is there an alternative to nitrate comtaining fertilisers?

Answer 1

SURE:

Here are a few...

Place Decayed Leaves into the soil of your garden

Bury unwanted fish and entrails in your garden

Bury crushed Egg Shells in your garden

Age human or animal waste and till it into your garden

Roto till sawdust and wood chips into your garden

Shred newspapers and bury them in your garden

Collect yard trimmings and compost them in a big pile for addition to your garden's soil.

Answer 2

Nitrates are simply a chemical method for bosting the nitrogen to your plants. Nitrogen are one of three essential elements that is typically inlcuded in plant fertilisers (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. As the previous answers have indicated, there are a lot of different ways to replace the nitrogen used in plant growth. The method chosen depends largely on what type of growing you plan to do.

If its for your garden or vegetable patch then the previous answers include a lot of good suggestions for using more natural fertiliser methods.

If you are enquiring about commercial food production, than the answer is still yes, but the challenges are a bit bigger. For farmers, nutrient management is quite important as chemical fertilisers are so expensive. That's why crop rotation is so important. Other methods that reduce the volume of chemicals require include:

- Manure
- Compost
- Interplanting (with a nitrogen fixing legume like peas or beans)

Good Luck

Special Raoul

Answer 3

Nitrates can be added to the soil, but nitrates also occur naturally in soils (otherwise plants wouldnt grow in the wild).

Bacteria live in the soil. They live off the organic matter in the soil, and one of their byproducts is nitrates.
To get more out of these bateria, just add more organic matter. Any sort will do.
Sawdust is one of the slowest to work, I wouldnt bother with that.
Beans, lentils, peas, etc. These harbour these bacteria in their roots.

Nitrates help promote leavey grow, so if you add leavey organic matter to the soil you will add their nitrates as well. For example (as already mentioned) leaves, seaweed (which is best rotted rather than burnt), but my favourite is grass cutting which are super nitro-rich.

Fish entrails, no they dont contain much in the way of nitrates. Still very good for the garden as they are rich in phosphorus.

Egg shells contain very little nitrates. They have a minor amount of phosphurous, but are mainly put on the garden because they are rich in calcium.

Blood is a good source of organic fertiliser. I use the old fashioned fertilser of Blood, Fish and Bone. It does wonders.

Answer 4

The ash from dried and burned seaweed is a very good fertiliser. Another pretty obvious alternative is manure.

Answer 5

yup

1. Manure of all kinds- human/plant waste, dead organisms, etal
2. Plant lentils, pea- their roots have excellent nitrogen fixating bacteria- absorb nitrogen from Atmosphere- plow again once the plants are about 6 inches long. The bacteria and nitrogen will stay.

Answer 6

Plants need nitrates, so why do you want an alternative?