August 8, 2016

Avalanche column 

August 5, 2016

How funny that one plant indicator can be interpreted differently depending on where you live within the United States and treatment couldn’t be any different either. 

The situation was that the person in far West Texas had found blossom end rot on her tomatoes and determined that she was watering too much.  She refrained from watering added lime and noted her tomatoes were dying. This would be a proper diagnosis if her garden was in East Texas and beyond. Most likely the lime was killing her plants.

Blossom end rot in the east is an indication that you are watering too much and have flushed all the calcium away from the roots. Hence this is why she thought she was over watering. Over watering in our part of the world has a totally different indicator. We will get to this in a moment.

There are only two ways that you can get tomato blossom end rot, one is noted above. The other is quite common in the arid west and is caused by insufficient watering. This can happen when a person plants an indeterminate tomato in a pot that is not of sufficient size. Then the plant is put through wet and dry cycles in August when the plant has completely filled the container with its roots. You would have to have a steady water IV going to keep such a plant hydrated.

In Alpine if you have blossom end rot, water more and this will go away.

The indicator of over watering in Alpine is all about soils. Our soils are alkaline in nature. This is why it is a bad idea to add lime. This means that we have an abundance of calcium carbonate (lime) in our soil. An easy test for this is to put a spoonful of soil in custard dish and then add some vinegar. If you are lucky you will have to hold the dish to your ear to hear a fizz.  Most cases you will see the vinegar reacting to the calcium before you pick the dish up.

In Alpine iron is leached away from the roots when we over water. Iron is a critical mineral needed for photosynthesis. This condition is called iron chlorosis. The first sign of iron chlorosis is the yellowing of the new growth. As iron chlorosis progresses the whole plant becomes yellow, the leaves are veined, leaves then decrease in size followed by the leaves bleaching white then death.

When you see the first sign of iron chlorosis, hold back on watering. Usually in a day or two this will correct itself. If not then you need to iron chelate the plant. The iron chelate needs to be formulated for alkaline soils. The label will indicate this. Any other formulation and the iron automatically bonds with the calcium carbonate. This has everything to do with stronger attraction of iron-calcium than iron-roots.