Foliar Nutrition for Plants

Foliar nutritioning is the process of adding essential growth nutrients to plants thought the stomatal pores of plants leaves.                              Foliar application of nutrients has proven to be a highly effective and an efficient method of supplying plants with their requirements for secondary nutrients such as magnesium, sulfur and calcium. Along with micronutrients such as iron, molybdenum, copper, boron, zinc and manganese while supplementing it regular N-P-K needs for short and critical growth stage periods.

Primarily, foliar feeding is used to delay natural senescence processes shortly after the end of reproductive growth stages. Foliar feeding targets the growth stages where declining rates of photosynthesis and leveling off of root growth and nutrient absorption occur, in attempts to aid translocation of nutrients into seed, fruit, tuber or vegetative production.

Secondly, foliar feeding can be an effective management tool to favorably influence pre-reproductive growth stages by compensating for environmentally induced stresses of adverse growing conditions and poor nutrient availability.

Foliar nutritioning at the right time intervals can influence flowering, fruit set, fruit size, the amount of vegetative growth and other plant characteristics. By carefully choosing the components of a foliar or side-dress fertilizer, the grower can “nudge” a crop toward earlier, heavier fruit set, or discourage fruiting an advantage when producing greens or forage crop. This is well recognized in conventional agricultural communities.

Many citrus growers are known to foliar feed with fertilizer blends of dominated by potassium and nitrate – vegetative growth enhancing nutrients in order to increase fruit size after the crop is well set.

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