprayer offsets the cost savings, Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with these products?
 
   / fish fertilizer #4  
I talked to some reps.at a farm show and got some books on the stuff. I desided to go with the grasshopper instead cause the AG was only 4-3-3 and the stuff I put out was 30-8-10 cost was around the same $25/$27 an acre but if you do deside to use it,keep us posted on how it works out for you. Good luck:thumbsup:
 
   / fish fertilizer #5  
I use the AGgrand products, the 4-3-3 works good on the lawn & garden and should work good on your hay fields. The bone meal & lime will settle some on sprayers without good aeration in the tank. Going to spray some 4-3-3 this weekend. Go to the AGrand site and search for article G2793 I think page 14 is about hay fields. If you decide to get some, sign up for the preferred customer program, will save you some money.
 
   / fish fertilizer #6  
In my opinion the grass needs to recieve as much N, P, & K added back to them as what you are hauling away as hay.

I've never understood how a little dribble of 4-3-3 does anything but foliar feeds the grass for a couple days to make it look pretty, and one thinks wonders what it did, but really your soil is getting mined out of nutrients. Looks pretty for a few days, but what really is it adding to your crop? 4-3-3??? What good is that?

To each their own, but always seems like fu-fu juice to me, they just trying to get a buck or 2 from you. I understand there is big benifit to organic matter and to micro nutrients the juice might have, and so if you use it _with_ a good N,P, &K fertilizer program, then the foliar boost and micros can add something. So it can be a useful fertilizer.

But to stop using real fertilizer, and just go to a drip of 4-3-3 and call that good enough - that seems foolish to me. Your soil will be poorer in 5 years, and they will have your money?

--->Paul
 
   / fish fertilizer #7  
I know some people who use the fish emulsion on vegtables becuse of the organic certification, not sure if that brand is or not. Seems like a lot of trouble for 4-3-3, would think results would be hardly noticable. Have soil tested it to see what it really needs?

A ton of grass hay removes 35-12-53 per acre. It would be really hard to keep up with that stuff.
 
   / fish fertilizer #8  
I just got an email on a company selling organic pelletized chicken manure with a 4-3-3 NPK content so I am assuming this is similar product at least in composition. Their price is $287 per ton shipped about 70 miles from Little Rock to my place in one ton super sacks or $267 in bulk dry tanker trucks. Based on the last price of fertilizer last fall at our farm co-op that is about 50% of per ton cost but it is only about 25% of the NPK content. Sure it may have some micronutrients that commercial fertilizer may not have but it will take over 3 times as much to give the grass the same basics of NPK that our soil analysis said we needed.
Chicken manure is good if its free for the hauling and spreading but I think that to buy it for that price is a waste of money.
Maybe the greenie organic farmers can justify it since they get double or more prices for their organic veggies.
 
   / fish fertilizer #9  
Rambler hit the nail on the head. If you are taking more off of your field than you are adding back, you are literally mineing your soil of nutrients. Nutrients in the soil are boundup with other nutrients, in all sort of combinations, due to their cationic (+) and anionic (-) charges. While some of the biological soil amendments will work on and loosen up those bonds, they seldom will work for more than two or three years and then crop production will decrease, even when adding more of the biological suppliments. It doesnt matter if its a compost tea or someother biological stimulant, if you keep removing available nutrients, sooner or later, you will endup with all the easy nutrients gone and nothing left but the stuff that is tiedup into unsoluible forms. The first signs of trouble will be loss of productivity, then the soil will start becoming hard and compacted, will lose organic matter and humis, and then water retention capabilities. All of this spells doom for optimal crop production. While I aint a big fan of chemical petroleum based fertilizers, and believe that their are other alternatives in wasted organic residues, only you can decide how you wish to manage your fields and your crops. Which ever method you choose to use, at least replace to the soil what is taken off. Soil test your fields and find out what is missing and develop a fertilizer strategy that will produce your crop and maintain (or improve),the fertility levels at the same time. A proper soil test will tell you how much of the fish emulson you need to apply for your crop and then you can decide from there which is the cheaper alternative.
 
   / fish fertilizer
  • Thread Starter
#10  
thanks to everyone to who responded to my inquiring about fish fertilizer.

It is very telling to me that no commercial farms responded that they use it; will stick to chemical fertilizer!!

It appears further from the literature I have read that, that you need mulitiple applocations, so that offsets what seems initially to be savings!
 
 
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