Too much iron from blood meal?

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blaher
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Too much iron from blood meal?

Post by blaher » April 20th, 2017, 9:23 am

I've been using organic feeds for the past few years on my lawn, and constant testing to watch the NPKS numbers. One thing I've noticed is my Phosphate and Potassium levels are always high, but my Nitrogen and Sulfur levels are always low (Nitrogen more so). I figured for several reasons I'll just start using a mix of Blood Meal, Feather Meal, and Kelp Meal (for micro-nutrients). Avoiding Milorganite because I have plenty of Phosphate and don't need to contribute to more Phosphorus pollution (especially since I have a creek in my yard). I know both blood and feather meal are high in Nitrogen, and I'm assuming Blood Meal has plenty of sulfur due to it's high protein content, but I don't know the exact numbers. I also couldn't find the exact or needed numbers for iron in a yard, and I know blood contains toxic amounts of iron for human consumption.

So I want to use as much blood meal as possible, to keep the sulfur count up, but I'm concerned about adding too much iron to the lawn. Is that even possible? Would anyone have any input how what would be a good ratio of blood/feather/kelp to use?

bpgreen
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Re: Too much iron from blood meal?

Post by bpgreen » April 20th, 2017, 11:07 am

I would ignore nitrogen in soil tests. Nitrogen will basically always show up as low in the soil because it's transient. It goes into the soil and is either used by the plants or washes out. I don't think you'll get the sulfur content to change much via surface applications of anything. It basically off gasses into the atmosphere unless you drill holes with something like a bulb augur and fill them up.

I think the nitrogen in feather meal is very slow release, because feathers take a long time to break down.

I'm a little confused about your statement that you assume blood meal has plenty of sulfur due to its high protein content. Protein is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Blood meal is a good (albeit expensive) organic source of nitrogen. It's one of the few organic sources of nitrogen that can burn grass.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Too much iron from blood meal?

Post by MorpheusPA » April 20th, 2017, 11:19 am

You can safely ignore the iron levels in blood meal, given the amounts you'd use. Although I agree with BPGreen; ignore the nitrogen measurements. They're fairly useless--mine shows as 1-2 PPM of nitrogen, but the lawn is very clearly not nitrogen short at any time. My N is all slow release.

Feather meal can take months to process. Blood meal can actually burn plants pretty easily, so care is required.

Most plants are entirely tolerant of 50,000 PPM (5%) iron at reasonable pH; most of it is bound up in inactive forms and can't do anything, positive or negative, to the plants.

blaher
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Re: Too much iron from blood meal?

Post by blaher » April 20th, 2017, 11:51 am

bpgreen wrote:
April 20th, 2017, 11:07 am
I'm a little confused about your statement that you assume blood meal has plenty of sulfur due to its high protein content. Protein is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
I just read online a few places that there are two sulfur-containing amino acids that make up proteins; methionine and cysteine. Originally I got the knowledge from a chart from an article when I was researching about composting down foods. I'm not a chemist though, so it/I could be wrong.

I might do a 33/33/33 mix of blood/feather/kelp then to get a nice ratio of slow and quick release nitrogen, and micro nutrients. I'll also be careful with how much I put on the lawn, but I do smaller amounts monthly instead of larger amounts once a season. Hopefully I'm not lacking anything, but I like testing to keep an eye on things.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: Too much iron from blood meal?

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » June 12th, 2017, 2:14 pm

The Texas Tee brand of fertilizer used to have a blend of feather meal, poultry litter, and blood meal. The blood meal provided an almost instantaneous greening effect which the poultry litter released somewhat quicker than feather meal but not as fast as the blood. Then for the loooooooong term effect, the feather meal would kick in. One of my neighbors in San Antonio used it every 3 months. She had green, growing grass 12 months a year while the rest of us went dormant from November to March. Texas Tee no longer has blood meal in it; however, be that as it may, the percentage of blood meal was very small.

If I was mixing my own with your ingredients, I would start with 10 pounds of feather meal, 4 pounds of kelp, and 1 pound of blood meal. Apply at 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you see any burning I would spray with molasses at 3 -6 ounces per 1,000 square feet. If you don't see burning but you sill wanted to fiddle with the ratios, before I made adjustments to the blood meal quantity I would fiddle with the feathers and kelp.

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