Calcium Nitrate Fertilizer – How to Use It on Your Plants

Even gardeners with the greenest thumbs need a little help sometimes. Calcium nitrate fertilizer is often a go-to choice of fertilizers to produce larger vegetables, strong plants, and faster growth. This soil or foliar additive can give your plants a boost and make them more productive while preventing some of the most common plant problems like blossom-end rot and rust spot. In some ways, calcium nitrate is a best-kept garden secret.

If you’ve never used calcium nitrate fertilizer and want to learn more, this article will walk you through what calcium nitrate fertilizer is, if it is right for your plants, and how to use it.

What Is Calcium Nitrate Fertilizer?

Calcium nitrate fertilizer is a water-soluble chemical solution that provides plants with supplemental calcium and nitrogen. These elements are the physiological building blocks for strong, disease-resistant plants.

Calcium nitrate doesn’t occur in nature — it’s made by mixing inorganic calcium and nitrogen. This is done by combining limestone and nitric acid, followed by ammonia. Calcium nitrate fertilizers are most often used by farmers for better crop production. However, this doesn’t mean the home gardener can’t or shouldn’t use calcium nitrate for their fruits, vegetables, and house plants.

How Do Calcium and Nitrogen Affect Plants?

Calcium provides structural strength to plants’ cell walls. This element also kicks in to help repair plants when they become injured or stressed. The plant’s vascular system will push calcium to the injured area to reinforce it and begin to repair the damage.

Nitrogen is a vital element for photosynthesis and plants’ amino acids. Without nitrogen, plants cannot process sunlight into sugars for growth.

Why Use Calcium Nitrate Fertilizer?

As a gardener, you know that dirt is your plant’s building block of life. Plants pull their nutrients from their soil, but when that soil lacks certain nutrients, plants develop deficiencies. These deficiencies can have a profoundly negative effect.

Calcium nitrate fertilizer acts as a remedy for certain plant deficiencies and diseases. Here are some of its most common uses:

For calcium-deficient plants

Calcium nitrate fertilizer can be used to prevent a calcium deficiency or replenish a plant’s calcium levels. The boost in calcium it provides helps improve leaf strength, fruit, and roots.

A calcium deficiency in plants is fairly easy to spot. When a plant suffers from a calcium deficiency, its new growth develops a curly appearance along the margins. This new growth also develops brown “chlorotic” spots and looks depleted. Other plant tissues soon begin to turn brown and these spots eventually widen and merge. Calcium-deficient plants often have dark brown leaf veins, as well. Once leaves turn brown from calcium deficiency, they are a lost cause. The plant, however, can be saved.

Additionally, calcium deficiencies hamper a plant’s fruit production. Because calcium creates strong cell walls, it is a fundamental ingredient for larger fruit that doesn’t split.