Grouppe Kurosawa: Organic Gardening

Fish Oil

When we first became friends with the “fish people”, our friends who are in the processing and rendering business, I learned a fascinating story about the power of advertising and its ability to convince people that they cannot live without a certain product. I guess this is the ultimate goal of all advertising. In the case of fish oil or fish emulsion, this long-running advertising campaign has convinced people that a waste product of the fish rendering business is an important and valuable plant fertilizer. Everyone knows that fish oil is a good fertilizer, right? Well, it isn’t. The entire marketing and advertising scenario that has evolved over the years is nothing short of brilliant. You take a worthless product, saturated fish oil, add some cheap minerals to make it a legal fertilizer, and sell it to the public for a profit. You make money on the product and you don’t have to pay to have it trucked to a landfill for disposal. You literally sell your garbage to the public for a handsome profit. .

Some fish oil is unsaturated (it is liquid at room temperature), and is very valuable. I am not talking about this type of fish oil. This oil is pressed out of fishmeal and sold to other processing companies. Shark oil is particularly valuable. This oil comes from dogfish—not an endangered species. It is a small molecule oil that rapidly diffuses in water. Shark oil is a wonderful bait for drawing fish, crawfish, lobsters, crabs to traps or to your hook. People soak their bait in it. It acts like an insect pheromone in drawing fish, etc. to the bait. We are going to sell it in the future, so inquire if you want it. Oils are nothing but chains of carbon atoms of various lengths. So are gasolines, diesel fuels, motor oils, etc. These industrial oils aren’t plant foods so why should fish oil be different? Does it contain some kind of magic ingredient that science hasn’t recognized? If it does, we’d like to know what it is. The reality is that plants get their carbon from the air—CO2. They cannot metabolize fish oils. When plants photosynthesize, they convert the carbon in CO2 into sugars. This is their source of energy. Soil microorganisms could metabolize the oil for their own use, but it would be a very slow process. Oils in general are not a major component of normal organic matter. Some bugs can definitely break down oils, but they exist in such small numbers in the soil that the process would take a long time to complete. Unfortunately, many gardeners believe they are using organic methods when they use fish oil fertilizers. All natural and all that. Sorry. It isn’t so. Fish oil fertilizers are not considered organic. The only reason they have any nutrient value whatsoever is because the manufacturers add inorganic minerals to the oils. Read the labels. They are spiked with urea, other inorganic nitrogens, phosphoric acid (which also extends the shelf life of the oils), and soluble potash or potassium.

There are two types of fish oil or emulsion fertilizers. The first is useless and the second has some value. Neither is organic.

The Useless: you can spot this product by reading the label. First, all the fertilizers will have a NPK ration (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) of 5-1-1. The mineral components will include ammoniacal nitrogen (soluble nitrogen derived from ammonia), nitrate nitrogen (derived from soluble nitrates), and urea nitrogen. The total percentage will equal 5% nitrogen, 1% phosphoric acid and 1% soluble potash. This type of product is very common and inexpensive—about $6-$8 dollars a gallon.

The Near Useless: this product contains less oil than the former. It is also 5-1-1, but it includes a reference to “water soluble nitrogen derived from ocean fish”. This is not fishmeal like MaxGro. This nitrogen comes from fish scraps and oils that are washed from the fish processing equipment, conveyors, floors, etc. The scraps are transferred to steam kettles, and concentrated into a thick liquid. From there, it is treated with hydrochloric or phosphoric acid in order to break down the fish protein into small pieces (this makes the product more liquid) and kill the bacteria. If the product contains 1% phosphorus and 4% chloride, the processor used hydrochloric acid to prepare the emulsion. This product has actual fish protein in it, but it is supplemented with nitrates, urea, etc. to make it a legal fertilizer.

If a gardener wants to use 5-1-1 inorganic fertilizers, there are plenty of them on the market. They do not need to contain fish oil in order to be effective.