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soil Calcium deficient soil

RedtailForester

RedtailForester

One of the things on my off-season to-do list is start correcting the Calcium deficiency in my soil. I'm getting tired of blossom end rot and treating with Cal-Mag gets expensive after a season. I'm going to attempt using Calcium chloride or Gypsum since I've heard it doesn't significantly alter the soil pH.

Maybe even something like this:
www.mortonsalt.com/products/road_sidewalk/safe_t_power.html

Anyway, I've been trying to do some research on various Ca+ soil amendments and would like to get some other folk's experiences and recommendations.
 
I fed my plants with Calcium Nitrate (and Epsom Salt) dissolved in water with a little bit of miracle grow every few weeks with good results. Being that the CaNO3 is extremely water soluble, if you're looking for a longer term fix it probably wouldn't work for a soil amendment, but as a subsitute for Cal-Mag it is extremely cheap (epson salt @ $1/lb at walmart). You can get 4 lbs of CaNO3 on ebay for $10 with free shipping or 20 lbs for $27 with free shipping. I bought a 4 lb bag last year for the 15 peppers and 40 tomatoes I had and didn't even use half of it. I can't remember the exact recommended amount, but it was something like 1 TBSP for 1 gallon of water, so it goes a long way.
 
I am sure you asked this same question 2 weeks ago :) have you been drinking? ?

http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/26960-calcium-deficient-soil/page__fromsearch__1
 
I looked for the concentration to use and found a couple answers. Alabama Cooperative Extension said to use 4 TBSP per gallon for use as a foliar spray of plants affected by blossom end rot (2-3 times per week), but they didn't say what to use as a preventative dose for soil.
Cornell recommended 100 PPM, which they said was .07 oz per gallon of irrigation water. That comes out to about 2 grams per gallon. I'm not sure what a tablespoon of Calcium Nitrate weighs (i don't have a scale), but considering 1 tbsp of sugar weighs 12g and 1 tbsp of table salt weighs 17g, I'd guess it was somewhere in that range (its pretty light so I'd guess its closer to sugar). That means what Cornell recommends is less than 1 tsp per gallon of water. The website I found that on was an exercise for students to calculate weights of fertilizers after giving them the PPM, so it might not be accurate, but another website I found for growing hydroponic tomatoes recommended 100 PPM of calcium for seedlings, 150 ppm for plants until the first fruit set, and 400 ppm after fruit have set. 400 PPM would be somewhere around 3/4 of a tablespoon per gallon of water.

Sources:
http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/specialty/ber.html

http://www.greenhouse.cornell.edu/crops/factsheets/FertilizerCalculations.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=d4-QcqcV5MMC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=ppm+of+calcium+nitrate&source=bl&ots=wo50fPj0pq&sig=5OEFj6EenmnRUFMlYbi59-DsyVM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RrsDT-HzIKTs0gH3-PHOAg&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBjgU#v=onepage&q=ppm%20of%20calcium%20nitrate&f=false
 
and I hate to ask a stupid question, but did you analyze the soil to make sure it is Ca deficient?
 
There's no easy method to prevent BER. Just some some precautions to take place ahead of time.
Before the outdoor season starts I amend the raised beds with plenty of compost ,I,ll add bone and blood meal, garden lime and a slow release all around fertilizer 10-10-10.
I do have a soil ph meter and I try to keep the level around 6.0. High Nito levels will inhibit plants from obsorbing calcium.
If the fruit gets the"rot" remove the infective ones. The plant will still produce normal fruit if treated. There are BER spray solutions.....they work. One year I had a tomato plant with a BER problem. I removed the damaged fruit and sprayed the plant twice a week for 2 weeks. All was well after that, I check the ph that was fine. I added some garden lime which is fast obsorbing and no problems after that...
 
Trippa said:
Fluctuations in watering / too wet or too dry, incorrect Ph causing nute lockout and too much nitrogen can all cause BER even if calcium levels in the soil are adequate.
Or it could simply be lack of calcium
Click to expand...

Correct on the above..........own a pool or hot tub?......, without the correct ph it wouldn't matter what other chemicals are used......peppers and tomatoes need to be grown between 5.8 and 6.3 for normal growth and production...

Greg
 
I usually add a few tbl spoons to each watering. I go through the 5lb bags pretty fast, but at a few bucks it's not that bad.
 
The last time I tested the pH, it was in acceptable "slightly acidic" levels. I think I may need to send out for an official soil nutrient test. With the way the economy has been here in Pennsylvania (and around the world), our Agriculture Cooperative Extension Offices have had their funding cut to nothing. Hopefully they are still doing soil testing.
 
RedtailForester said:
... our Agriculture Cooperative Extension Offices have had their funding cut to nothing. Hopefully they are still doing soil testing...
Click to expand...

Yea, our county Ag office doesn't test, now have to send soil sample to U of Idaho. $35 a pop! Might be able to swing one test, but my garden soil varies by location and treatments I've done, raised beds, etc. Trick to get the right sample...
 
calcium = eggshells here-have you tried drying and then grinding to powder and adding to your grow soil?Been doing this for a couple years and what a change.Just a thought. Rich
 
i believe oyster shell would work as well following the same theory... we used to feed them to our chickens to make the eggshells harder.
 
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