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kendraschmidt_gw

Fertilizing A Fig Tree

KendraSchmidt
12 years ago

Hello GWeb Folks! I have what I hope is a quick question about fertilizing a Fig Tree. I just root pruned a fig tree that was deprived of water for several months. I pruned away the few dead branches, then I root pruned the tree, according to the advice of a kind user here.

Now I've repotted the tree, am about to water the tree, and would then like to fertilize the tree. I have a fertilizer with the following makeup: 17 (Nitrogen; 7 (Phosphorous); 11 (Potassium). Can I use this fertilizer on my fig tree? Is it enough? Please help! Thank you!

(I do not have compost, nor do I have access to it, at all, at the moment) :o(

Comments (2)

  • tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
    12 years ago

    The NPK% are very appropriate for your tree - very close to ideal. Compost provides very little in the way of nutrition, so you're not out anything from a nutritional perspective by not having it in your soil; and compost isn't a very desirable soil component unless it's a small fraction of the soil and the rest of the particles are coarse, as in pine bark, or other inorganic particles that are BB-size and larger. The physical structure of your soil plays an important part as a determining factor in what opportunity your plant might have to grow to its potential.

    Whether or not your fertilizer is adequate as the only source of nutrition depends on the rest of the analysis. Many soluble fertilizers don't contain Ca or Mg, but commercially prepared soils are usually pH-adjusted with dolomitic lime, which supplies both elements ..... which means you're probably covered if you used a bagged soil meant for potted plant material. There's not yet enough information to be sure you're in good shape.

    You're sure the tree is still viable - after the drought stress?

    Al

  • KendraSchmidt
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thank you Tapla! Yes, I had to go out and test each branch/stem by scratching the bark to see if it was still green. Amazingly, they're all green and I have the tree out in the sun now (for the past week or so) where it seem to be doing well. I'd like to fertilize it though and pray that it will bring my tree to full life again.

    How do we know how much fertilizer to put? My bottle says 5 ml per liter of water. ( .16 oz fertilizer to 34 oz of water) Do I then place the whole liter of the mixture into the soil? Or do I only apply maybe half of the mixture?

    The tree itself is about four feet tall with a very strong trunk that's just a bit larger than a man's wrist. Any suggestions?