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  • From: "Jim Fruth" <jimfruth@charter.net>
  • To: "NAFEX" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Growing blueberries in alkaline conditions
  • Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 08:43:55 -0500

Alan Haigh wrote, "As I've stated on this site before, I have seen very healthy and productive blueberries growing in soils with a pH in the mid 6's and others corroborated this observation."


Alan,
I seen to remember that mentioned where growers have bound up the soil calcium and added additional magnesium but I don't recall anyone saying what they did to de-activate the calcium. If I had a corner of land that I didn't care what happened to, I'd try that. If you were to apply enough phosphoric acid (phosphoric acid is a liquid) to bind the calcium turning it into the insoluble form, calcium phosphate, you should be able to acidify the soil alot faster than by acidifying with sulfur. The soil buffers would likely be neutralized in the process.
I don't know if that has been tried or, I should say that I haven't found anything like that in the literature. It was probably accomplished but not written about because phosphoric acid is relatively (potentially) dangerous to handle. It should work if you knew how much soluble calcium the soil contained and applied only as much phosphoric acid as needed because it would be very easy to apply too much acid lowering the pH too far.
The phosphoric acid would make the calcium unavailable to plants but only momentarily. That is because soil bacteria can reduce calcium phosphate making minute amounts of calcium available to the blueberries and blueberries do need some calcium.

Jim Fruth
Brambleberry Farm
Pequot Lakes, MN 56472
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  • [NAFEX] Growing blueberries in alkaline conditions, Jim Fruth, 05/01/2009

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