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Dry Fertilizer

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cedardell

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Does anyone out there know where our dry fertlizer comes from? I thought I remember reading an article one time that said most of it comes from Canada. I checked our local plant and found a lot of cheat grass growing around the storage bin. I wonder if it came from the fertilizer. Actually it seems pretty obvious. Maybe someone knows how to track down the origin. Thanks Buck
 
most of the potash does come from canada,mexico also has potash mines as does florida,the US makes some urea and phos but most that we get comes from south america,comes up here on barges up the mississippi river
 
I think it is unlikely that the cheat grass you see came with fertilizer. If you are talking about the same thing as we call cheat grass, it is downy brome. Downy brome is an opportunist plant it germinates easily and quickly. It has shallow roots so will survive with just enough moisture to wet the soil surface. It is a fall annual, but I believe that even plants that germinate in the spring will produce seed.

Downy brome is not a native plant but it most likely originated in Russia. Was probably brouhgt here in grain and grass seed. I don't remember of there being much when I was growing up. I do remember a small patch of it near the shelterbelt. My parents called it wild oats. By the 1950's it was quite widespread.

It would be hard to list all the ways the seed from it can be spread. It will stick to the hair of animals and to clothing. It can be introduced in seed or in hay. The wind is probably responsible mostly for spreading it. Whirl winds make a great seeder of light seeds from grasses.
 
But wouldn't depend on how its mined as to the posability of forein material? Do you know where in Canada the potash comes from?
 
I'm pretty sure the dealer told me the urea I bought came from............yep....China. Maybe that is why it cost $430 a ton when a couple of years ago it was half that.
 
ammonium nitrate is made from fuel using the same process, in many cases same equipment, that made the bombs in WWII.

What other fertelizers rely on fossil fuels to produce?
 

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