By Jeff Floyd
Certified horticulturist and arborist
Depending on who you believe, plants need around 16 nutrients to thrive. Ask Google and the responses get confusing in a hurry. Fortunately, Odessa’s soil provides nearly every necessary element for plants. However, nitrogen is the single most important nutrient you can apply for a healthy, disease-resistant lawn.
Most fertilizers are sold with three numbers clearly listed somewhere on the packaging. These reveal the relative amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium respectively contained in the bag. For example, 15-5-10 indicates 15 percent of the product is nitrogen, 5 percent phosphorous, and 10 percent potassium. Occasionally a fourth number will indicate the fertilizer also has iron.
Product names are persuasive. For example, say a product was labeled as a Texas blend; this sounds like the best fertilizer choice for a lawn in Odessa, right? Fertilizers sold as local or regional blends are made to meet most needs in a certain soil type. The need is usually based on a lot of soil samples examined over time. However, growing conditions still vary widely from one site to another, even on the Llano Estacado.
The least stable element in fertilizer is nitrogen. Weathered rock is the parent material for soil. Therefore, most soils contain plenty of phosphorous, potassium and iron. On the other hand, nitrogen is short-lived. It dissolves in water, is consumed by plants and soil bacteria, and evaporates into the atmosphere. The fleeting nature of nitrogen makes it the least likely of the nutrients to be available and most likely to be deficient within a plant.
Understanding the nutritional needs of any particular plant is a broad topic. However, here are some guidelines that will serve you well. Nitrogen is the element you’ll need to supplement your plants with most often. If you plan to fertilize without the benefit of a soil test, limit your choices to products that only contain nitrogen.
Stick to products that contain nearly half of the nitrogen in a slow-release form. Avoid applying nitrogen until after the danger of the last seasonal freeze has passed. Also, avoid applying it within about six weeks before the first freeze of the season. You don’t want your plants vigorously growing when a hard freeze hits.
Water your plants deeply after fertilizing them. This will make it immediately available to your plants and help reduce the potential of fertilizer burn resulting from too much nitrogen in contact with the roots. Finally, do a little investigation. Land grant institutions are tasked with sharing university research. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension is a wealth of information on the nutritional needs of specific plants.
