Boron deficiency- may be a cause for as yet unsolved cultivation problems

[partisangardener]

Crown Rot is in many different crop plants due to lack of Boron.

Beginning with the grasses, onions, cruciferous plants, legumes, nightshades and many others a great variety is affected.  In Aldrovanda some dieing back is supposed to lack the same element.

This might be an issue with wild lilies which tend to rot in the bulb or even in the flower shoot without obvious reason.

Carnivorous plants like Cephalotus and Sarracenia too have these problems sometimes after years of cultivation without obvious reason. Usually this is called crown rot.

As we like to clean with picking dead leafs could be an issue, because this element can’t be retrieved while leafs are dieing it is fixed in the cell walls.

I myself do like to pick all the dead leafs and pitchers from my plants. I had this sudden crown dieing not yet experienced, probably because my Cephalotus experience is quite young, but maybe also due to the fact that I add a few morsels of lime free clay (acid test) to my substrate.

But in some very sissy wild Lilies this was always a nuisance and nobody knew a cause. They usually grew backwards and even when I could save some very small scales from the disaster and pot them anew, they finally dwindled and died.


Only very little of boron is needed, but in sandy soil it soon leaches out.

Fired lime free clay can be a source.

Near the sea the inland wind could be a possible source.

Another possible source is decomposing granite, where it is often present.

A very good source is every variety of Tourmaline, like Schorl, Peridot and others. Maybe a little piece in the water will be sufficient for a constant supply.

If lime is present, boron is not accessible for plants.

Boron is used against insects and I do not know if any and how much they can provide for carnivorous plants. Maybe it is mostly present in the chitin which is degrading slowly, which might be after the pitchers have died?

We usually take all rotten stuff and empty chitin away and might get there this lack of this element.



Boron is needed in traces for the cell membrane in plants. Lacking it, mould and bacteria will have an easy game.

After I found out about "Crown Rot" in non carnivorous plants, I had quite a bit of research to do, but I think it’s worth a try.

Maybe then it will be easier to grow sissy plant, if this is a limiting factor.

In the species Cephalotus I quite often read about dieing back of a growing center after a flower, experienced by some growers.

So it was no surprise for me that the biggest demand for boron is in the flower. It can’t be retrieved by the plant after it wilted only by decay. This will not happen in our cultured plants. 

In some clones of Dionaea I had the symptom that the heart of some plants suddenly turns brown and rots away. After some time there is a lot of small plants in the pot but they take up quite slowly. Maybe some very, very small amount of boron would help.
.
In agriculture borax is usually applied 20 kg per hectare or boron acid 12 kg each year.
This is of course with our plants too much but I think we should keep in mind this possibility.

But it is relatively easy overdone and then harmful to our plants. Starting with leaf crippling and brown necrosis, up to final mortality everything is possible. Lime is one possibility to get rid of a too great amount of Boron and the other in light soils by washing out.

I will try with a weak mother solution like some grains to a liter of distilled water and add this to my usually water by some drops during summer, while the rain washes excess away when I overdo.

[partisangardener]

Some more information
In case there is too much boron available for the plant you should watch for the following symptoms:
Crippled leafs with blisterlike structures.
Brown spots at first from the edge of the leaf than all over the leaf (necrosis)
Roots may be damaged too.
Excess can be leached out in case of poisoning.

Here what Wicky writes about deficiancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron_deficiency_%28plant_disorder%29

For comparison here you might observe symptoms of deficiency

http://schaeden.rheinmedia.de/cgi-bin/schaedlinge_details.cgi?funktion=druckansicht&id=110&sprache=gb&partner=bs

(edit by maggi to add direct links)

[Hoy]

Boron deficiency is well known in Norway and has been addressed in agriculture and farming since 1937. The commonly used fertilizer has 0.02% Boron added.

[partisangardener]

I am well aware of this fact.
But we have some very sissy plants in cultivation which react a little bit shy about normal fertilizer. So for example with carnivorous plants this problem may have escaped our attention.
I stumbled over this crown rot while I observed many unpredictable problems with cultivation of this species.
Then I let a lot of my failures with other species (f.e.  lilium gloriosoides) pass by my inner sight and the symptoms where similar.
And in forums no one ever mentioned boron only not wetting it from above keep it more dry, fight fungi and bacteria and so on.
But whatever rule was followed there was no coherent success.

[Rick R.]

Are you alluding to bulb rot or leaf symptoms in Lilium species?

