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nafex - Re: [nafex] solution for fruit drop in oriental persimmons?

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  • From: Kieran &/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net>
  • To: nafex mailing list at ibiblio <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] solution for fruit drop in oriental persimmons?
  • Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:18:12 -0500

William, I agree with the too much N problem, which supposedly causes figs to drop fruit. But I wonder what the chances are that you have a boron deficiency? It sure will cause citrus to drop! Southern red and yellow clays are generally B deficient, and if you bring up pH and organic matter, the B that is there becomes less available. You could do a CEC soil test, or try planting beets and turnips under your trees to see if they grow well. Beets just won't grow at all with low Boron, and turnips will have hollow black hearts. I've been using borax on the soil, sprinkling it like fairy dust. But what I OUGHT to be doing is spraying with Solubor. I just don't like the price, and have thought I'd never use up a 30 lb bag, but just found a friend bought the stuff to use on their soil. They used theirs all up and would like more, so maybe we'll split a bag. I didn't know I could just buy it at the Farmers Coop, thought I had to mail order it or go to McMinnville to the big nursery suppliers.
When I got my husband to take some borax around and talk to my trees, he said the apples really wanted it, the persimmons didn't care, and the walnut positively cringed. With the walnut he got an image of sap running and oozing. I never tell him what I know already when I ask him to talk to plants for me, so he didn't know that apples love boron and walnuts hate it. Walnuts are very sappy trees, almost impossible to graft because the sap pressure will push the cuts ends apart. The persimmon he talked to is in soil that hasn't had a lot of change from the original clay. That's probably why it hardly crops, not like the tree I grafted it from, which was right where a farmer parks his round bales of hay every year. Were I to up pH and organic matter there, it might want boron too. He's told me since that there's something it wants, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Donna




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