Slow Release Fertilizers
The Benefits of using Slow Release Fertilizers to Improve Soil Condition
Slow Release Fertilizers Australia
Australian soils are renowned for becoming hydrophobic due to our long periods of no (or minimal) rain allowing soil particles to accrue a waxy coating from loose organic material. Fire creates this condition too. You know when you have hydrophobic soil as water sits instead of soaking in and you will even see soil particles floating on the water!
Wetting Agent & Slow Release Fertilisers AU
This makes watering and fertilizing to maintain soil condition more difficult, yet more important, to allow for good crop growth or nice green turf. This is where a combination of a wetting agent and slow release fertilisers is incredibly beneficial.
A Wetting Agent allows soil particles to become porous again, to hold water and nutrients instead of repelling it. This has a triple advantage as the ground holds water more evenly so you struggle less with both lack of moisture and trapped water. Each soil grain can again hold water and let it pass when there is a build-up. This reduces overall water usage whilst allowing plant roots to establish better with less disease and algae growth.
Slow Release Fertilizers Australia are like any other fertilizer at heart but they behave differently. From either the nature of the compound used or by covering the fertilizer with a coating, a fertilizer can release its goodness over a longer period of time. This can bring several positives. Too much, too fast, can cause fertilisers to “burn” the soil and plants they were intended to help. Slowing release, prevents this as well as dramatically reducing how often costly labour is required to apply the fertilizer.
HydroPro Turf
Some products, like our HYDROPRO Turf can be applied with spacing as long as once per season instead of every week or month. This reduces business costs which is something we all need.
Slow release fertilizer is commonly achieved with a compound that naturally releases nitrogen or phosphates in the way it naturally decays from one chemical form to another. While this could be done with typical “compost heap” methods which develop slow release fertilizer methods, it is not practical or even safe to store and transport large amounts of decaying materials that are not only heavy but have explosive potential.
Help Minimise Environmental Concerns
Slow release fertilisers Australia also help minimise environmental concerns. A standard fertiliser has the ability, if dislodged from where it “belongs”, to negatively affect waterways and everything dependent upon them very heavily as it is “all there at once”. Slow Release fertilisers should not be encouraged into waterways, but their slower yield of actives means that they have a more muted effect if heavy rains move then into waterways.
Slow release fertilisers still account for a relatively small amount of the overall market, but over time, we hope that uptake will be greater as the overall advantages in sower fertiliser delivery systems is more in-line with the way nature does things herself and those systems work very well indeed.
About UltraNaturals
We are an Australian owned company – Fertilisers Manufacturer that has been developing leading edge surfactant technology to counter weather extremes and combat hydrophobic soil conditions since the early 1980’s.