-What are the benefits? It will change the chemistry of the soil making more nutrients available to the soil and completely change the appearance of the plants. The soil at North Pointe is extremely high in salts; we can counteract this by using additives (humic acid), and bring the CEC (cation exchange capacity) into a more desireable range. This allows the plants to receive the nutrients whereas before they were just leaching through the soil.

To us? We will no longer have to spread granular fertilizer manually. This will provide a dramatic savings in labor hours. Usually, we apply the fertilizer, blow all the sidewalks and asphalt (it stains if we don’t), and manually turn on valves to water in the fertilizer (it will burn the leaves if we don’t). We will be able to spend more time on details, improving site appearance.

Financially? The additives will improve water and nutrient infiltration into the soil and break up hard pan that develops in the root zone of clay soils. This will allow the roots of the plants to penetrate the soil and develop a strong root system. We can then cut our irrigation back dramatically because the plants’ roots will be better insulated and thus more draught tolerant. We will also virtually eliminate shrub death that occurs regularly at North Pointe. This can save several hundred dollars per year. Color changes will decrease because the plants will be healthier and last longer as well.

-Do we have the money in the budget? We can save money in tree pruning, gopher control, shrub replacement, and color replacement for the reasons stated above. I know we don’t use all the money allocated to the stated categories as well.

-If not, will the savings outweigh the cost? The savings stated above will be realized every year, which adds up over time, more than paying for the system(s)

-Do we have to add special signage? -Are there governmental regulations regarding the implementation of this system? There is no special signage or governmental regulations needed. In fact this system uses environmentally friendly products instead of synthetic granular fertilizers. Plants only take up about 25 % of the nutrients in granular fertilizers for a number of reasons. One, they can only handle a certain amount at one time. Think of it like this, if we fertilize monthly, the plants has to get all of its nutrients at the time of the application. Whereas with the injector, they are getting nutrients in smaller quantities every time we irrigate. As humans, we eat a little each day, not large quantities once per month.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Expert Blog, Landscaping, SMART BLOGS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.