To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Antitranspirants/Surround?
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 10:05:57 -0500
You all are not very encouraging re the antitranspirant I had bought for
some reason or other last fall. Have any of you used Surround in drought?
I have read of it for dry climates to reduce evaporation, so I went ahead
and sprayed some on tomato and bean plants while I waited for a call back
from the company re "No Wilt". There is too little moisture in the soil for
plants to grow. Some lucky bean plants are in a spot where leaves were
piled so nothing grew all last year and no weeds used the stockpiled
moisture this spring. These are about 4' high and blooming now. Other
beans came up and have stood there the same height for the last 6 weeks.
I've covered a lot of plants with nylon curtains to hold off the burning sun
and hold in humidity. I'm figuring that for those still exposed and even
those partly covered, that turning the leaves white with Surround is bound
to help at least in reducing the surface temp of the leaves. With no rain
to wash it off, I don't mind using some of our precious 20 gallons or so a
day to spray them.
Re Mark's comments on 'Wilt pruf": "The problem I have using it for
transplanting is that it eventually kills
the foliage. It still works OK though because by the time the sprayed
foliage starts to die, the plant starts
pushing up new growth." This is not at all what I had in mind, because this
isn't transplant shock, there is no water to start new growth. I just want
to slow evaporation enough that the veggie plants, and my roses and fruit
trees, won't die in between the light showers we are now getting about twice
a month. At least, I hope we are still getting them twice a month as it's
been over 2 weeks now since we got that last 1/10 inch rainfall.
We are looking into something affordable that will pump 140 ft of
vertical head from the creek. Looks a like Shurflo 12V pump might do it.
We have one, but not a strong enough model to pump all the way to the top.
Everyone says we'd do best to step it anyway. Any advice would be
appreciated. Donna