Cannabis Chronicles

We’ve used a variety of different fish fertilizers over the years at the bird’s nest, including liquid fish emulsion fertilizers (which were detailed in our previous post in this series) and liquid hydrolyzed fish fertilizers. They all have seemed to be effective in their own way, but it seems there’s a bit of a debate over which method produces a superior fertilizer.

Here’s a quick guide to the differences between the different fish fertilizers that can be found on the Peaceful Valley Farm Supply site.

WHICH FISH FERTILIZER TO USE?

Fish products are excellent sources of N-P-K & trace minerals for a farmer or gardener, but which one to choose? Fish products come in the form of meals, emulsions or hydrolysates and/or enzymatically digested.

Fish meal is ground, dried fish waste with the oil removed, generally dried at high heat and is used in soil applications. It has a high nitrogen & phosphorus analysis and is a slow to medium releasing source of nitrogen. For a fast-acting, water soluble fish fertilizer, use fish powders, liquid fish emulsion or enzymatically digested hydrolyzed fish.

Fish powders are spray-dried fish materials, dried with heat and turned into a water soluble powder. They can be used for foliar feeding or in irrigation systems once put into solution.

Fish emulsion, a popular product used in organic agriculture, is used as a soluble fish fertilizer but is processed with heat. Enzymatically digested hydrolyzed fish retains more of the proteins, enzymes, vitamins & micronutrients than emulsions, which can be processed with high heat & acids. Heat tends to denature amino acids in proteins, making them unavailable to the plants.

Enzymatic digestion of fish allows the minerals and amino acids to become readily available to plants and makes those nutrients water soluble, so you can use them in foliar spraying or through drip and other irrigation systems.

Where did the fish emulsion go? One of the original organic fertilizers, fish emulsion is quickly becoming less available. Rather than offering it at rapidly increasing prices, we have decided to discontinue it. We offer hydrolyzed fish products as alternatives and consider them to be superior to fish emulsion.

As we said in the introduction to this entry, we have had good success with hydrolyzed fish fertilizers and fish emulsions. While we do have some faith in the advice offered by Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, we are not yet 100% positive that there is a significant quality difference between the different kinds of fish fertilizers.

We actually find that a 2-4-1 (or similar) hydrolyzed fish fertilizer and a 5-1-1 fish emulsion fertilizer actually compliment each other. We prefer to use the 2-4-1 for most general fertilizer use, finding it especially useful for both seedlings and flowering plants.

Fish emulsions like the 5-1-1 fert offered by Alaska fish fertilizer company that was described in the previous entry, seems to be most useful in times of vigorous vegetative growth. A nice dose of 5-1-1 fish fertilizers can give a visible vegetative response overnight, providing a healthy boost of nitrogen. We don’t prefer to use a 5-1-1 on a more regular basis because it’s a little too strong on the nitrogen for our tastes for everyday use.