Tomato-tone contains Boron. So do a lot of other pre-mixed
organic fertilizers. I think even Miracle-Gro has some.
There was a thread last year or the year before on kelp and
flavor on the GW tomato forum. A few people expressed the
opinion that kelp enhances flavor (micronutrients), while
one grower said that he had grown the same cultivar side
by side with and without it and that he could not taste any
difference in flavor. He did notice that it seemed to have a
positive effect on seedling vigor and health, though.
My impression is that brix comes down to minerals and
microbes, mostly, and a reasonable pH. The farther you get
below 6.0 or above 7.0, the worse your brix readings, because
mineral nutrients that the plant needs quickly become insoluble
at those pH levels. If your soil is actually deficient in something
vital, you get the same brix downgrade even if the pH is right
on at 6.5. If your soil lacks soil microbes (killed by sterilization
or chemicals), a lot of the minerals that are there are not made
available to the plant. (This is where compost and manure teas
and earthworm castings can help a container mix, repopulating
it with beneficial microbes that were killed off in the process
of making it disease-free from the factory.)
Notice on the fertilizer labels where it splits nitrogen and other
elements into "soluble" and "insoluble" proportions? Without
the soil microbes that can break down those insoluble
compounds into water soluble components, the plant never
gets the benefit of that part of the fertilizer.
__________________
--
alias
|