[partisangardener]

Bulb rot especially when only the center dies und you have to start again with some scales left over from the disaster.
I experienced this quite often with rare species which are adapted to acidy, light soil.

There was one problem I observed with martagon lilies which like lime. They started with a really fat shoot and then suddenly stopped growing.
When I looked inside the stump the growing point was always brown and dead, but the rest of the leafs stayed green. This happened not only in my garden also in others.
The next year this bulb grew very little if at all and usually broke down and started again from scales. But they usually if not planted somewhere else eventually died. I can’t remember if any of them flowered again.

I sucpect boron deficiancy might be part of the problem.

[Rick R.]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Axel.  I've never had Lilium bulbs die beginning at the center.  But I have had the center die from the more common bulb rot that begins by rotting the basal plate (at the bottom of the bulb).

[partisangardener]

Sometimes I observed rotting from the inner shoot before the basal plate died. Was usually with bulbs sent from somewhere. If it occurs with planted ones I wouldn't have the chance to observe the way it starts and continues.
With the  case of  shoot rot halfway up in L. martagon it ended a year later in common bulb rot.
I have seen this stopping of the growing shoot halfway up more often but only in this case observed the bulb in the different stages.

Quite often I observed with more difficult lilies a leaf problem. The leafs started to die from the tip onward while they were still growing. I suspected some bacterial rot, but in onions this is one of the symptoms of boron deficiency, so maybe I was wrong.
I couldn't stop it then.

[partisangardener]

I tried Borax in my garden a month ago. About a teaspoon of Borax diluted in 120 liters of water for about 100 square meters.
There is one positive result now.
Heloniopsis orientalis changed its flowering habit with me. I was usually a short stemmed flower between the leafs or just very little above.
Today I observes up to 30 cm high flowers on slender strong stems. Also Sphagnum growing there seemed to be thicker with much more substance. But this I will have to observe some time to be sure.

[partisangardener]

Now there are some results. Lilies seem to profit from Boron applied on the leafs. They take frost more easy and recover faster.
Their stem is even stronger than in the years before and the leafs have more substance.
Especially low light level does not weaken the plants as it did in previous years.
 
Drosera binata at very low light level keeps stiff in a way I have not experienced under full sun in the summer.

All plants kept  indoor through winter have less problems with the usual low light level and have next to none aphid or fungi.

To increase the flowering ability I started to late for this year, so only a few show reactions.
 

Snowdrops G. woronowii fresh planted in late autumn always with a poor performance in my garden started to grow into big healthy plants after a weak start. Even developed some seedpods.

They had some boron applied a month after they started to grow and vitually exploded and are still green and strong.
Fruiting ability in several plants which had never set seed looks very promising this season.

My little garden started to show vigour I have never experienced before. Looks like I have developed a green thumb.

Boron seems to be a minimum factor in my gardens maybe some others should try to verfiy this under different conditions.

Below Drosera binata indoor no artificial lighting wondow facing west, no direct sun.

[partisangardener]

Now a picture of the mentioned Galanthus woronowii
The plant in the foreground is now 26 cm high, the leaf is longer of course. Iris reticulata stands now 60 cm high in leaf. Which I had never seen before. With me they used to be some 30 cm.

[Alan_b]

I grow a lot of snowdrops in pots, where they are in a mixture of roughly two parts of John Innes No.3 compost to one part of sand.  The ones that grow in the garden (or the same snowdrops moved from a pot to the garden) tend to produce longer leaves and to flower more freely.  Some cultivars show a marked difference whilst others don't.  What is the boron content of commercial composts like J.I. No. 3?   

[partisangardener]

 I really don't know. I tried at first in very poor soil for carnivores. Especially  Cephalotus. Some plants showed interesting results so I tried other plants and other soils.
They got their boron mostly over the leafs so they reacted very fast. I did not test my Boron content but I think that far from the sea and any ancient lakes it must be very low.
Near the sea it is probably different.
Most of the potted plants show to some extend improved vigour. I think to have reliable results it will take a whole season.
I expect more flowers and fruiting. Some Plants seem to set seeds which shouldn't.

I keep you updated.

[partisangardener]

Another observation transplanting shock is much lessened with all plants I used it, Most show no sign of distress from transplanting even with bare and damaged roots.

Now there is none I don't apply Borax spraying before I plant them. My lilies are splendid as they never have been before, No sign of bacterial or fungal attacks on the leafs, like they used to have.
I treat them once a week with a little whiff of borax spray.

[Maggi Young]

Very useful to learn that all plants are responding well to the boron applications, Axel. It gives confidence to try the regime, I think.