Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Fertilization Using corn gluten meal

Being a fan of slow release 100% organic, I am wondering why I cannot use the Corn gluten meal that I use everywhere else?

For fertilizer ? What is its chemical make up and what is your ponds chemical deficiency?

It is made up of Corn Gluten. 9-0-0.

got my answer, check out item 3 at http://www.dirtdoctor.com/view_question.php?id=1988
It is not only a great fertilizer but knocks out algae.

phosphorus is limiting nutrient in 99% of ponds so this will not produce a phytoplankton bloom your tyring to achieve when fertilzing a pond. If going organic route it is difficlut to control, but chicken manure was choice in SE in years past.

No way I would use corn gluten for algae based on the info so far. If it is N as per your post it may not help with pond fertility as per Greg's comment (most of the time the limiting factor is low P not N ) .

The web site says it ties up P in the pond as a method of denying FA nutrients. If so it can't help with pond fertility because it is tying up nutrients. This also is contrary to the life cycle of FA. By the time FA gets to the surface it does not need nutrients as it is near the end of its life cycle. It does its growing on the bottom. Surely they are not suggesting one spread hundreds of pounds of corn gluten so it will sink to the pond bottom and effect FA. Am I missing something here?

Ewest well stated that is what I wanted to say but the phone is off the hoo around here. The website had many contradictary statements.

Other than the one report above, so does anyone know anything about experiments with non-water-soluble fertilizer in ponds?

I suspect that most of the negative above is caused by a fundamental mis-understanding of water-soluble and non-water-soluble "fertilizers." I am not a pond expert, but I can relate my land 25 year experience. Enthused by a Mother Earth study, I dropped all insecticides and water-soluble fertilizer, replacing it all with non-soluble fertilizers and bio-controls. Each time, within 2 years, my lawns, trees, veggies, flowers were the greenest/healthiest in the neighborhood. I really loved the part where I replaced the Scott's 5 times a year treatment with one application in the fall.

This took a major mind shift for me. I always could get instant gratifications with normal fertilizers which have high percentage of water-soluble components, but the health after 2 - 3 years of the micro-eaten fertilizers is not arguable. Also, year for year, much cheaper, more earth worms, more fireflies, etc.

Now for the pond. I am experimenting on land with Corn Gluten Meal, so far so good. If you expect the fast-food-fix of a bucket dissolving as you watch it float, then you will be unhappy. My small scale experiment (I tossed a handful from the dock), is that it floats until it gets either eaten (did not expect that), or gets waterlogged and sinks. In both cases, it sits on the bottom, with bacteria, micro-zoo and some plankton eating it and turning it into FA killer, and N fertilizer.

The non-water-soluble fertilizers will have to eventually be converted to a soluable nutrient (usu by bacterial action) for plants to absorb the nutrient, or how does one explain how it gets into the roots of a plant?. Unless plants have evolved a new process of nutrient absorption in the last few years that I do not know about.
Non-water-soluble fertilizer if it is ever to be utilized as a fertilizer, and not be permanently bound, would be considered a slow release fertilizer. Use of corn gluten as a fertilizer possibly adds some organics to the soils and also enhances the beneficial soil bacterial flora in addition to the eventual release of disssolved nutrients from decomposition to benefit plant growth.

I would not go so far as to call corn gluten a FA killer. It might at times suppress some growth of FA, but I doubt that it acts to chemically kill FA similar to the chemical action of for instance copper based herbicides or hydrogen peroxide as in Green Clean.
I doubt very much that the micro-zoo or plankton are directly eating the corn gluten. They are not equipped or adapted to eat corn gluten. They are no doubt feeding on the associated bacteria that are decomposing the corn gluten.

Many ponds are naturally infertile due to low/no available P. If the P introduced is non-water soluble it will not be available for use by plankton as water is the plankton's food conduit. Further if what is added to the pond has the additional effect of tying up (locking away) the P that is there a less fertile pond will result. Denying plankton the ability to adsorb the nutrients it needs undermines the base of the food chain and thus fish production. Based on the 9-0-0 NPK # provided above , corn gluten meal has no/very limited P (only N which is rarely missing from ponds) and therefore can not add the nutrient (P) which is missing to make most infertile ponds fertile.

In fertile ponds no fertilizer is needed whether it be water soluble or not.

If one has a fertile pond and wants to get rid of the FA it is imperative that they do so using a method that denies nutrients to only the FA and not to the plankton so as not to remove the base of the food chain. The other 2 options to deal with the FA are chemical application or physical removal by man , fish or other life. Aeration and microbes are related forms of the later two. This is what makes FA a difficult problem to overcome.

I am always looking for new and better pond methods but they have to be consistent with basic science and understandable. So far this one has not reached that point for me..

Thank you for your information viz. non-soluble fertilizer, and Potassium. If I ever have to fertilize, it is likely that I will use the non-water soluble fertilizer, following the on-land successes.

As for Potassium, I have NOT done a water test, and should look into it. I have been lazy on this regard, as I have assumed that the water would follow the soil. When I took on this farm, I sent soil samples to two separate labs, and they indicated that I needed No P/K, and in fact recommended against adding any. They also advised against heavy N, except where I have a high N depleting "crop", i.e. grass.

That sounds like some good soil. I could wish for the same. Ours is acid and low in fertility and alkalinity. N is low also. Interestingly our water even with those soils does not need supp N , only P so we use mostly 0-46-0 at about 1/5 the recommended rate. The added P will only work if lime is added to bring up the alkalinity. If I am not careful coming out of winter we can go from tap water clear to 12in or less of visibility in a couple of days. Even with all that we rarely have any FA reach the surface and only limited amounts on bottom. It took about 5 years of attempts after soil and water tests to figure out the best way to manage the situation. The best advice is know your own soils/water and go slowly at fisrt. Mother Nature has a way of imposing her will.

Just so everyone is on the same info: N = Nitrogen, P = Phosphorus, K = Potassium.

Yep sorry Bill. Fertilizer is designated by its ingredients N = Nitrogen, P = Phosphorus, K = Potassium and referred to a NPK fertilizer. The #s on the bag such as 8-52-7 are the amount of N first , P second and K third. Those are the major nutrients needed by plants.