KINDS OF FERTILIZER

1. ORGANIC FERTILIZER refers to

the fertilizer that comes from
decayed plant and animal
residues such as:
a. Animal manure. Animal
manures are especially valuable
in crop production. In addition as
plant food, they supply large
amounts of organic matter to the
soil.
b. Green manures are green
growing plants that are plowed
under. Leguminous plants are
mainly used for this purpose due
to their capacity to produce
nutrients in their root nodules.
Upon decomposition, nutrients
become available to new crops
grown in the area.
c. Compost is an organic material
consisting of very fine, thoroughly
decomposed mixture of manure,
plant parts, and other organic
matter. It contains mineral
elements needed for plant
growth. It is prepared by piling up
animal manure, soil, crop
residues, lime or wood ashes. It
could also be produced through
vermi-composting using African
night crawlers (ANC) worms
which produce cast which is a
very good source of organic
material.
2. INORGANIC FERTILIZER. These
are the commercial fertilizers.
They are concentrated form of
plant food which maybe
complete or incomplete. A
complete fertilizer contains all
the three macro elements (NPK).
An incomplete fertilizer contains
only one or two of these
elements – N, P or K.
a. Single element fertilizers.
These contain only one element.
Examples:
*Ammonium sulphate(21-0-0)
*Urea (46-0-0)
*Ordinary superphosphate (20-0-0)
*Muriate of potash (0-0-60)
b. Incomplete fertilizers. These
fertilizers contain only two
fertilizer elements. Examples:
Mono-ammonium phosphate
(21-53-0)(18-46-0)
and (16-20-0) (11-18-0)
c. Complete Fertilizers. These
contain all three major elements,
N,P,K in percentages indicated
respectively by the three
numerals .Examples:
12-12-12, 14-14-14, 12-24-12, 10-
25-25, 5-10-16

All the commercial fertilizers are

manufactured to meet the
demands of different crops and
different soil types. They provide
the plants with ready
concentrated amount of
nutrients for plant growth, the
same elements found in an
organic fertilizer but greater in
percentage.