Does liquid fertilizer work best

Answer 1

It depends on where and when it's used. Liquid fertilizer is certainly convenient for pot plants, but for larger applications such as a lawn or a field may be less so. The nutrients in a fertilizer can only be taken up by plants when they are dissolved in water, so applying the fertilizer as a solution has the advantage that it's immediately available. Solid fertilizers may be easily soluble, in which case they are not much different from liquids in their effect, or 'slow release' where the nutrients are released gradually, such as with natural fertilizers like compost. In the open there is a big advantage to slow release: you only need apply the fertilizer infrequently and there is a steady supply to the plants. Soluble fertilizers are easily washed out of the soil by rain, so they are wasted if not applied little and often, which is costly on a large scale. They also cause massive water pollution problems when they run off into streams and lakes. In general both solids and liquids work well, applied in the right way and at the right time. One situation where liquid works very well is for frequent application to such things as summer bedding in a small garden, where the right nutrients can produce prolific flowering. However, remember that it's not just the physical state of the fertilizer that matters, but which specific nutrients are present.