Calcium and Sulpher and BER

[PVP]

How many and what type of match heads are enough to supply the minerals you're after?

If it's calcium and sulfur you're after, what is the comparable cost per unit of plant need between match heads and powdered raw material available from the feed store or pharmacy?

What exactly does vitamin D do for a plant in terms of providing a benefit or filling a specific need?

It's hard to discuss it in layman's terms without understanding a little more, even if in scientific or mathmatic terms, what it is our plants need, in what amounts, what is the best available source, and what are the comparable costs per unit of material.

[littleminnie]

I just love the idea of little household things working awesome in the garden. But then I read the book called something like The Truth Behind Garden Remedies by someone at the U of M. He basically shot down all of the ideas with science. I didn't like it.
I tried matches under half of my peppers in 2009 and the ones without the matches did better than the ones with matches. A soil test that tests the micro nutrients is rather expensive (at least here at the U of M) so I have no idea how my calcium, magnesium, sulfur etc levels are. Some people say if something is cheap and won't harm anything it is better to try it. A gardener on another forum is totally against this idea and says you can throw the balance off adding too much Mag or Cal or whatever and why add epsom, calcium products, sulfur etc if you have enough?
So the answer is complete soil tests or experiments like my pepper one.

I have used calcium tablets (the readily dissolvable kind) in the planting hole of tomatoes for a couple years and had 0 BER (I mulch and use soakers too). I have also used calf milk replacer as a cheaper alternative to dry milk for Cal.

I suppose I should have done that in just some of the tomato holes to see if it worked. maybe I just have enough Cal and water evenly.

I do believe crushed egg shells are not usable to the plant until composted.

[tomc]

Off Topic Alert
For what its worth quick lime and sulphur cooked together will make a product called lime-sulphur it is used as a dormant oil for scale insects, or undiluted to bleach dead wood on bonsai.

When I use it I buy it pre-made.

Crushed oyster shell (poultry scratch) will break down in garden soil, over several years. It cannot be an immeadiate product. Nor will egg shells. Over time good. Right now-this-instant, no.

[jcm05]

Here's my view on this and I've posted it countless times. BER is mostly the result of moisture issues, not a lack of available CA in the soil. You can't say that using "this" or "that" as a soil amendment helped last year without being able to compare the moisture levels the plants received accurately from year to year to be able to rule that out as a factor.

[grunt]

I know this is not going to be a popular answer, but I think that by the time you see that you have BER, apply your cure, and see that it has stopped, it has stopped on its own. BER grows with the fruit (I am expressing this badly, but bear with me). By the time you see the first indications on the first fruit, the majority of the damage it is going to cause has already been set in motion. It is not that you do not have enough calcium in your soil, but that the calcium is not in a form that the plants can access quickly enough for the growth rate. This is usually due to environmental factors = to much or little heat and/or too much or little moisture putting the calcium in an unavailable form.
The plant sends available calcium to the growing tips instead of to the developing fruit tip = the fruit is going to grow and produce seed regardless at this point, and the plant wants to maximize the number of fruit and its ability to feed them, so reroutes the calcium to the growing tips = more plant equals more chances to reproduce.
I use magnesium sulfate (epsom salts) as a staple addition to my soil, and have very few incidents of BER anymore. The magnesium sulfate acts as a chelation agent on the calcium, and keeps it available to the plants (at least that is the explanation I was given). I don't remember any from last year.

[oneoftheearls]

also for what it's worth....the striking surface on a match is composed of typically 25% powdered glass, 50% red phosphorus, 5% neutralizer, 4% carbon black and 16% binder; and the match head is typically composed of 45-55% potassium chlorate, with a little sulfur and starch, a neutralizer (ZnO or CaCO3), 20-40% of siliceous filler, diatomite and glue.[10] Some heads contain antimony(III) sulfide so they burn more vigorously.

That means sulfur is less than 4%...while I am not a scientist, it would lead me however to believe that perhaps the higher percentage ingredients are influencing the plants rather than sulfur.

[poypoyking]

Mar 24, 2011 12:23:00 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

Here's my view on this and I've posted it countless times. BER is mostly the result of moisture issues, not a lack of available CA in the soil. You can't say that using "this" or "that" as a soil amendment helped last year without being able to compare the moisture levels the plants received accurately from year to year to be able to rule that out as a factor.

This has been my experience as well.

[puttgirl]

That IS an old one...except all the old timers around here always put just one match in the bottom of the hole with the pepper.

[littleminnie]

I know mag and cal are kind of opposites and partners- same in pills, it is always both together. But if you are short on cal, adding more mag will increase the problem.

