From: Colin Malsingh colin-cred@rhubarb-rhubarb-rhub
>I've seen a number of posts about how valuable calcium supplements can
>be to plants (eg. Tomatoes etc). Many people talk about adding mineral
>supplement tablets straight into the soil.
>
>I recently bought some Dolomite tables (it's a naturally occurring mix
>of Calcium and Magnesium minerals) and tried crumbling them up to mix
>into the soil around my plants. When I watered them, the white crumbs
>just stayed on the surface.
>
>I'm beginning to wonder quite how water-soluble this stuff is, and
>hence how are we supposed to get it into a form where it can actually
>reach the plants & be taken up through their roots.
>
>Can anyone out there who's seen a difference from using these
>supplements please advise?
>
>Before playing around blindly with oddball chemicals and pills get a soil test
and see just where you stand insofar as as what is contained within your soil, THEN you can consider if any amendmenbts are needed. You mention dolomite--that's a SLOW acting mineral supplement that breaks down over a period of time. Dolomite limestone is often added to soils that are too acid in the off season. Your soil may already contain enough calcium and magnesium so adding more is a waste--but you don't know that since you don't know the composition of your soil--so get a test and stop messing around and don't listen to quacks with theri magic miracle cure alls
in article snipped-for-privacy@mb-m11.news.cs.com, Frankhartx at snipped-for-privacy@cs.com wrote on 7/19/03 2:41 AM:
Dolomite is a combination of calcium and magnesium carbonates. While tomatoes need calcium and magnesium, they also like acidity. Dolomite will make soil more alkaline. I use dolomite in my hydroponic nutrient solution to increase pH on the rare occasions when the nutrient is too acid. t is true that dolomite, like limestone, is not very soluble.
The supplier of my nutrient suggests adding Calcium and magnesium to the nutrient during heavy bearing times. They recommend, and I use, calcium nitrate and Epsom salt. The calcium nitrate I use has a significant amount of water of crystallization as well as a bit of ammonium nitrate mixed in. Because of the small amount of ammonium nitrate and water of crystallization, I do not think that it can become explosive. Epsom salt also has water of crystallization and is relatively cheap. Both salts, because they are made up from a strong acid and a relatively weak base will help acidify.
By the way, buying these inexpensive materials at a boutique nursery or garden supply store can easily jack up their priced by a factor of five or ten.
No magic. No miracle. No cure-all. And absolutely no quackery.
Blossom End Rot (BER) is caused by a lack of calcium. This, in turn, is caused by a lack of available calcium in the soil. Either there is an inadequate level of calcium in the soil or pH / watering problems prevent its uptake. If the plants are experiencing BER but the pH is fine, then adding calcium to the soil and correcting the watering problems will correct it. Given the seriousness of BER, I do not think the ~$1.00 per year I spend on calcium supplement tablets for spot application in my garden --about 9 cents per plant-- to be a waste. (A ~$3.00 bottle lasts me about 3 years, thus ~$1.00 per year)
I believe I was the first poster (this growing season) to relate how I used this product. The person who broke up the tablets and sprinkled water over them did not do as I suggested. Different techniques yield different results. I stated that I pushed 3 tablets into the ground near the tomato and pepper plants at the time of planting. This allows natural processes to dissolve and distribute them so that they are available by the time the roots grow into the soil beneath where I pushed the tablets into a hole made with my finger and then covered over to keep the birds from trying to eat them. This process takes a long time to complete ... which is okay because the plants need small quantities over the fruiting period, not massive one-time washes of it. Colin applied crushed tablets to the surface of the ground, then watered. When he did not see all of the material disappear instantly, he questioned whether it was sufficiently water soluble to be available in a form the plants need.
Colin, as you continue to water through the season, the particles will progressively dissolve and leach down into the root zone. Some of the calcium will be bound up chemically into other compounds and become either unavailable to the plants or only slowly available. Oh well. Some will miss the roots and continue leaching down past them. Again, "Oh well". Some will be found by the bacteria living on the roots and used. Bingo!
I'm not a quack. I was getting BER, researched the problem online and began adding the tablets as a convenient means of countering the problem in my soil. I have never recommended this as a panacea but as a specific response to a specific condition and only if that specific condition has manifested itself in a particular plot previously. If soil is in the proper pH range and calcium is present in sufficient quantities and watering is handled properly, then BER will not occur. If the soil pH is wrong or the watering is mis-handled, then all the calcium in the world would not be enough. I count on other gardeners to know the approx. pH in their own soil and to apply water properly. If they don't do these simple things then they probably should avoid mucking about in the soil chemistry at all.
IIRC, only one other person chimed in stating that they were doing as I do and getting the results I get. That certainly is not sufficient data for anyone to follow our path blindly. It is, however, a cue that the answer might lay in this direction. By NO means should the patter on a newsgroup be taken as authoritative. This is an INFORMAL forum. Information is given in a simplified form and is often anecdotal in nature and ALWAYS without warranty of any sort except "it worked for me".
Soil testing, while laudable, is not as simple a matter as you imply. The local extension service (Wayne County, MI) is a PITA to work with. I imagine there are other areas of the country that give good service, but Detroit isn't one of them. There is NO way that I can see that they are at all interested in doing soil tests ... they seem to be much better at erecting barriers than they are at providing services. Their hours are extremely limited for sample carry-ins and all of them during normal working hours when farmers might be able to slip away for a while but most factory rats with a garden in the backyard are not going to have that much liberty from their employers, they do not publish fees and addresses on their web sites, (IMO) ignorant people answer the phones ... all designed to discourage rather than encourage use of their soil testing services by individuals.
