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New Brunswick

During the last two seasons I have experirnced bad splits at the point where my fruit were really packing on the pounds(Late Season). Have tried reduced watering and funguside pastes, as well as very cautious pruning. My results have only been moderately successful. I have read that some growers even suggest partially cutting the stem of the fruit. Is this wise? I would appreciate any opinions or suggestions you fellow growers may have on this subject.

12/6/2005 6:10:23 PM

Garden

I've heard that too. How about regulating growth by setting extra fruit

12/6/2005 7:54:52 PM

Indiana

What seed are you growing could it be seed related??

12/7/2005 10:52:50 AM

Ontario, Canada.

Try this link, it may help you to better understand the cause of such problems. Although it relates direct to Blossom End Rot(BER) in tomato it is much similar for AGP's.

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/95/4/571

Russ

12/10/2005 12:17:34 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Three main concerns I like to investigate when talking about Calcium related problems.
Soil moisture.
Calcium availabilty and Ph relantionship.
Plant & leaf canopy transpiration.

Below is a brief note taken from the journal listed above.

"In a horticultural context, BER can be considered simply as a symptom of Ca deficiency in the distal fruit tissue during rapid cell expansion. Thus, BER in a tomato crop can be minimized by spraying Ca onto young tomato fruit (Fig. 5; Wilcox et al., 1973; Ho, 1998a; Schmitz-Eiberger et al., 2002). In the glasshouse, this treatment prevents BER more effectively than other current horticultural practices, such as the manipulation of the mineral composition of the feed (e.g. lower N supply) or the growth environment (e.g. lower canopy transpiration), because it increases the Ca concentration of distal fruit tissues directly. However, this treatment can only be effective when regular Ca sprays are targeted to young fruit before any symptom of BER is observed."

12/10/2005 12:27:57 PM