Maxsea plant food??

[mysbhvn]

Hi everyone,

I just went to one of my local nurseries in search of some fertilizer containing seaweed to try on my plants. I found one named MAXSEA I thought might be okay. Heck, it even has a Catt on the front of the container. When I got it home and started to read the "fine print" it says one of the ingredients it is derived from is urea.....uh oh.....I thought I had heard or read somewhere that urea was a no no with orchids. Is that true? Is this something I should return and try to find something else? It states it is an all purpose plant food, the numbers are 16-16-16 with the first ingredient being seaweed powder then blood meal and then urea. Just curious what everyone's thoughts are.

Thanks,
LuAnn

[cakedaddy]

I have seen this product lately and am planning to try it out. The deal with urea as a nitrogen source is that it requires nitrifying bacteria in the media to break it down to allow plant roots to access it as a nutrient source. With most orchids being potted the way they are, the frequency of watering would wash it all away before it ever became available to the plants. So, as long as other sources of nitrogen are available, urea doesn't hurt. It's just generally unusable. Someone correct me if I am wrong here.
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[mysbhvn]

Thanks for the reply, Jason. I'm going to try it for a few waterings and see how it goes. With the seaweed and blood meal being the first two ingredients I would think that is where they will be getting most of their nutrients.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Thanks for the reply, Jason. I'm going to try it for a few waterings and see how it goes. With the seaweed and blood meal being the first two ingredients I would think that is where they will be getting most of their nutrients.

Keep us posted, LuAnn, on how it works for your orchids.

cheers,
BD

[tucker85]

I used Maxsea for a couple of years. I thought it was an excellent fertilizer and my orchids did very well when I was using it. It was developed by the Clemson University agriculture department. Like Cakedaddy said, urea does not harm orchids. It's just difficult for them to utilize because it requires bacteria to break it down before the plant can use it. The fertilizer contains other sources of nitrogen also. The only reason I stopped using it was that I use a different seaweed product now, at a higher concentration. My results are about the same though. I still use Maxsea bloom formula 3-16-16 during the winter when I don't what to give the orchids too much nitrogen. I think you'll like the results you get. Good luck.

[mysbhvn]

Thank you for the info Jeff! Its good to know its not going to be bad for my orchids. I may even go back and pick up the one for blooming. I will report back after I've used it for a while.