You are right ... it is important to have some sort of clue as to what the soil contains before adding stuff willy-nilly. However, the presence of BER is a valid indicator of a calcium deficiency. If the soil pH is correct and the water discipline is correct, then the problem is a deficiency of available calcium.
I'm no quack and a soil test is not the only means of getting a measure of what's in the soil. Farmers corrected for deficiencies long before the cow-colleges were ever created. There are indicator conditions and indicator plants that tell the story in sufficient detail that a person skilled in their reading probably has no need to pay for a soil analysis.
The person applying small quantities of dolomitic lime will reap some benefits this year ... and more next year. No harm will have been done. It would be another matter entirely if he were applying it by the shovel-full. ANY deleterious modification of pH that he might be causing is limited to a very small area and the soil directly beneath it and is mitigated by the very slowness of availability you point to as a handicap and the very small quantities involved.
You told him "Your soil may already contain enough calcium and magnesium so adding more is a waste--but you don't know that since you don't know the composition of your soil"
Well, does it have enough or not? "May" doesn't 'cut it'. You don't know the composition of his soil either. If he is experiencing BER, he has some combination of a calcium deficiency or a watering problem. By adding calcium to his soil he has taken one variable out of the equation and can then isolate watering / pH as a source of the problem. However, he did not state that he was experiencing BER, either. So neither of us can tell whether adding anything at all was warranted. Or not.
Had he asked me about adding the calcium I would have asked him if he had observed any symptoms in the past, the nature of his soil, its pH and so on. Since he did not ask me directly, I would NOT have advised him to spend anywhere from $12-$50 for a soil test or even the lesser sum for a soil test kit (and less reliable results) from the local garden center. He doesn't need that level of detail for this particular circumstance. I check my pH and I watch my plants. I add a boat load of compost as a mulch all year round. I would recommend he do this much blindly. More than that, though, needs more information from him.
Thanks Bill, I had BER earlier in the season, so became interested in this.
I later read that Tomatoes (and I believe Okra) both thrive when they have good access to Calcium and Magnesium. There seemed to be no risk in trying some controlled experiments to see what difference this made.
I think I was being impatient! I'm quite happy to wait for that "bingo" moment, if it comes. And if I don't get any more BER, I guess I won't have lost out, whatever the cure was!
Yup, suits me. Thanks for the info Bill. If I get round to it, I'm going to try and post some pictures on the web by the end of the Summer, then we can compare notes.
Right now, the thing I'm most pleased about is that my outdoor tomatoes (Sungold and Vandos) are ripening and so far there hasn't been any sign of blight (which has ruined my crop for the past 4 years).
In another week's time, we should be eating home made Gazpacho soup.
------- Most excellent post, Bill! I agree, no quackery here, but rather it seems you are in tune with the actual symptoms of the plants as a means of determining the condition of the soil. While soil tests can be performed using professional services or those do-it-yourself kits, there are so many variables that can effect the test and give inaccurate results. Don't get me wrong, I do soil tests but I don't rely 100% on those results. I make some soil ammendments as a result of my soil test but then I watching the plants carefully as a further indication of soil condition is and what it may need.
------ Bill, did this technique solve your problem? I'm located in New Jersey and over the years, I've had a BER (Blossom End Rot) problem in my two 100 SqFt. plots to varying degrees but only with my Roma tomatoes. Specifically for BER prevention, I've amended the soil using compost enriched with eggshells, pelletized gypsum and epsom salts and this definitely helped solve the problem but not universally. Last year, there was still one small area that gave me problems with BER so I gave that area a bit more treatment this year before planting.
Bottom line, is that monitoring the symptoms of the plants and keeping notes is a major key to determining what soil amendments are needed. Soil tests are useful but certainly not accurate enough to solely rely upon .
If Bill is a quack then so am I, a quack with beautiful 5 to 6 foot tall tomato plants with no signs of BER yet this year. (Keeping my fingers crossed)
------ Partially true. My experience is that BER problems are more pronounced early in the season and sometimes totally clear up towards the middle of the season without doing anything to treat the effected plants. HOWEVER, if the soil is treated with any of the various "cures" that resulted in solving the BER problem in the current season AND subsequent plantings result in no BER then it safe to assume that the cure worked.
It would be interesting to see how plants responed to this calcium tablet treatment if only half of the BER effected plants were given this treatment. Anyone try that?
Hey, pete, I wonder where you are located. BER is almost exlusively a late-season problem here in my garden in Tennessee. We have plenty of naturally occuring calcium in our limestone-rich soil so I suppose it is brought on by the sporadic moisture conditions here in August. Our typical late summer weather is very hot and very humid. We sometimes have a shower or two but it is generally drier than July. If we have a really hot summer, It is hard to keep tender plants from cooking altogether. I assume your climate and/or soil must be somewhat different from what we have here to induce BER in the early season.
HI all, I only got blossom end rot one year, that year I grew plum tomatoes in all most pure cow manure. now that I grow them in soil I have no problem. I do not know if this throws any light on your problem but I hope it helps you anyway.
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