Three years ago I fed my monstera's with Fish Fertilizer. Well it wasn't actually a feeding, I only added a tiny, tiny amount to give the soil micro-organisms. The plants in the pics, including my profile all long gone.

I bought another Thai back in aug of 22 to replace the one I lost. It stayed dormant forever, wouldn't grow for nothing. It was the only plant that had a name, I called it a#%hole. Its doing well now, took off like crazy this summer and put out four leaves. Thought maybe I had bought a tissue culture plant so I went back and the receipt said nothing about TC.

Any thought on monstera's and Fish Fertilizer?






Updated post with new baby Thai:

Fish fertilizer (emulsion) works for pretty much anything, it just smells bad.

Hi CPPgardener.

The three monster's I lost would probably disagree. They were all healthy before the fish as you see in the pics. But you're right, it does stink. I personally will never use it again. Thanks for your iput.

I wouldn't think the fish fertilizer was the cause of their demise, I've used it for many years on many plants, but especially my indoor ferns. They do have a type that they somehow take the fishy smell out of it, it's the only one I used, and that was as far back as the late 70s. I don't know how their smell compares now, but look for "hydrolyzed" in the name or description.

I'm not sure why you think your receipt would tell you if a plant is tissue cultured or not. That doesn't make sense
I've never used fish emulsion so I have no idea but thousands of people use it with no problems or complaints so….?

The most common fish fertilizer (emulsified fish viscera/ FE) has NPK %s of 5:1:1, which means it's very high in N and low in K. Fish emulsion is not a good stand alone choice for long term care for the simple reason it contains only N, P, and K. Plants need a full compliment of nutrients normally assimilated through the root pathway if they are to grow normally and keep their systems and processes orderly.

Since FE cannot be considered to be an effective single source of nutrition, and use of other fertilizer products to 'fill in the nutritional gaps" is essential for best results, it makes much more sense to simply purchase a single product that already has everything it needs to be called a single source of nutrition.

Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is a superb, one-step product for almost everything you might choose to grow in a container. If you ask, I'll provide a list of its many attributes.

Al

I'm pretty sure fish viscera has more than N-P-K in it since it's everything that used to be a fish. The other nutrients are much more variable so they can't list them as "guaranteed ".

Fertilizer packagers are required to identify all nutrients a product contains when they represent more than a minimal threshold % of the product, and cannot make the claim they contain any given nutrient unless the nutrient is present at levels equal to or greater than these minimal threshold levels.

For best results, a grower should be able to take and maintain control over what a plant gets (nutritionally) and when it gets it. In order to have any semblance of control, the grower must know several things, but high and perhaps highest on the list is what the fertilizer contains. I posit it's better to rely on what the package's required ingredient list indicates the product contains than to assume fish emulsions contain everything a plant needs for normal growth.

The main point is, it's not logical to assume that FE would serve well as the sole source of nutrition; and, introducing an additional product or products to cover for FE's deficiencies further compounds and significantly complicates the problem because the overlap in nutrient coverage (both fertilizers are likely to contain NPK, and an excess of any single nutrients has the same ability to be limiting as a deficiency) is a step in the direction of disorder as opposed to control. It's much better to use a single fertilizer product that has all essential nutrients in the ratio at which plants actually assimilate the nutrients. Too, it's essential to be able to water correctly to fertilize efficaciously.

Al