Many summer residents use boric acid for cucumbers as foliar feeding. It is not surprising that it is these summer residents whose cucumber yields are an order of magnitude higher, the plants get sick less, and the fruit tastes better. It is useful for every vegetable grower to know everything about processing cucumbers with boric acid.
Benefit
Feeding cucumbers with boric acid benefits any plant.Boron is an element that affects the production of phytohormones, participates in the construction of cells, and promotes the absorption of calcium. Plants especially need boron at the following stages of development:
- bud formation;
- formation of the ovary;
- pouring fruit.
It follows from this 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, and cucumbers accumulate the optimal amount of carbohydrates.
Figures confirm the benefits of boron for cucumbers
Talk about the benefits of boron has practical confirmation. The proof is the positive reviews of summer residents, which are easy to find on the Internet. This is also proven by field tests carried out by specialists. 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 turned out to be several times higher. The data is shown in the table.
| Parameter | Excess factor |
| the volume of vegetative mass of one bush during the flowering period | 1,58 |
| dry matter content | 1,3 |
| weight of fruits collected from one bush | 1,16 |
Deficiency Symptoms
It is easy to find out that it is necessary to feed vegetable crops with boron. Manifestations of boron deficiency are known and described:
- bush growth slows down;
- shortened internodes;
- side shoots slow down their growth and die off;
- the growth point located at the top of the shoot (central, lateral) dies;
- the root system is poorly developed;
- the color and already formed ovaries fall off.
Excess boron
Unsystematic use of fertilizers containing boron causes significant harm to plants. If the deficiency is easy to make up for, then the excess is quite difficult to normalize.You can find out that a plant has received more boron than the required norm by the following symptoms:
- chlorosis affects young apical leaves of cucumber;
- there is a defect in the development of young leaves;
- few female flowers.
Cooking rules
Most gardeners prefer to use boric acid to spray 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 the acid only in hot water. It is recommended to heat it to 50 °C.
A solution of boric acid 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. It is imperative to observe the specified proportions; exceeding the specified norm can lead to negative consequences.
Scheme of foliar feeding
Most summer residents use a 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 bushes with a solution of boric acid. On a ridge with an area of 10 square meters. m is enough 1 liter of microfertilizer. Process leaves on both sides. In sunny weather, you should not spray cucumbers. It's better to wait until the sun goes down. After transplanting seedlings, it is recommended to water the cucumbers once with boric acid. Root feeding (10 days after transplantation) strengthens the root system.
Boron for bee-pollinated cucumbers
Varieties and hybrids of cucumbers in open ground are most often bee-pollinated. Experienced summer residents recommend an original recipe for foliar feeding during flowering using sugar and boric acid.
Sweet foliar feeding attracts insects, pollination improves, and the number of fruits increases. The yield in 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 liters of hot water, bring to full volume after they are completely dissolved. The use of sweet fertilizer makes sense not only for cucumbers - it is also useful for zucchini.
Disease Prevention
Bad weather provokes outbreaks of diseases in cucumbers in the greenhouse and in the ground. Mosaic, bacteriosis, rot (gray, white), powdery mildew and some other diseases can be avoided by using preventive treatments of cucumber bushes with boric acid and potassium permanganate.
You need to dilute the acid (a tablespoon) 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. Add some iodine to the water. 35 drops are enough per bucket.
This solution can be sprayed on healthy plants to prevent diseases and fed to cucumbers when the first symptoms of fungal diseases appear on the leaves and stems. Treated cucumber bushes cope with the disease within 2-3 days and begin to grow.
Iodine with milk against diseases
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. Only 4 drops of iodine are required for this volume of liquid.
Seed treatment
Mandatory disease prevention is 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 the seeds in liquid fertilizer for 12 hours.
How to get rid of ants using boric acid
Ants often live in cucumber beds. Insects especially love to settle in greenhouse beds fenced with boards. It is very difficult to destroy them. There are good boric acid bait recipes that can help reduce insect populations.
For bait, prepare a sweet solution:
- 100 ml water;
- 5 g acid;
- 1 tsp jam;
- 2 tbsp. l sugar.
Heat the water and add all the ingredients to it. Pour the resulting liquid into a container. Place it on a cucumber bed and cover it loosely with a tire.
You can prepare dry bait in the form of balls. Make it from boiled potatoes (3 pcs.), yolks of boiled eggs (3 pcs.), 10 g of boric acid. Mix all ingredients thoroughly to obtain a homogeneous mass. Form small balls out of it and place them in places where ants gather.
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. I used this fertilizer 2 times during the season. It sprayed in June, when the cucumber bushes bloomed, and at the end of July, when the leaves began to turn yellow. She collected more cucumbers during the season than usual.The greenery has grown strong and even. The bushes did not hurt, 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.
