Experience vs Impatience

[b54red]

I have posted before about the problems I have to one degree or another every year with slight to severe iron deficiency showing up in my tomatoes. If I am quick enough to spot the problem and give them a foliar spray with an iron chelate mixed in water with a few drops of soap it usually goes away with one or two sprays within a week. I saw the first symptoms on some of my plants in my tomato bed and some severe symptoms on some volunteer plants outside my beds so I decided to give them a foliar spray. With 90 degree days starting up I didn't want to have to go out and do this several times so I had the brilliant thought of just making the mix I spray much more concentrated. My thought being they would take up a bit more iron and only need one spray and I wouldn't have to do the vinegar and water ground soak to temporarily up my ph along with more foliar sprays. Guess what? You can definitely give plants too much iron at once and it isn't a pretty sight. It wasn't apparent yesterday but by this morning the damage was done. I don't know if it will get worse and cause me major problems or not right now. So far I have gone ahead and removed some of my growth tips and some stems that were obviously poisoned by the amount of iron they took in. Luckily I didn't spray all the plants nearly as much as the ones showing the iron deficiency symptoms so many of them look like they will be alright. I am just hoping this will be only a temporary setback for the ones that I sprayed heavily.

I usually mix about 1/8 to 1/4 of a teaspoon of 7% chelated iron in a quart of water and spray the new growth. Yesterday I used at least a full teaspoon and maybe a bit more. I made the same mistake years ago with the vinegar soak. I had had really good results with using one ounce to the gallon and wetting the soil below my plants to give a little acid to my soil to help release phosphorus and iron in my high ph soil so I tried 4 or 5 oz to the gallon but luckily on just a few plants. The small plants died from taking up too much of both elements. The leaves of the plants looked just like the pictures of phosphorus poisoning.

Luckily my ph has been going down slightly over the past few years as I add things to the soil to bring it down but it still is too high. I added a large amount of peat to most of my beds this year but the one that has my first planting of tomatoes didn't get the peat added and it is the only one that showed any iron deficiency so far so maybe the peat will help. After 40 years I'm still stubborn enough to still only learn the hard way.

Bill