Surprises me that a water solution of something would deposit a water-insoluble film on the leaves and soil. I have no personal experience with Liquid Karma but I sent an email to Rosemania to see if they have any comments.

John, you've made me even less of a fan of foliar feeding. I do, on occasion, dump whatever I'm fertilizing with right over the top of the plant, and have never seen ill effects. But my own sad experience confirms that it is far better to let roots handle nutrients and to leave leaves to perform as the power house and ventilation system. This is something I learned before I understood the meaning of my water test. Spraying the foliage with bad water is much more damaging than water the roots with the very same water.

I have used Liquid Karma for three years now but as an addition to the liquid fertilizing program, not a foliar application. Have had good results using this method, but in general foliar feeding should only be done when the air temps arebelow 85 F and should be done at half the recommended rate.

I can't remember how long ago this discussion took place on this forum about foliar feeding (Veldfire was part of it to give you a clue), but the one thing I took away from it was that if you ARE going to foliar feed, do it in cool weather (as Mbundick says). I do it in early spring every once in awhile (if I think about it) in the belief that the soil is still so cool that nutrient uptake by the roots may need to be supplimented. I "feel" it helps, but have no objective data to support this. I use only Miracle Gro type products.

This is Robbie Tucker from Rosemania's response:

Thanks for forwarding the link to the forum. I read all the replies and some of your readers have already figured out the problem. On roses, Liquid Karma is meant to be used as an enhancement to a liquid feeding program, but only "in the soil", not sprayed on the leaves. I'm sorry the one person had spots on his leaves. The good news is that they should recover nicely and I hope he will try the product mixed with a water soluble fertilizer like Mills EasyFeed or Miracle Grow. I usually use 1 tablespoon per gallon of Mills EasyFeed mixed with 1 teaspoon of Liquid Karma in 1 gallon of water. I give one gallon of the solution to each bush every three or four weeks.

Regarding foliar feeding, I just don't do it. There are more things that can go wrong than can go right. The only product I add to my spray program that could be categoriezed as a fertilizer is the product, "Response". Never use more than one teaspoon per gallon of spray solution.

Best wishes.

Robbie Tucker
Rosemania

Gee Whiz! I didn't know foliar feeding was considered a bad idea. My roses have always loved a fish emusion foliar feeding. They quickly respond with tons of fresh new green growth. Should I stop using this stinky stuff? I hate spraying it on becasue it smells so bad, but I did it out of love.

I bought a huge bottle of concentrated kelp, wish I'd gotten a fish emulsion combo. I carefully diluted it according to directions which said feed more frequently rather than increase the concentration. It really looked weak, I think, ok, I'm not second guessing this one.

I've been afraid to try it on my roses, but gave my lilies one foliar feeding back when the temps were cooler & sky overcast, and they were just gorgeous this year, blooms so huge and dense you could hardly see the foliage, think I'll give them one more feeding when it cools down before they die back. I'm not using it as frequently as it says you can.

I would like to use it on my roses as well but I hesitate until I find other users who have done it successfully. Now there is one here who used fish emulsion to good effect, but that is not quite the same.

I don't think I would try any new product without looking here and reading opinions from reliable sites, actually my rose club was selling it and I was planning to order something similar from Burpee. That said, you can easily misunderstand how to use a product correctly, and I hope the roses recover; I'm sure most will. Knowing it goes waxy would make me not want to use it again for anything.

There's good karma and then there's bad karma.

I'm glad to hear your roses are recovering.

I add both Miracle Gro and liquid kelp to my fungicide every time I spray. Of course, since I'm spraying fungicide, I do it in the cooler hours of the day, but I've never had any negative effects from the foliar feeding. I've been doing it this way for many years (like 30+). Guess it just goes to show that any one thing does not work for us all.

I'm one of those people who believes there is no evidence that foliar feeding has any benefits, only risks. Its an established fact that leaves have no way to absorb Nitrogen, and that likely goes for most (if not all) other nutrients/growth modifiers. I suspect people who see a change in growth from applying nutrient to foliage are seeing the results of run-off working its way into the soil.

I used to foliar feed my garden with a very weak solution of kelp/fish emulsion throughout the growing season, always skipping the rugosas.

As trospero pointed out, this is likely superstitious behavior on my part. This year I've added kelp/fish emulsion to the alfalfa tea that I'm using, with spectacular results. Sufficiently spectacular that I am no longer foliar feeding.

When my back won't let me carry buckets of tea to all the garden plants, I spray the soil with the half-strength kelp/fish emulsion.

The garden has never looked better.

I have foliar fed for the last three years and this was the first adverse reaction that I have had. I usually just fed with Response and Superthrive and only this time decided to add the Liquid Karma to the mix, which I now thoroughly regret. I am glad to report that every one of the plants is recovering nicely.
I will still continue to use Messenger as a foliar feed as I think it definitely shows dramatic results on my roses by spraying it once at tyhe beginning of every month starting in April. I always just add my Messenger to my monthly spray for fungus where I use Honor Guard, Compass, or Mancozeb on a rotating basis. Adding the Messenger has not caused any problems. My foliage has been dramatically larger, greener, and more profuse since adding the Messenger to the fungal spray three years ago.
I don't think I will foliar feed anything else from now on and only soil drench from now on.
I will try the Liquid Karma at the rate of 1 tsp. per gallon in my Fertilizer Injector hooked to my drip irrigation system from DripWorks.
No more spraying by me!!!
John