30/10/2016 how to calculate my N.P.K. ratio?

- Nutrients and Fertilizers - International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums

Oh boy!

Alright, so, where to start. Uhm...

Let's start with "What's in my liquid fertilizers?" This will be more detailed than you need, but I think
it's worth your time.

This is pretty simple to answer. There are a relatively specific subset of chemical compounds that are
used as inorganic fertilizers. For those used in liquid blends, they are water soluble versions, so some
of these might be hydrates, but that's not really relavent.

For your macro and secondary nutrients:

Calcium Nitrate
Magnesium Nitrate
Potassium Nitrate
Mono-ammonium Phosphate
Di-ammonium Phosphate
Mono-potassium Phosphate
Di-potassium Phosphate
Ammonium Sulfate
Potassium Sulfate
Magnesium Sulfate
Phosphoric Acid
Nitric Acid
Sulfuric Acid
Calcium Hydroxide(hydrated lime)
And a number of others

For your micronutrients, you have similar compounds, like

Ammonium Molybdate (Molybdenum)
Sodium Molybdate (Molybdenum)
Boric Acid (Boron)
Zinc Sulfate
Manganese Sulfate
Copper (II) Sulfate

There are also compounds called chelates which are commonly used to create fertigation solutions.
Chelates are a special type of molecule that prevents the metals that make up your micronutrients (Fe,
Bo, Mo, Cu, Mn, Zn, Co) from readily creating a phosphate or sulfate precipitate. Basically, they keep
the micronutrients in solution. You will find a number of different chelating agents:
EDTA
EDHHA
DTPA
glycine

On top of all that, there are a number of water soluble organic materials
Humic Acid
Fulvic Acid
Some products
Some seaweed products
Fish meal

complex sugars
a slew of amino acids

For the purposes of this, I will only talk about inorganic fertilizers, so, no organics right now.

On the bottle of a liquid fertilizer blend, you obviously see the NPK ratio. This is a ratio of total
Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash.

Nitrogen comes in three forms

Nitrate Nitrogen (N-NO3)
Ammoniacal Nitrogen (N-NH4)

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30/10/2016 how to calculate my N.P.K. ratio? - Nutrients and Fertilizers - International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums

Urea Nitrogen (N-NH2)

An example of a fertilizer that contains all three is UAN. Urea Ammonium Nitrate Solution. It is a
liquid. This is a 32-0-0 fertilizer. A typical guaranteed analysis is the following:
7.75% by weight Ammoniacal Nitrogen
7.75% by weight Nitrate Nitrogen
16.50% by weight Urea Nitrogen

This means 7.75% comes from Ammonia, or NH4 ions. 7.75% comes from Nitrate, or NO3 ions. And
16.5% comes from Urea, or NH2 ions. 50% of your nitrogen comes from Ammonium Nitrate and 50%
comes from Urea.

Phosphate or Phosphoric acid is listed as P2O5. You can find this in products like MAP, DAP, MKP, DKP.
All those phosphate products I listed above. Lets ups MKP, Mono Potassium Phosphate. MKP is a 0-52-
34 fertilizer.
52%, by weight, P2O5

Now, don't let that confuse you too much. P2O5 is just the way it has to be labeled. When you do the
math, there is actually only ~22.7% Phosphorus in this fertilizer.

Lastly, Potash. This is your potassium and it is listed as K2O. You can find this is MKP, DKP, potassium
nitrate, potassium sulfate(sulfate of potash), or potash. Regular potash as a fertilizer is basically
potassium chloride, so I tend to stay away from due to the chloride content. Let's use MKP, just like
above. Again, it's a 0-52-34 fertilizer.
34%, by weight, K2O.

Again, lets not let that K2O confuse you too much. When you do the math, there is ~28.7% Potassium
in this fertilizer.

Now, you should have a bit of an understanding on how fertilizers are labeled and what your NPK
numbers actually mean.

Next, lets look at how to use dry, water soluble fertilizers, to create something with a NPK ratio.

Let's use Potassium Nitrate and Di-Potassium Phosphate(DKP), and Magnesium Nitrate. These are
weight/weight% numbers for concentration, since they are dry fertilizers.
Potassium Nitrates are typically a 13-0-46.
Di-Potassium Phosphate is typically a 0-41-54.
Magnesium Nitrates are typically a 11-0-0+16MgO. That is, 11-0-0 with 16% as MgO. ~9.6% Mg.

Now, let us consider a nutrient blend with ~100mg/L of Potassium Nitrate, ~100mg/L of DKP, and
~200mg/L of Magnesium Nitrate.

From Potassium Nitrate, we get 13.5mg/L of N-NO3, not nitrate, but nitrogen sourced from nitrate.
There is actually about 59.7mg/L of nitrate. Nitrogen has a molar mass of 14g/mol, the nitrate ion is
62g/mol. There is 1 mol N per 1 mol NO3. 14/62 = .226. 59.7mg/L*0.226 = 13.5mg/L. If you have
questions about this, please feel free to ask, I can try and rephrase this.

From Magnesium Nitrate, we get 22.0mg/L of N-NO3

From Di-Potassium Phosphate(DKP), we get 40.9mg/L. This is ~17.9mg/L of Phosphorus (P), but
remember we don't list it in as a phosphorus percent, but instead a phosphoric acid percent in P2O5.
Phosphorus comprises 43.6% of P2O5, so 0.436*40.9 = 17.9.

From Potassium Nitrate we get 46.3mg/L of K2O. This is 38.4mg/L of K.

From DKP we get 54.3mg/L of K2O. This is 45.0mg/L of K.

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So, our fertilizer has the ratio of 35.5-40.9-100.6 +19.2Mg

In solution, it is really a lot lower. And something to know is that mg/L and ppm are interchangable.
Remember that. So, when I say Total Nitrogen is 35.5mg/L, it is the same as saying 35.5ppm.

The real numbers on the bottle would read really low. 0.0036-0.0041-0.01. Lower than is necessary to
label. And you'd be shipping a SHIT TON of water. Therefore, you concentrate it. Usually 100-1000x

Let's consider a concentration of 1000x. This becomes a concentrated fertilizer blend of 3.55-4.09-10.1
+1.92Mg. This will often be simplified/rounded into a 3.5-4-10 +2% Mg.

1000X is a highly concentrated solution and often times the concentrate will be 500x or lower due to
the solubility properties of many compounds. At 500x, this is 1.8-2-5 +1%Mg.

Now, those numbers are weight/volume% since we added them to water. The conversion to a
weight/weight% is a little tricky to do since the volume of ions in solution changes compared to their
volume as a dry precipitate. This is not really within the scope of this and I'd rather create a solution to
actually give you the weight/weight%. Note that weight/weight% is required by law to be the type of
listing on all fertilizers in the USA.

Weight/weight% is like 10g/100g = 10%

Weight/volume% is like 10g/100mL of solution = 10%

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