FEEDING PLANTS THROUGH LEAVES 
By DR. G. ELLINGTON JORGENSON 
Plant Pathologist and Biochemist 
From “POPULAR GARDENING,” June, 1952 
To find out how much truth and how much fiction there was in certain pro- 
vocative statements I had seen here and there about foliage feeding of plants, in 
the spring of 1950 I undertook to experiment with this novel method of providing 
plants with nourishment. By the autumn of that year I knew everything good 
claimed for feeding plants through their leaves to be true. 
Since I started in 1950, I have applied nutrients directly to the leaves of roses, 
dwarf apple trees, tomatoes, string beans, gladiolus, raspberries, strawberries and 
some shrubs. I used Ra-Pid-Gro, a soluble compound that looks like green salt. It 
has a 23-21-17 analysis and is said to contain hormones, vitamins and trace ele- 
ments besides. Its principal source of nitrogen is urea (carbonyl diamid). 
I am one who insists on quality in tomatoes. Of all those available up to the 
present time, I consinder the hybrids the most superior. But inasmuch as we did 
not return from our winter place in Hollywood, California, until the first of April 
and hybrid tomato seedlings were not available, I had to start my own plants from 
seeds unfavorably late. On April 2 I moistened seeds in a standard solution of one 
teaspoonful of the 22-21-17 plant food to one quart water, planted them in vermicu- 
lite and kept them indoors. By the fourth day the seeds had sprouted. Throughout 
their hothouse period, the little plants growing in vermiculite were fed only through 
their leaves. 
On May 21, when the seedlings had leafed out and were from 8 to 9 inches high, 
I dipped their roots in the solution (mixed as above) and transplanted them out- 
doors. They suffered no shock, did not droop, and continued to grow with no set 
back. From transplanting to harvest, I fed them with a spray mist of % of a tea- 
spoon of the plant food to one quart water. 
The contrast between foliage-fed plants and these started and transplanted 
at the same time but given only ordinary root fertilizer was remarkable. The 
untreated plants did not grow higher than 26 inches while, by July 25, the foliage- 
fed plants were 5 to 6 feet high and loaded with ripening fruit. Their luxuriant 
foliage was a healthy dark green and the plants were free from blight. Yield of 
treated plants as avainst that of the same number of untreated plants was 83% 
greater in 1950 and 94% greater in 1951. 
Fest of all, though blight destroyed nearly all tcmatoes in my section of the 
country during the early wet cold weeks cf summer, I had very little trouble with 
it. My foliage fed plants were healthy and productive until mid-October when I 
cleaned them out because we had become weary of Tomatoes. 
Raspberries 
Of the six different types of raspberries I grow, I chose to test Latham and 
Indian Summer. For purposes of comparison, some plants were given the usual 
root fertilizer we have used for years while others were foliage fed with *% of a 
teaspoon of plant focd to one quart water every two weeks from the time leaves 
sprouted to the first killing frost. The foliage fed canes of Latham became 7 to 
9 feet long and produced approximately 110% more fruit than the untreated canes. 
Indian Summer canes also grew longer when foliage fed and produced 98% more 
fruit than untreated canes. To say the yield of the foliage fed raspberries was 
immense would be putting it mildly. Moreover, the treated canes went into their 
period of winter dormancy with a rugged sturdiness not previously observed. 
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