I think the idea was putting stuff in the soil for amendments not giving them to the plants once they have BER. If they have it, those fruits are lost. I have sprayed BER spray (commercial OG kind) on plants with it and the second fruiting is ok. Sure if the watering was the problem and it suddenly got better, it wasn't the spray but the watering that did it.

I wonder what the incidence of BER being totally a watering issue which causes the Cal to be unavailable and BER being an actual calcium defiicency are.

[reubent]

Ca is hard to over do it, (contrary to the university guys who seem to use more lab theory on it than real experimental science. I saw one of them say, in print, that too much calcium causes chlorosis, but he wasn't looking at the exceptionally green grass where I dumped the whole truckload of lime)
I can put way too much calcium on and manipulate it with other things to be soluble or not as needed.
Since phosphate is a catalyst for all other minerals, carrying them into the plant. I suspect that's what helps.
Calcium can be in the soil, and the plant won't be able to get enough until the phosphate is high enough to take it in.
Gypsum is calcium sulfate, very soluble calcium source.

Extra nitrogen is usually used instead of phosphate to carry the elements into the plant, however that makes plants and fruit watery, low brix, subject to insect attack, rot faster, and then they use bug spray, fungicides, etc, to rescue the crop. Get those minerals in balance and you're problems go away. By "in balance" I mean by Dr Reams recommendations because he figured out what it was supposed to be by actually watching what they did in the live plant, with radioactive tagging and tracing instruments. Compared to the Ag university guys who did a leaf mineral analysis and assumed the same mineral balance is needed in the soil.

Oh and the potassium chlorate is not something I want in my garden. Although the amount on a match is minimal.

PS; in reality too much calcium really does not cause chlorosis, it's strictly a lab theory that does not hold up in real life. Reams recommendations were up to 12,000 lb per acre soluble calcium for leaf crops. He'd discovered what super high calcium did by accident once when he had alfalfa grow almost 20 ft high in FL and totally buried a fresh planting of grapefruit trees, when the alfalfa was supposed to be just a low cover crop. The same thing made white dutch clover grow 4 ft high.

The case there was a drained swamp with a lot of composted swamp weed, and very little dirt on top of lime rock, they managed to break up the rock some with chisel plow and he then sprayed it with diluted sulfuric acid to try to soften the rock.
That threw the soluble calcium level extremely high, he added soft rock phosphate, then planted the trees and alfalfa.

[tucsontomato]

Mar 24, 2011 12:23:00 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

Here's my view on this and I've posted it countless times. BER is mostly the result of moisture issues, not a lack of available CA in the soil. You can't say that using "this" or "that" as a soil amendment helped last year without being able to compare the moisture levels the plants received accurately from year to year to be able to rule that out as a factor.

I completely agree. People here in Tucson get BER a lot. However, there is a large problem here with too much calcium and minerals in the soil in a form of a rock-like calcium carbonate material known as "caliche". Sulfur may help if your pH is too high, though here in Tucson the problem with BER comes mainly from people not watering their plants well or putting tomatoes in uninsulated pots where the roots fry during the summer. What's funny is that here people will actually buy calcium sprays for BER then turn around and use a pick axe to take caliche out of their garden.

[jcm05]

There are varieties that are genetically more susceptible like many pastes.

[paulf]

Reams of information has been written on BER, the causes and solutions. In my own experience, BER occurs mainly in the early part of the growing season, with only certain varieties that must be more susceptible, when both water supply and temperatures are variable (either too much, too little, or either, or one followed by the other).

In my opinion, suppliments added without a real need as indicated by a soil test are a waste of time and effort. A test will indicate how to reach a balance of soil health which is more important than anything in the garden. However, if it makes you feel better to toss matches or other stuff in a planting hole and you think it helps, by all means do it. What works for you, works for you; who am I to tell you it can't work.

[jcm05]

Mar 25, 2011 7:56:10 GMT -5 paulf said:

In my opinion, suppliments added without a real need as indicated by a soil test are a waste of time and effort.

I agree totally. The importance of a soil test a least once every few years cannot be understated. They can be found from a reputable lab for $10-15.

[paulf]

I went through the soils laboratory of a state extension and asked about their soil testing procedure and asked the cost of the equipment. Unless you have machinery worth many thousands of dollars, home testing kits are not anywhere state of the art. A good pH meter can run upwards of $500.

On my compost pile I add beer (really cheap, skunky, full strength) and non diet coca cola. Jerry Baker has some pretty good household items tips for gardening.

In nearly forty years of gardening, I remember only a handful of BER cases.

My small garden does not get overhead water except for rain. So how is rain different than a sprinkler? I still water the base of the plants because overhead is supposed to aid leaf disease