North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

Steve,

It is puzzling that there would be such a fine line between boron deficiency
and toxicity.  Boron is one of the trace elements, which means plants
require very "trace" amounts.  But that doesn't explain why it is so easily
toxic.  I do believe it's easily toxic though.  Too much out there that says
so.  I'm not willing to validate the experiments on our soil.

It appears there would be less toxicity problems with eastern soils because
toxicity is more observed on alkaline soils (out west).  Here are a couple
links that discuss toxicity.  Around 2ppm seems to be the upper threshold.
Compare that to Calcium which can safely run at 3000 ppm or more.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1492787/extractability_plant_yield_and_toxicity_thresholds_for_boron_in_compost/

http://www.toprak.org.tr/isd/can_09.htm

Mark
KS

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve" <>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 11:53 PM
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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