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Stanwood, Washington

Anyone adding Boron by putting Borax in their Irrigation water? If so how much and how often?

7/14/2023 3:27:56 PM

Grittyville, WA

Since no one has chimed in I will say that I have. I think I figured about 200,000 grams in a barrel of water so if you want your soil boron up by 1 ppm you gotta add .2 grams but its only 10% boron or whatever, so thats 2 grams of the borax itself. But since I want to be more like the Patons and I know my soil has basically zero, I dont add just 1 ppm I add maybe 5. So 10 grams borax (I think about a half teaspoon) should give you a bump without being too much. But then you gotta figure it will get diluted and dispersed, but I wont try to figure out how often you'll need to add that much, I'll just say that sometimes I will add more if I think some of it to get lost/diluted into a larger area.
Hope I'm not far off the mark, but you know how it goes, always get a second and third opinion, I might play ball but I don't bat 1.000.

7/15/2023 7:02:06 PM

Diamond, Ohio

Everyday. How much depends on your patch size and what your tissue test shows.

7/15/2023 10:36:00 PM

Kutztown, PA

Gritty is that 2 grams of borax per gallon for 10% borax.

7/17/2023 10:19:41 AM

Grittyville, WA

Sorry no, more like 10 grams for a whole barrel of water. Which would be just .2 grams per gallon. I'm sure some people could get away with a lot more than that, but I figured it was a safe amount. I dont have my gram scale handy, but per gallon I think thats equivalent to a pinch of salt. Not much.

7/17/2023 10:51:40 AM

Grittyville, WA

.2 grams of borax per gallon would give like 5 ppm...? These discussions always get confusing

.003 grams is 1/1,000,000 th of a gallon. Adding 5 ppm boron that would require 50 ppm of borax... multiply both sides by 50

.003 x50 = 1/1,000,000x50

So it all figures out to this:
.15 grams borax/ gallon (= .015 grams boron/gallon) = 5 ppm boron (= 50 ppm borax per gallon)

Confusing as heck. My head is spinning but I think those are all on the mark (with minor rounding errors)

7/17/2023 11:10:04 AM

Grittyville, WA

.2 grams borax per gallon should give 6.5 ppm boron. When its watered into the soil it would probably disperse into a lesser amount, unless a grower watered very heavily. Then the frequency and amount of water start to become important I guess, but that above my pay grade. I can do some of the math but I dont have a lifetime of horticultural experience, honestly this is the first year I even tried dosing it myself. So, yeah, advice from a novice. But Captain 97 might still benefit on some level from knowing what his competition is up to.

7/17/2023 11:27:53 AM

Deer Park WA

We use the equivelant of 3.6 oz Borax per 1000 sqft through drip fertigation every 3 weeks.

7/17/2023 11:08:57 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Thanks Gad’s, great info appreciate that.

7/18/2023 9:43:21 AM

Kutztown, PA

Gritty, thanks for the clarification.

7/18/2023 11:42:36 AM

Grittyville, WA

Debacco posted that he used a full pound, preseason, for 1200 sq feet. Now Matt's got some good info from peeps who actually know what they are doing lol...

7/18/2023 1:25:48 PM

Torrance, Ca.

Its your year Captain! I use product called " metalosates " for my boron. It mixes ok with most other ferts and use a tablespoon or two per week fed through my dosatron. Its 5% boron and gets my numbers right were they need to be. You don't have to worry about it clogging your lines and you need very little.
Metalosates were designed for feeding through the leaves, but I tried it a few years back and it put my numbers right where they need to be so things stay balanced and you deliver that calcium like needed.
These one or two TBS gets me through a whole week of watering just over 2000 sq ft every day so it shows you how little we're using to get the job done.

7/18/2023 1:26:20 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

We added a full box of 20 Mule Team Borax (1.84 kg or 4 lbs) to a 3500 sq ft area and it increased our boron levels by 3 ppm as per the next soil test results.

7/18/2023 5:38:38 PM

Bloomington, IN USA

I've been adding 1.5 oz Borax to my irrigation water weekly per recommendation by Western Labs.

7/31/2023 8:59:11 PM