POTTING SOIL WITH TIME RELEASE FERTILIZER PROBLEM

August44

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I recently bought a plant on-line and got this notice with it. I have not heard of this problem before. Sounds like it could be a bit dangerous with some trees.
 

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Interesting. It makes sense, and makes me glad I don’t use those products. I wonder how many trees had to die for them to put that into their handout.
 
Interesting. It makes sense, and makes me glad I don’t use those products. I wonder how many trees had to die for them to put that into their handout.
Actually, that notice came with a tree I bought and not from the soil people. So, I would say you might check dates on soils like Miricle Grow especially in the spring as some of the soils have probably been over wintered and maybe out dated.
 
Maybe not so fast to worry about this?

Gosh, discussing Paul Bunyan and fertilizer right afterwards!
Sounds an awful lot like a tall tale Paul would tell to the unwary. In fact it lacks verasity 😉

Potting soil fertilizers do degrade over time, 1-2 years. The net effect is less nutrients and the soil is still ok.

(Tongue in cheek). Wondering if Babe the Blue Ox might be be helping dig up those Hawthorns. 😎

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DSD sends
 
It seems like they are saying don't use potting soil in the ground when you transplant the tree due to the potential for the synthetic fertilizers to burn roots.
 
This is based on the assumption that controlled release fert prills continue to release fert into the soil as long as it is damp. The reality is the technology relies on osmosis so the nutrient solution will only seep out when there's lower concentration outside than inside the little balls which means that nutrients can only get to a certain concentration in the soil. Given the potting soil makers add the least they can to save costs there's almost no chance there will be toxic levels of nutrient in any soil mix no matter how long it has been stored.
Any excess nutrient will be in water soluble form so can easily be removed with a good flushing of water when you water plants into the new soil.
I've been using soil mixes, sometimes stored for several years, and never had any adverse reaction. The warning could just be to protect manufacturer from possible litigation but could also be encouragement to keep buying new product rather than making good use of stored product?
 
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