Boric acid for cucumbers: spraying, top dressing, application

Many summer residents use boric acid for cucumbers as a foliar top dressing. It is not surprising that it is these summer residents who have an order of magnitude higher yield of cucumbers, plants get sick less, and the taste of fruits is better. It is useful for every vegetable grower to know everything about the treatment of cucumbers with boric acid.

Benefit

Feeding cucumbers with boric acid benefits any plants. Boron is an element that affects the production of phytohormones, participates in the construction of cells, promotes the absorption of calcium. Boron is especially needed by plants at the following stages of development:

bud formation;
ovary formation;
pouring fruit.

From this it follows that plants need boron no less than potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus. Cucumbers that receive boron in the required volume grow their green mass well, form a large number of ovaries, cucumbers accumulate the optimal amount of carbohydrates.

Numbers confirm the benefits of boron for cucumbers

Talk about the benefits of boron have practical evidence. The proof is the positive reviews of summer residents, which are easy to find on the Internet. This is also proved by field tests conducted by experts. Scientists grew two groups of cucumbers of the same variety. Some cucumbers were fed with boric acid, others were not.

In the group of cucumbers that were sprayed with boric acid, the indicators of the analyzed parameters were many times higher. The data is shown in the table.

vegetative mass of one bush during flowering1.58content dry matter1,3weight of fruits harvested from one bush

Parameter	Excess Factor


1,16

Deficiency symptoms

It's easy to find out what vegetable crops need to be fed with boron. Boron deficiency symptoms are known and described:

bush growth slows down;
shortened internodes;
side shoots slow down and die off;
located at the top of the shoot (central, lateral) the growth point dies off;
root system is poorly developed;
colour falls off and already formed ovaries.

Excess boron

The indiscriminate use of fertilizers containing boron causes significant damage to plants. If the deficiency is easy to fill, then the excess is quite difficult to normalize. You can find out that a plant has received more than the required amount of boron by the following symptoms:

chlorosis affects young apical cucumber leaves;
there is a defect in the development of young leaves;
few female flowers.

Cooking rules

Most summer residents prefer to use boric acid for spraying cucumber bushes. The drug is inexpensive, always sold in gardening stores, packaged in small packages weighing 10 g.

Boric acid is practically insoluble in cold water. Undissolved crystals, settling on the leaves of cucumbers, cause them to burn. Therefore, it is worth diluting acid only in hot water. It is recommended to heat it up to 50 °C.

Boric acid solution is prepared right before spraying. First, the crystals (1 tsp) are dissolved in 0.5 cups of hot water, after cooling it is diluted with 2 liters of water. The temperature of the working fluid should be 22-25 °C. Be sure to observe the indicated proportions, exceeding the specified norm can lead to negative consequences.

Foliar top dressing scheme

Most summer residents use the standard boric acid spraying scheme for cucumbers:

when the first flowers appear;
after the appearance of the first ovaries;
on the wave of fruiting.

Thoroughly spray all the bushes with a solution of boric acid. On a 10 sq. m enough 1 liter of microfertilizer. Leaves to process on both sides. In sunny weather, spraying cucumbers is not worth it. It's better to wait until the sun goes down. After transplanting seedlings, a single watering of cucumbers with boric acid is recommended. Root top dressing (10 days after transplantation) strengthens the root system.

Bor for bee pollinated cucumbers

Cucumber varieties and hybrids in the open field are most often bee-pollinated. Experienced gardeners recommend during flowering the original recipe for foliar feeding using sugar and boric acid.

Sweet foliar feeding attracts insects, improves pollination, increases the number of fruits. The yield on cucumber beds after using this fertilizer increases by 20 percent.

One 10 g pack requires 5 liters of water and 500 g of sugar. First dissolve sugar and acid in 0.5 l of hot water, bring to full volume after their complete dissolution. Applying a sweet fertilizer doesn't just make sense for cucumbers - it's good for zucchini as well.

Disease prevention

Bad weather provokes disease outbreaks in cucumbers in the greenhouse and in the ground. You can avoid mosaic, bacteriosis, rot (gray, white), powdery mildew and some other diseases with the help of preventive treatments of cucumber bushes with boric acid and potassium permanganate.

Requires acid (tablespoon) diluted in a glass of hot water. Prepare 1 bucket of settled tap water, add a little potassium permanganate to it. The color of the water should turn pale pink. Pour a glass of diluted boric acid into a bucket.Another drop of iodine into the water. 35 drops are enough for a bucket.

This solution can be sprayed on he althy plants to prevent diseases and feed cucumbers when the first symptoms of fungal diseases appear on the leaves and stems. Treated cucumber bushes cope with the disease and grow in 2-3 days.

Iodine with milk against diseases

A good prevention against all diseases is iodine supplementation every 10 days. As a base, in addition to water (3 l), you can take milk (350 ml), it can be slightly sour, whey is also suitable. Iodine for this volume of liquid requires only 4 drops.

Seed treatment

Mandatory disease prevention - seed treatment before sowing. It helps to avoid problems with cucumbers in the garden during the summer.Seeds soaked in boric acid germinate faster. To prepare the solution, you need to dissolve 1 g of acid in a liter of hot water. Keep seeds in liquid fertilizer for 12 hours.

How to get rid of ants with boric acid

Ants often settle on cucumber beds. Insects are especially fond of settling in greenhouse beds, fenced with boards. It is very difficult to destroy them. There are good recipes for boric acid baits that help reduce insect populations.

For the bait prepare a sweet solution:

100ml water;
5g acid;
1 tsp jam;
2 tbsp. l sugar.

Heat the water, add all the ingredients to it. Pour the resulting liquid into a container. Put it on the cucumber bed and loosely cover with a tire.

You can prepare dry bait in the form of balls. Make it from boiled potatoes (3 pcs.), Boiled egg yolks (3 pcs.), 10 g of boric acid. Mix all ingredients thoroughly to obtain a homogeneous mass. Form small balls out of it, spread them out in places where ants accumulate.

Reviews

Ekaterina, Chelyabinsk

I grow cucumbers in a greenhouse. Last year I read that they are fed during the flowering period with fertilizer, which is made from 10 liters of water and 1 tbsp. l boric acid. This fertilizer was applied 2 times per season. In June, she sprinkled when the cucumber bushes bloomed, and at the end of July, when the leaves began to turn yellow. Cucumbers harvested for the season more than usual. Zelentsy grew strong, even. The bushes did not get sick, the leaves stopped turning yellow.

Boric acid must be in the arsenal of every summer resident. With its help, you can increase the yield of not only cucumbers. Tomatoes and other vegetables grown in greenhouses and open ground respond well to boron.