Someone posted this article written about this study in another forum and was pretty surprised they found that intercropping BB plantings with festuca rubra resulted in better iron uptake.
My comment was based on study, as the article’s title seems misleading:
"Mixed feelings about it, but seems like solid data. Well run study but some serious questions. Mainly, in the introduction they acknowledge the common practice of using sulfuric acid for BB plantings, but they did not include the practice in any of their samples?
Bizarre. They also theorize that sulfuric acid could hurt the soil but provide no data to support it. Not a chemist but I don’t see the difference between S added to water and S added to soil. I would want to see some people with long term experience moving away from the irrigation method before I followed suit.
Of all the grasses they could have chosen, interesting red fescue. It’s the only commonly available grass seed native to blueberry home range. They mention adding irrigation to help water grass which would be a problem for my site. Gravity-fed drip irrigated rainwater is a valuable commodity I don’t want to use on grass.
They have some debatable claims about blueberry in nature. Not all species grow in low, wet soils. Well-drained soil is required for BB culture IME and I often see highbush types growing on dry ridges. I might post this study to the GF forum to see what the experts think. Maybe it’s time to experiment with some red fescue in plantings showing Chlorosis."
I was having trouble with my BB until I discovered the battery acid thread in this forum and doing much better now. Do growers share concerns about long-term damage to soil microbe? Should we be experimenting intercropping with red fescue?