BLSC directly on flowers?

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falcon
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BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by falcon » August 9th, 2020, 5:49 pm

Any issues spraying BLSC directly on flowers? I know it's fine in the bed, just wondering if I need to be careful how I apply it on/around flowers.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by MorpheusPA » August 9th, 2020, 7:15 pm

You should be just fine. One thing I have noticed is that white flowers may temporarily discolor unless rinsed off with clear water afterwards (if you include the Kelp Help in with the soil conditioner as I do), taking on a bit of an ivory tone. This garden was photographed after I fed it, which included a shot of BLSC and kelp as I put the powder measured in directly with my home-made fertilizer. There's no visible discoloration and I tend toward brighter, lighter tones.

For BLSC without kelp, no discoloration will occur, but mind that you dilute it well on extremely salt-sensitive plants (one component is a small amount of sodium, far less than salt, but BLSC itself is a very weak salt). Most common annuals and perennials are not particularly salt-sensitive. Grasses...actually are kind of salt sensitive and don't have a problem with this even in very high amounts.

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falcon
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Re: BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by falcon » August 9th, 2020, 10:05 pm

Great. Thank you for your help.

Marty_marrr
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Re: BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by Marty_marrr » August 9th, 2020, 10:25 pm

MorphesPA, on your BLSC and KH recipes, is the oz amounts weight or volume? Just want to make sure I’m going down the correct path. If weight, do you ave a guess on the weight per table spoon or how many table spoons (I don’t have a small scale)
THe BLSC, I’m actually going to test it against hypertain and shampoo on different sections of the yard.
These can be applied every two weeks during the growing season? I am using this for st Augustine in Dallas Texas.
And there is no concerts spraying this on my wife’s flower and rose gardens? I’d like to help her garden but if I screw it up, well let’s say it won’t be good for me. :blackeye:
I’m also using this with kelp4helps extreme blend and their new Grass and Turf mix on my lawn (I’m doing tests in different sections of my yard). Any concerns there? I know the K4L has some kelp, humic and fulvic acid.
The covid summer has got me into working on the yard. So 2020 my yard is a test plot

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MorpheusPA
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Re: BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by MorpheusPA » August 9th, 2020, 11:13 pm

Since they're liquid, it's pretty much the same. :-) But volume was my original intention; use fluid ounces, although being terribly exact is not necessary and I tend to eyeball it with an "eh, good enough."

Two weeks is fine with irrigation or regular rainfall. Monthly was more my intent, at least these days, and under reasonable irrigation or irregular rainfall. Me, I do a heavy app twice a year and call it done. In recent years, I've gotten quite lazy about the whole thing, but it still does the job fine.

It's perfectly fine on roses and I use it on mine. I haven't tested every possible plant or every cultivar of rose, of course, so I can't make any guarantees, but so far nobody's complained or made any reports of any burns on any plants if used properly and well-diluted in a hose-end. That flower garden you see above is absolutely drenched in the stuff and...well, it obviously suffers very few issues except overgrowth at the end of the season and a battle of who's going to dominate.

I'm not at all familiar with K4L so can't speak to it, but humic and fulvic acids are something I've used. They're not particularly active chemically (in fact, humic acid is about as chemically inactive as it's possible to get). I'd say try it in the gardens, but I wouldn't expect issues. Discoloration, however, is far more likely with humic acid than anything else. I mentioned (and joked about) the water in my fertigation system being Georgian burnt umber from the kelp.

https://www.etriarco.com/p/Georgian-Oil ... %2BRA24235

You really will learn to love me. :-)

Use of humic acid will tend to turn it more like a Gray 2 (Golden paint scale; others vary) with Georgian burnt umber mixed in. Damn dark, in other words. White flowers are much more likely to stain and, if memory serves, the staining was semi-permanent rather than kelp's temporary discoloration.

I've since cut the HA and FA from my personal mix as not particularly helpful. The heavy-hitter has been the kelp, with copious organic material provided by lots and lots of grains.


Marty_marrr
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Re: BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by Marty_marrr » August 15th, 2020, 7:25 pm

All of my i’ve got in powder for from K4L (kelp4less). So I don’t be liquid forms to weight. I did call the up to see what their products weights per volume (since I do not have a scale to weight them out. He said that most (humic & kelp) powders were 30 r=the spoons per lb.
He also said he wouldn’t batch mix anything that’s you weren’t planning on using in the next 5 days. As it started (I forgot what he specifically stated). But he compared it to a gallon of tea, you wouldn’t want to drink week old tea.
So I’m still not clear on measured volumes of dry power to mix to spray.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: BLSC directly on flowers?

Post by MorpheusPA » August 16th, 2020, 2:09 am

I have a slightly different philosophy and use the powder directly in fertilizer bags I make for my fertigation system, but do mix batches a gallon at a time that tend to last the entire season. They seem to do fine.

Certainly potassium as an element isn't going anywhere, but organic components will change, and fermentation may occur. Surprisingly, it doesn't often seem to, but the concentrate is rather salty.

It's 4 oz [by weight] of dry powder to 1 gallon water. That mixes the concentrate (but you can use any proportion of that you like; 1 ounce per quart, and so on).

With the concentrate complete, use two-ish ounces (fluid, but weight would be fine) of the concentrate per thousand square feet of your lawn (and/or gardens) at a convenient dilution rate. I generally recommend at least 1:100 dilution and you may want to dilute further depending on your sprayer and how fast you move. I tend to be quite speedy.

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