Fertilizing recently collected trees?

[BrianBay9]

... Hmmm I need someone to do a comparative study with 1/10th compost and however you test for nutrients to see the life span of the nutrients in a bonsai pot of various depths so I can see if the math works. @BrianBay9 did you just raise your hand? How do you test for amines? Would that tell you the functional effectiveness of compost in a mix? Lol @cmeg1 you like to experiment! Got one I’m curious about now!

I used a simple colorimetric assay for primary amines. I run a lab, but at the moment our operations are suspended. Hoping to be running by the end of the year. I don't have the reagents currently but could get them pretty easily once we start spending money again. Let me be sure I understand....you want me to run the same experiment on inorganic soils with 10% compost? Adding the variable of pot depth? With or without additional fertilization?

 

[Trenthany]

I used a simple colorimetric assay for primary amines. I run a lab, but at the moment our operations are suspended. Hoping to be running by the end of the year. I don't have the reagents currently but could get them pretty easily once we start spending money again. Let me be sure I understand....you want me to run the same experiment on inorganic soils with 10% compost? Adding the variable of pot depth? With or without additional fertilization?

Without and exactly. With a span of the variable pot depth and length of life of the compost I could give an exact scale of how long the compost lasts for by scaling the problem. The only other variable I can’t account for is tree age and if you have the same trees used in the study from university of Texas (I believe it was), because growth patterns are different. I’ll have to consider ideas on that one.

Even better do a bonsai specific one for a particular species Testers choice with various pot depths. It would establish a scale for the viable life of compost in our souls (autocorrect was too good! Soils!). Using the scale for other species nutrient consumption at how they compare to a known species would give people useful information across a range of trees. Ideally someone with a ton of money could do it across conifers, deciduous and tropicals then we’d have three baselines on type of tree but I don’t have that money and I believe it would be super expensive.

 

[BrianBay9]

Without and exactly. With a span of the variable pot depth and length of life of the compost I could give an exact scale of how long the compost lasts for by scaling the problem. The only other variable I can’t account for is tree age and if you have the same trees used in the study from university of Texas (I believe it was), because growth patterns are different. I’ll have to consider ideas on that one.

Even better do a bonsai specific one for a particular species Testers choice with various pot depths. It would establish a scale for the viable life of compost in our souls (autocorrect was too good! Soils!). Using the scale for other species nutrient consumption at how they compare to a known species would give people useful information across a range of trees. Ideally someone with a ton of money could do it across conifers, deciduous and tropicals then we’d have three baselines on type of tree but I don’t have that money and I believe it would be super expensive.

To get enough replicates for analysis it would have to be a club-wide effort. Say 3 pot depths x 10 replicates, with same soil and tree in each. I don't have 30 of the same tree any more. I'm assuming nursery pots would work for this. I'm just not sure the additional info gained is worth the effort. How would the result change the way we do bonsai generally?

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

It is important to discuss at length, plans for any experiment, especially if it involves other people's time. The hypothesis being tested needs to be clear, and an idea of what positive and negative results would look like before the experiment begins. What useful information will be gained.

The old adage, no fertilizer immediately after repotting, or collecting, comes from an older study that showed nitrates can inhibit production of new root hairs. Inhibit new fine roots. There is some truth to it, it was a valid experiment. But foliar feeding capacity of most species was not taken into account.

Something to consider, nitrates have a metabolic cost to absorption. The plant, tree, vegetable, expends energy in order to utilize nitrate. However, ammonia, ammonium ions, and amino acids are absorbed directly by diffusion with zero metabolic cost. If your fertilizer has at least some of its total nitrogen content in a form of ammoniacal nitrogen, or amino acids, these can be absorbed at no metabolic cost to the tree and can easily be absorbed through foliage as well as roots.

Organic fertilizers right after collecting have an advantage of lower metabolic cost to uptake over chemical fertilizers. Though if your chemical fertilizer includes ammonia based ingredients, it will work well too.