Fig grower,
Inside pictures are easier. We have a lot of wind today. The picture looks bad but less than 2% of the tree looks like that.
Does the firm sell their own fertilizer formulations?
@Alan, if that question was directed to me, no Kinsey Ag only tests and recommends they don’t sell fertilizer (which is one of the reasons I like them).
But that is a good point. Quite a few of the test labs are also in the fertilizer business. And that can compromise their objectivity IMO. Certainly it makes me wonder whether what they tell me I need really is more just what they need to sell.
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Bought this to make the foliage spray. You think it will work ok? I found this link http://homeguides.sfgate.com/can-use-boric-acid-around-orange-tree-103035.html and this one http://www.lifesciencesite.com/lsj/life0904/297_10732life0904_1979_1989.pdf and am still researching the concept. Researching the disease further http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r603100111.html.
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Clark, here’s a link to Solubor, an approved boron foliar spray
Interesting in that it is made by the Borax co too.
And here’s a link to a WSU article, it gives some advice and details on using boric acid and other boron sources as a foliar.
Note all the talk about how applying too much boron can be toxic. Might be prudent to hold off to see the results of you boron soil test, unless you are very sure that boron deficiency is common in your area…
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Thank you Steve I checked out the links. @Appleseed70 I went ahead and sprayed the tree with the boric acid I have and will let you know what happens. The problem was getting worse so I decided not to wait. The test may take some time and I’m not sure I had time.
Where did you find the correlation between boron and blossom blast?
To be honest Clark…the boric acid along with foliar spraying scares me a bit. Especially on newer spring growth. I’d have went with the more subtle dissolved borax and soil applied method, but that’s just me. I know you’ve read up on it and I’m hoping it does well.
Mike,
There are many references to boron / blossom blast but here is one http://www.tfrec.wsu.edu/pages/cpg/Boron .
Jeff,
I’m not worried about spraying the tree because if it dies it would be just as well if I can’t improve it’s health. It’s worth the chance.
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Clark,
Generally Boron guidelines for fruit trees are around 1.5 to 2ppm in the soil. We have fairly heavy soil around here which weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 4mil. pounds per acre foot. That makes it pretty easy to determine how much boron to add. If you want to bring the soil up 1ppm, then you would add 4 lbs. per acre.
If you want soil boron, the Coop at Spring Hill sometimes has it on hand, but it’s 90% boron, so it’s pretty powerful stuff.
I’ve had my soil testing done w/ A&L labs. They have labs all over, but I use one of them in the upper Midwest. Very reasonable prices. They have packages which check for all the micros (including boron).
The Extension around here is pretty weak on fruit crops (not enough produced in KS). There is a small fruit research farm in Olathe. I met the guy who works there and he seems pretty sharp, but I would venture to say you could do a better job teaching the extension about fruit, than them teaching you.
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Thanks Olpea I appreciate your help. I used a teaspoon of 90% in the foliar spray in 1 gallon of water so very soon we will see what happens with that tree I used as the guinea pig. I will top dress the soil with 10 year old manure and rotted 3 year old wood chips today and see if I can get that tree back in shape. The vinegar stopped the spread in its tracks for the moment. It progressed no further after that. The poor hazelnut beside it got a little vinegar overspray and you could sure tell. Bacteria hate vinegar though so before the rain I hit it hard so the bacteria numbers would be down to reduce spread.
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BTW, chicken manure is supposed to be relatively high in boron and zinc. Not an immediate fix but perhaps for the longer term…
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That’s great news Steve one of my orchards is my old chicken yard!
Yes, that is often the case, but if all you want is to find out about correcting a boron deficiency and where to test for it, the extension should be up to that. Even the expertise of Cornell is no substitute for the information available at this forum.
As I’ve often said here, no matter how good your landgrant university is at advising commercial growers their information comes from research around commercial production so home growers have to take their recommendations with more than a few grains of salt.
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Totally. I knew you were talking only soil tests. I was referring to Clark submitting pics for diagnosis on his pear. I should have clarified.
I think you and I have probably experienced some of the same successes and frustrations with extention, although I’m sure Cornell is much better for fruit. At least, like you say, commercial.
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I had my soil tested by Logan Labs in Ohio. It was only $20 a few years ago. They said extremely low in Boron, which is typical of my area. Boron is something you have to measure and calculate very carefully, because even a little bit can be too much. I did the calculations, and what I noticed, was that several of the fruit trees bloomed that hadn’t bloomed in years. They have kept blooming since then. Now I get much more fruit, and a wider variety than before. I think I recall that Boron works with some other mineral to make it more bioavailble, but I don’t remember which one.
John S
PDX OR
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I read this and realized that I failed to mention an important part. After the soil test, I added borax in solution. My yard was also extremely low in Calcium, zinc, and manganese. 40 mule team borax from the grocery store is an amazingly inexpensive way to add Boron, but you have to make sure you are doing all the math correctly. I followed the procedures in Steve Solomon’s “The Intelligent Gardener”. You have to figure out the area of your yard, how much it is lacking in boron, the quantity of borax and the percentage of boron in borax. It isn’t calculus or anything fancy, just careful step by step work. It made a huge difference in my yard.
John S
PDX OR
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John,
I didn’t have time to wait to save the tree when I used the boron foliar spray but the disease came to a halt as soon as I did it. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure which is to say I should have tested the soil in the first place prior to a disease. If we run ourselves down we get a cold and trees are not different.
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Spraying boron as a foliar spray last year yielded some amazing results. The fruit crop was plentiful and very high quality. The trees are in good health now and I’ve seen no additional problems. This year I’m going to spray a very small amount of zinc as a foliar spray. Yesterday I put on copper and dormant oil.
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Was doing some research tonight and found a lot more information on blossom blast and realized that it has plagued my pears the last 2 years. I lost all the fruit on my young pear trees again this year mostly do to blossom blast. The consensus after reading several publications is that blossom blast is prevalent in years with cool, damp weather during the bloom period; especially if a light frost event occurs during that same time period. The frost event is the biggest trigger. Recommendations for some help in control of blossom blast are a late, dormant copper application (as you have noted before because it helps destroy the bacteria and which keeps the bacteria from becoming the ice forming nuclei). Followed by 2 streptomycin applications. Also the reports noted that once symptoms of blossom blast are visible any treatment is too late to do any good for that year.
Boron does play a role in blossom health and fertilization, but I didnt really find a connection between boron and blossom blast.
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