Why Slow Release Fertilizer Makes Sense For Business

One of the greatest myths when it comes to slow release fertilizer is that the bag price is too high.

In this FAQ, Christina Burton, Maintenance Channel Manager for Horizon, explains how slow release fertilizer is usually less expensive than quick release fertilizer when you take the costs of applying the fertilizer into account.

How Slow Release Fertilizer Is More Economical - Video Transcript

So one of the common objections to slow release fertilizer, or one of the greatest myths, is that the bag price is too high. And that’s why folks won’t go that route.

But again, as we talked about here, with the options being to apply this so called “cheap bag”, but having to come back and do it six weeks later. We’ll show through some numbers here that doesn’t actually pan out to be true when comparing it to buying the more “expensive bag” once and not having to come back and do it again.

So example, you might have an all quick release fertilizer. It costs around $18 a bag. So you spend that in Week 1 and then you spend it again in Week 6. So you’ve spent $36 total.

Not to mention the labor that you paid someone to go out and apply it. The time just getting it transported from place to place. All of the kinda added cost. And the extra mowing because it’s growing like crazy during those weeks. So a lot of intangibles in there also.

Whereas with the slow release fertilizer, this bag might cost more like $26, $28. But you’re spending that one time, saving $10 minus all the labor costs in addition to the $36 you’d spend having to do it twice.

The other thing to take into account is how far is the bag of fertilizer that you’re buying going. Typically, not always, but a lot of your quick release fertilizers have less Nitrogen in the bag. And the reason being, if that number is too high and none of it is slow release, that’s a lot of immediate and that’s kinda what they call a “hot fertilizer”.

So the number is typically lower. So you have to put down a lot more to get to 1 pound of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet. So this bag is only covering 8,000 square feet.

Versus a product with more Nitrogen. 24 versus 16. That bag is going to get you 12,000 square feet. So another 50% more coverage. So you’re actually buying fewer bags as well.