- Fri Oct 22, 2021 3:38 am
#390865
I think a large part of it just has to do with the immense amount of data it has to support its safety and effectiveness, as well as how much to dilute it, how often to use it, which plants benefit from it or not, etc. When attempting something as potentially risky as fertilizing these plants, with cultivation practices for arguably all of them still being far from an exact science, and when a single canister of it lasts literally forever, having a decades-long data set as expansive as Maxsea has is hard to argue with, in my opinion at least. Of course there are other factors at work too though, such as being derived from a natural source, the level of trace elements like copper present, and how much urea-based nitrogen it contains. All that is well above my paygrade at the moment though and as best I could tell not nearly as well documented, so after a few weeks of trying to find answers myself I still ended up just pulling the trigger on a can of Maxsea quite a while back, and it hasn't disappointed.
EDIT: I'll add a couple quotes from The Savage Garden regarding this, since they may provide a little bit of insight.
In a section about the standard fertilizers for "Acid-Loving Plants": "I have used it successfully on all Sarracenia species; Darlingtonia; most, but not all Drosera; temperate, acid-loving Pinguicula; most Utricularia; and Dionaea. Avoid using it on Mexican Pinguicula and most Nepenthes."
And as for Maxsea: "...it also includes several minerals not found in most fertilizers, much of them derived from seaweed.", and later "...live sphagnum moss grew profoundly and luxuriously-while all other fertilizers killed live sphagnum. Why this is so remains a total but wonderful mystery."