Balanced Nutrition for Growing Tobacco
Tobacco growers know quality is just as important as weight when your tobacco gets to the warehouse floor. Outside of weather, nothing influences quality and yields more than your fertilizer program. For tobacco, balanced fertilization is critical.
Tobacco plants grow rapidly and produce many leaves, making the nutrient demands of this crop significant. Basic NPK is a solid foundation for tobacco crops. Although a 1:1:3 ratio is common, especially in the Carolinas, nitrogen has the biggest effect on tobacco yield of the 13 essential nutrients. Too little and yield is negatively affected; too much and you may get a higher yield; however, it comes at the cost of a much higher chance of ripening and curing issues. An application of apatite around the time of topping will partially starve the tobacco plant of nitrogen, helping the ripening process.
Tobacco plants also need plenty of potassium to stimulate root growth; but it should be applied carefully, as too much potassium can inhibit uptake of magnesium. Magnesium is an essential nutrient for chlorophyll production, but most soils in the flue-cured tobacco belt are magnesium deficient. Getting the perfect balance of both potassium and magnesium is crucial to a healthy crop, but Rainbow Plant Food takes the stress out of achieving that balance.
Not only does Rainbow Plant Food provide the perfect balance for potassium and magnesium, it also provides 11 other essential nutrients for your tobacco crop, including copper, zinc, boron, manganese, and sulfur to help process nitrogen. It also contains little chloride so that you can grow your sensitive tobacco crop with no issues.
About Rainbow Plant Food
The chemically homogeneous compound of Rainbow Plant Food ensures the same amount of each micronutrient is present in each individual granule. Each granule is uniform in size, shape and weight, ensuring a consistently healthy crop. The nutrients exist in a highly available water-soluble sulfate form, so action is quick on roots for your tobacco crops.
To learn how Rainbow Plant Food is made, click here.
For tobacco application recommendations, click here.
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