Blood meal and chicken feather meal are high in N and relatively cheap for a bagged organic product...but neither are something you would want to send through a sprayer. You get good bang-for-the-buck out of them, though. Most are in the 12-0-0 to 15-0-0 range.

Blood meal is fast acting...feather meals are longer lasting/slow acting (and need good soil microbe population activity to properly work). I prefer blood meal, but many people I know love to rake in some feather meal at the beginning of the season and apply blood meal (or other supplemental N) as the season progresses as needed, if needed.

Like many products in the market, you need to shop around for the best price no matter what you want. The prices can be all over the place. I've seen 50lb bags of feather meal in fancy bags reminding you how awesome they are for $60+...and other 50lb bags without lets-be-earth-buddies packaging going for $35.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Thu, Apr 10, 14 at 0:14

Nitrogen sources above about 10 percent available N generally are not acceptable to organic growers, most all I have seen are in the 5 to 7 percent range.
Compost tea, manure tea, fish fertilizer may be what Minnie is looking for. Manure teas made with the manure is fine mesh sacks, burlap perhaps, should not have enough solids to clog sprayers.

IMO the real issue is using something that is applied with a sprayer for corn. Should be using a dry side dressing as normal. Side dressing works much better than any spraying given the way corn plants use their N..

Dave

I grew corn organically last year. For nitrogen, I raised chickens and used most of the dried chicken manure on the corn. I buried what I had dried already in with the soil before planting the corn. Then I top dressed with dried chicken manure whenever I had a batch. The corn was on drip irrigation and occasional garden hose watering. The corn did great and had no sign of nitrogen deficiency.

So if you need nitrogen, forget liquid nitrogen. Just raise some chickens.

If you make compost tea, dump the dried chicken manure into the tea, strain the liquid and spray onto the leaves.

"Nitrogen sources above about 10 percent available N generally are not acceptable to organic growers, most all I have seen are in the 5 to 7 percent range."

What?

It's not only rather arbitrary to come up with the number "10" as a cut off, it's kinda weird to exclude things because they rise above that number.

Feather meal, in particular, is one of the few high-N + slow-release organic fertilizers which also has a good price point.

So maybe I should just go with fish emulsion but a liquid source this time.

Below is a 5-1-1. Not sure if the 1 P would do any harm. I know there is lots of P in the manure I use as well as N.

I manure the heavy feeding crops well before planting, but as I said I use plastic mulch so I cannot use side dressings. I leave my broccoli all season and harvest side shoots so I like to fertilize it later in the season.

The last soil test I did was fall 2012. I skipped fall 2013 because the yield was awesome. I will do one again later this season.

Here is a link that might be useful: fish liquid

Maybe a combo of manure in the soil and multiple foliar feedings with something like the fish fert.. Be careful not to scorch the foliage, apply in the evening, check in a small area first, start with low rates and work your way up carefully.

Drip with drip tape is an excellent way to grow under plastic, I can't say I've tried the fish fert. through drip tape but if you do and it works, great! A manure tea would work fine through drip tape as long as you decanted/settled all of the solids out before using it.

Try using knee-high pantyhose over the mouth of your sprayer. (i use the cheap white ones you'll find at a pharmacy). They will even stretch over a funnel so you can pre-strain into a small bucket, collecting the solids in the hose, then can be set back into a bucket with the top of the pantyhose clipped up on the bucket edge for further soaking for your tea.
They can be used over and over by turning inside out and rinsing. I just stock up and have a dozen on the garden shelf. I've found them a low as 30 cents a pair.

Hmm. I have been straining the fish product through a shirt before putting it in the sprayer. It is a mess.