Chemical fertiliser vs. Organic fertiliser
A popular topic among the agriculture specialists and home gardeners these days is the furor on organic fertiliser vs. chemical fertiliser.
Now each fertiliser certainly has its pros and their cons, but before we delve in deeper into that, let us first make a few definitions.
What is organic fertiliser?
Organic fertilisers are substances containing nutrients derived from the remains or by-product of an organism. Examples of organic fertilisers are cottonseed meal, blood meal, fish emulsion, and manure and sewage sludge.
Organic fertilisers are naturally rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the three major nutrients needed in plant growth. Organic fertilisers depend on microorganisms found in soil to break them down and release the nutrients.
What is chemical fertiliser?
Chemical fertilisers are synthetically produced plant nutrients from inorganic materials. Because they are artificially made, many chemical fertilisers contain acids that can be harmful to the soil’s population of microorganisms. In this aspect, chemical fertilisers have the potential to stunt plant growth.
Chemical fertiliser vs. organic fertiliser
fertilisers are created to target soil nutrient deficiency, which is a prevalent problem among home garden owners. One distinct advantage chemical fertilisers have over organic fertilisers is the fact that they contain all three of the major nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium). Organic fertilisers can only either have high content levels of one of these three or have all three nutrients in low levels.
For its part, organic fertilisers are a much cheaper and cost-effective alternative to chemical fertilisers. Any home gardener can create his own brand of organic fertiliser by composting or mixing cow, sheep, or poultry manure with other organic matters. Chemical fertilisers on the other hand will have to be bought from a gardening store or horticulturists.
A noted aspect of organic fertiliser is its slow-release capability. This slow release of nutrients in organic fertilisers can be both beneficial and potentially harmful to plants. Slow release of nutrients means that there is less risk of over-fertilization. However, this could also mean that if the need for immediate supply of nutrients arises, organic fertilisers would not be able to provide the needed supply. In contrast, chemical fertilisers can prove plants with an immediate supply of nutrients when the situation calls for it.
Several chemical fertilisers have high acid content. Acids in chemical fertilisers, like sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid, lead to high soil acidity which would in turn result in the destruction of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, the microorganism that plays a key role in supplying a growing plant’s nitrogen needs.
Plants certainly do not recognize the difference between organic fertilisers and chemical fertilisers. Their tiny root hairs will absorb those microscopic nutrients, regardless of where they come from or how they were manufactured. But even so, with today’s growing environmental concerns, some people debate over the wisdom of using chemical fertilisers as a nutrient source.
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