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| I Have a couple of questions I hope you guys can clear up for me. What is the diffrence in pounds vs units in fertilizer. If I put out 100 lbs of 0-0-60 per acre I get 60 units of potash. How many pounds of actual potash do i get? Is there actually 60 pounds in every 100 pounds of potash? What is the diffrence between units and pounds? Sorry if this sounds dumb but me and grandfather are in a disagreement on this. |
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SW Wisconsin | You're correct it'd be 60% of every pound of material you put out. 100 pounds of material equals 60 pounds of potassium (k), 200 pounds of material would be 120 actual. |
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Northern Nebraska | 60 lbs of k2o, 49.8-52 lbs potassium depending on actual analysis. |
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Rolla, ND | A unit of fertilizer is the amount necessary to give one lb. of the desired nutrient.
100 lbs of potash gives you 60 units of K2O. It is all potash (potassium chloride) except for a few impurities.
People kind of mess up the whole potash-potassium-potassium oxide equivalent thing.
If you take potash and take the equivalent K2O number and the amount of Cl in it you actually end up with over 100% plant food. It is 60% (actually more like 62%) K2O and 45% chloride. The thing is, it actually contains no K2O we are talking equivalents.
Whenever talking fertilizer and the word actual comes up there always seems to be conflict because everyone seems to use it differently. |
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Northeast Nebraska | like wisc said, the 0-0-60 means the % of potassium your plants can use. So just for fun lets say you have soil sampled and they recommend you apply 80 pounds of actual potassium per acre. If you applied 80 pounds of 0-0-60 per acre you would only be applying 48 pounds of actual potassium so you would have a shortage. Instead you take 80/.6 which comes out to 133.3 pounds. So if you apply 133.3 pounds of 0-0-60 per acre you are applying 80 pounds of actual potassium. (obviously you don't have to set your machine right to the decimal point, I would just round up to 135 pounds per acre for easier figuring) Hope this helps! |
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39.48, -82.98 | It is very confusing. Needlessly confusing. I think some of the answers above are incorrect.
So I will use this opportunity to, once again, ask: Why not simply describe fertilizer by the actual amount of the P and K in it, the way we do with N, S, and everything else? Once we got used to calling it 0-0-50 instead of 0-0-60, life would be much easier. |
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sw MN | JaegerFarms - 3/10/2016 23:42
like wisc said, the 0-0-60 means the % of potassium your plants can use. So just for fun lets say you have soil sampled and they recommend you apply 80 pounds of actual potassium per acre. If you applied 80 pounds of 0-0-60 per acre you would only be applying 48 pounds of actual potassium so you would have a shortage. Instead you take 80/.6 which comes out to 133.3 pounds. So if you apply 133.3 pounds of 0-0-60 per acre you are applying 80 pounds of actual potassium. (obviously you don't have to set your machine right to the decimal point, I would just round up to 135 pounds per acre for easier figuring) Hope this helps!
You forgot to convert k20 to elemental k.
Potash is 60# of K20 or 50# of K.
To apply 80# of K it will take 160# of potash.
So 100# of potash is 50# of K.
Edited by JDPlowboy 3/11/2016 07:49
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Rolla, ND | Every lab I deal with the recommendations are already in K2O or P2O5. Crop removal charts are as well. No need to do conversions and even when people are talking about potassium or phosphorus, I don't know anyone who talks in terms of elemental, everything is in the equivalents. |
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Michigan - Saginaw County | uuuuh, because it IS 0-0-60 (not 50)
University research trials are done in pounds of K2O applied (and that is calculated by using the 0-0-% concentration the supplier says in the product sheet times the number of total pounds of product applied) They do not then convert the K2O weight to the weight to the element.
You can't get elemental K to put down because it will oxidize (burn) the instant it hits the air/soil and becomes K20 before your very eyes.
Metallic potassium is kept in a jug of kerosene in the lab to keep moisture and 02 away from it.
Don't get hung up on minutiae. 6-18-6 has 6 pounds of available K2O per hundred pounds, etc. |
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39.48, -82.98 | You aren't buying elemental N in your ammonia, either. And how often does someone on here get confused over actual N in a ton of 82-0-0? |
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| And P is just short slang for p2o5, and K for k2o. There is never any communication, products or soil samples in elemental numbers. n-p-k = n- p2o5-k2o. people just get tired of writing it out.
For the OP, a unit of K(k2o) is a pound.
Say nitrogen phosphate potash for npk. |
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Fertilizer units vs pounds ??s
