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nes
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Calcium Addition

Quite sure my tomatoes died of BER last year, what should I look for to add calcium to the soil for this year?

What do I look for at the gardening centre?
(I did already look but I don't think they had a lot of stock in yet)

I've got my normal clay/clay/loam soil + I'm adding 3 year old rotten down cow manure.

I tried egg shells last year but it wasn't enough.

I have small used soup bones I was saving for the dogs, should I bury them near the tomatoes? (are the next owners of the garden going to wonder what satanic rituals we were up to?? ) :twisted:

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gixxerific
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I put ground up egg shells in the planting hole and will add as a top dressing later in the season. I hope that helps.

But if I remeber right BER is more of a watering issue, sporadic watering making it hard on the plant. And this stress is part of calcium uptake problems. Could be way off here.

TZ -OH6
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Did the plants die or were the fruits damaged? BER doesn't kill plants.


Most soil has plenty of calcium in it, if it didn't it would be very acidic, and if you add calcium (generally as lime or dolomitic lime) you can raise the pH above what is good for nutrient availability, so its safest to only do it after a soil test.


Adding lots of organic matter to deeply dug soil will both increase calcium levels (safely) and increase water holding capacity. BER is an internal calcium transport problem generally independent of soil calcium levels, and is cause in part by fluctuating water availability for fast growing plants, so high nitrogen contributes to it as does tomato variety. Roma/paste type tomatoes are notorious for BER.


A quick look online shows that much of the bedrock in your area (the mineral base of the soil) is limestone and dolomite so its a good bet that there is more than adequate calcium in your soi.l

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tn_veggie_gardner
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I changed my fertilizing regime this year specifically for this problem. Calcium defficiency (99.9% sure on this. I was very upset & thoroughly researched this) caused BER on about 100 or so almost fully grown San Marzano tomatoes from my garden last year, just off 2 plants, before I gave up & trashed the plants. I'd reccomend using a potting mix with lime added and maybe also adding Dolomitic Lime to your potting mix and/or using a fertilizer that has a good Calcium percentage.

- Steve

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Ozark Lady
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I wonder? My goats are expecting, well, it is general practice to boost their calcium levels while gestating.
I know they will use what they need and excrete the rest.
I wonder if there will be enough extra calcium in this way, to affect my garden, as I use the urine soaked hay and manure from them?

To do this I will be feeding more calcium rich foods and alfalfa pellets free choice, plus goat minerals free choice also.

I know the analysis of young animals is totally different than older animals, but would what the animals are fed, actually make a difference to my garden, as I recycle?

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nes
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TZ -OH6 wrote:A quick look online shows that much of the bedrock in your area (the mineral base of the soil) is limestone and dolomite so its a good bet that there is more than adequate calcium in your soil.
The fruit all died.

Smart you looking it up! :) Yes, my well water is just about impossible to drink & the hard-water deposits are my sink are infuriating. I was wondering if the amount dissolved in the water-table would affect my soil (it makes a lot of sense that it would!).

It is possible the BER was caused by inconsistent watering, or more like VERY consistent & drenching watering. We had a ridiculous summer last year - it rained almost every single day.

Could that amount of rain water have actually washed the calcium down & out of my soil?
Or would it be too hard for that to happen in one year? (it has been 2 years of bad rain actually - but so far looking good this year!).

I did try everything to keep the fruit up & off the wet soil as I had bush-toms last year, but even the fruit I picked green and brought in eventually turned black & offal on the bottom.


I'll ask the farmer (neighbour) about the soil of my Toms when I get the poop from him (it's hard getting him with free time this time of year!). I can't remember what he already said to me about it (how bad is that?? I chalk it up to mommy-brains!).

But should the rotten manure be good enough then?

Do I need to go ahead and add a lime or it's impossible to tell that with out a soil test?

Unfortunately Roma are exactly what I'm planting this year (along with some a cherry/grape mix) because I wanted them from sauces/ketchup.

tedln
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What color are the deposits left on your sink and faucets from the water? If the deposits are white, you have some form of a dissolved salt like calcium or lime. If the deposits are brown, then it probably is a metal oxide like iron or copper. If the underlying dolomite is brown dolomite, you probably have some iron concentration in your water.

Consistent watering is the key. Low or excessive watering can cause BER. Low, because not enough water is reaching the plant cells to deliver the required calcium causing low calcium in the cell structure. High, because the plant is uptaking water faster than the available calcium can be incorporated into the water causing low calcium in the cell structure. The causes are different, but the result is the same.

In my garden, unusually rainy seasons have caused BER to become prevalent. Typically, it has nothing to do with the quality of the soil.

I suggest a soil test and then just blame it on the rain and try again.

Ted

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rainbowgardener
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Agree with above

Here's an earlier thread about Blossom End Rot:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=86031

It is a calcium deficiency in the plant, but unrelated to calcium deficiency in the soil. It is about how well the calcium can be taken up. Nes' s problem likely was the too much water. Not so much washing the calcium out of the soil, but as tedlin says, the plant is taking up water so fast it can't take up enough calcium to keep up. In that situation though, even though the issue isn't the amount of calcium in the soil, it's possible that supplementing with some readily available calcium (the TUMS? powdered eggshell?) might help the plant keep up? Just a speculation.

TZ -OH6
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Calcium doesn't wash out of the soil very easily/quickly because it is only partially soluble in most cases. Usually the soil is low in calcium to start with (acidic) if there are any problems, or the soil has been heavilly worked for a lot of years without any outside input of organic matter such as manure/compost. As my local nurseryman told me. "Does your grass grow well? yes? Then you don't have a calcium problem". The guys selling limestone on the other side of town put an add in the paper telling us all that we had a problem and needed to buy their product.



My best advice is not to grow romas/plum-paste tomatoes, and the really isn't any serious reason you have to. Romas and most other paste types are not the best tasting tomatoes for sauces, they are just lower in juice so they don't take as much time to cook down. Meaty low seed, fresh eating types such as oxheart and beefsteak varieties make better tasting sauces and are not prone to BER. Determinant varieties, which ripen all of their fruit over a short period of time (popular with canners) are also prone to BER because of the growing/fruiting stress. You can get around this by using indeterminant varieties and freezing ripe fruit until you have enough for processing if you like to do your canning in big batches.

I also do not recall having as much problem with BER for the long pointed paste types (Opalka, Polish linguisa, Dix Doigts du Naples etc), as I do with the plum shaped varieties, but I don't know if that was just a function of where they were in the garden.

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nes
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Thanks guys. That was all very interesting!! I should have known that about the calcium being diluted.

I don't think I could have possibly added enough calcium last year to keep up with the rain but so far this growing season is 10x better! (and it's not even the season yet...) If we start getting soaked through again I'll try to keep up with tums or something :).

Our grass grows TOO well :). The rotten cow manure I added should help then. The one little tom plant I already transplanted (it got too big), is already growing quickly!! (I'm covering it on cold nights, but so far it's been very very warm).

I thought everyone was having issues with Beefsteak last year?



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