North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["S & E Hills" <ehills7408@wowway.com>]

I've got a weed here in Michigan that is supposedly highly sensitive to
boron levels in the soil (creeping charlie, aka ground ivy).  In fact if one
searches for ways to rid an area of creeping charlie, borax is frequently
mentioned as a solution (and I can tell you that it does seem to affect the
weed) but there is the danger of applying too much and killing everything in
the area (I've wiped out grass as well as creeping charlie in one area, but
a little compost and the grass returns fine, but the charlie has still
stayed out of that particular area.

Scott Hills
Zone 6b Michigan 

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Steve
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 12:54 AM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] boron



Ernest Plutko wrote:
> Boric acid is about 16.5% boron and borax is about 11.3% boron.  I 
> understand boron deficiency is rare and it is easy to poison plants 
> with boron.
> 

So, if most soils have enough boron and it's easy to add too much, making
the soil toxic, are there areas that naturally have too much boron for most
plants? Oh, I'm sure that could be the case out west, especially in an
internal drainage basin situation where there's too much of lots of things.
What about the eastern half of North America?
It seems impossible to me that there would be a fine line between an optimal
amount and a toxic amount. If it were a tiny difference, then I would expect
big areas with a deficiency and/or big areas with too much.

I've often wondered if my yard could be deficient in boron. (Not so curious
though that I sent in a soil test.) I live in the northeast, in an area
where the underlying rock is about all granite. I do live along the lake
shore and not up the side of a mountain.

I remember something about beets needing boron, and I think someone here
mentioned beets. I never grew them until the last 2 summers. They seemed to
do fine so can I trust that I have enough boron? The leaves were kind of
sickly looking but the beets sized up OK and were tasty (for a beet).

Steve ... in the Adirondacks of northern NY

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