It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 52
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It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 27
Comments (114)Hi Alex, Pancakes are yummy. But rather than try to calculate how yummy they are, I will return to the Boron and zinnias thing. First, I will try to provide some solid justification for the 0.25 ppm elemental Boron figure. That figure appears several places on the Web, but I think the basis for it is this study by Redington and Peterson. All we can see on that page is the Abstract, but that is sufficient, as it provides this statement. "Boron was investigated as the possible cause of bud blasting and non-development in Zinnia elegans. Blasting is characterized by a blackening of the developed bud as a result of necrosis of the scales, unopened calyx and enclosed tissue. Plants were subjected to boron levels of 0, 0.0025, 0.025, 0.25 and 2.5 ppm. Plants grown without added boron and at the lowest level supplied showed extreme new leaf chlorosis, thickening and distortion of older leaves, stunted growth and abnormal flower development including blasting. Plants grown at 0.025 ppm level showed moderate chlorosis and, to a slight extent, the other deficiency symptoms. Plants were healthiest when grown at the 0.25 level of boron. Boron at 2.5 ppm produced plants with marginal leaf necrosis, reduced height and root weight, and slower flowering when compared to the 0.25 treatment level. Analysis of boron in plant tissue confirmed that decreased levels of boron in the medium resulted in decreased levels of boron in various plant tissues." The bold emphasis was provided by me, because that is the justification for the 0.25 ppm Boron target. I provide elemental Boron via boric acid, and that is the main ingredient of the insecticide you have on hand. The chemical formula for boric acid is H3BO3. Wikipedia provides this information about boric acid. From which we glean that its molecular weight is 61.83302 and the fraction of elemental B to boric acid is 10.811 / 61.83302 = 0.1748 rounded to four figures. There are 4.92892 milliliters in a teaspoon, so our 1/4 teaspoon of boric acid in the gallon of stock solution is 1.23223 ml. Next comes a tricky part, converting that volume of boric acid into a weight of Boron. Wikipedia gave the density of pure Boric acid as 1.435 grams per cc, which is considerably more dense than water. But that figure is for the solid material and we have a powder, which includes quite a bit of entrained air. If you drop a quarter teaspoon of boric acid into water, you will notice that the "glob" floats. I eliminated the surface tension of water as the explanation by replacing the water with some water to which a small amount of Dawn dishwashing liquid was added. Same result. The glob of boric acid powder continued to float, admittedly quite low in the water. If I had a laboratory balance, the simple solution would be to drop 1/4 teaspoon of boric acid powder onto the scale and see how much it weighed. That would give us a good figure for the density of the powder as well as the weight of boric acid powder and, by multiplying by the 0.1748 factor, the mass of elemental Boron in the gallon of stock solution. I will probably purchase an inexpensive laboratory scale in the future (I am curious what some of my zinnia seeds weigh, and I have several trace element chelate powders that I need to weigh). But for the time being, I will make an estimate for the density of my boric acid powder. The glob floated rather low in the water, so, for the time being, I will use an estimate (guess) of 0.9 for the specific gravity of my boric acid powder. So, with that estimate, we can calculate: 1/4 teaspoon = 1.23223 ml x 0.9 g/ml = 1.109007 grams of Boric acid in the gallon of stock solution. And multiplying that by the weight ratio (0.1748) of elemental Boron to Boric acid, gives us an estimate of 0.1939 grams of elemental Boron in the one gallon of stock solution. We note that accepting that 1 ml of water weighs 1 gram and assuming that our stock solution density does not vary significantly from that, we can say: 1 US gallon = 3.7854 liters = 3785.4 ml = 3785.4 grams. Therefore we can say that our stock solution contains 0.1939 grams elemental Boron per 3785.4 grams of solution, which amounts to 5.1223 x 10-5 grams B per gallon. We want the concentration of Boron in the plant water to be the target value of 0.25 grams Boron per 1,000,000 grams of plant water. Let's do a little algebra, and let y represent the grams of elemental B in a gallon of plant water. So lets equate that concentration to the target concentration. y / 3785.4 = 0.25 / 1000000 Solving that equation for y: y = 0.25 x 3785.4 / 1000000 = .00094635 grams of Boron in a gallon of plant water. Now lets solve algebraically for the amount of stock solution, S, needed to supply that much elemental Boron. .000051223 grams B per gram of stock x S = .00094635 grams B S = .00094635 / .000051223 = 18.475 grams of stock solution per gallon of plant water Assuming that the density of stock solution doesn't vary much from the density of pure water, lets convert 18.475 grams of stock solution to a more useful form. 18.475 grams x ( 1 gallon / 3785.4 grams ) x (16 cups / gallon) = .07809 cups Its not practical to use that small a fraction of cups, so let's convert that to tablespoons. .07809 cups x (16 tablespoons / cup ) = 1.249 tablespoons So, if I haven't made some kind of stupid mistake, the target Boron level in the plant water is achieved by including only about 1.25 tablespoons or 3.75 teaspoons of stock solution in a gallon of plant water. And that is subject to how well my estimate of 0.9 specific gravity for the Boron powder fits reality. If these results are reasonably correct, I have been overdosing my zinnias by a factor of 2 or 3 on Boron. Fortunately, I would have to overdose them by a factor of 10 to see the phytotoxicity reported in the Redington and Peterson reference. I have convinced myself that I need some sort of little weighing device. I'm sure glad this message didn't get "technical". Now I have a craving for pancakes. ZM This post was edited by zenman on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 23:48...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 51
Comments (146)OK this is good stuff ZM. I was at first blush ignoring features, instead focusing on learning mechanisms,,BUT as you wisely allude, they are one in the same, to wit: the cone IS the floret factory. And while I am aesthetically SO not a conehead fan (at least at this hour), it is so very helpful to understand that this despisable (to me) "tumor" on top of this delicate flower is indeed part of the whole operation. OK OK learning slow but sure. So now I can emesh some aesthetic thinking in my mechanical procedures. On that score, this very morning, my first breached green seed sprouted (seven days and nights I've been sweating), but doggone it I believe it is happening. I've got two rows of breach tests going on, one barely nicked, and two days ago a much more agressive scalping to see if I observe germination differernces. My first hybrid attemp is in day 17 of finished pollinating, will hold off another week to ten days to start pulling./breaching/planting seeds. Woo hoo, more fun than a barrel of politicians. John, appreciatively Low mountains Veracruz PS The colored petals in your foto are indeed gorgeous, undeniably. I also think that Zowie thing is particularly disgusting, but that's just me....See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 53
Comments (103)Hello four, " "Modified", that is. Do they have nectar? " Some of them have nectar, the ones I have observed with butterflies, skippers, bees, or day-flying moths feeding on them. I have no way of knowing whether my indoor specimens have nectar or not. I think they probably do have nectar. Just no butterflies to confirm that. " If the florets have a reasonable amount of nectar, then the volume of nectar in that one flower would be a butterflies' bonanza. " I have taken a few tubular zinnia petals apart, and the amount of nectar I find in each petal is relatively small. I would not describe it as a drop, but something more like a "micro-drop". Zinnias always attract a bunch of butterflies and such, but I think there are probably other flowers that have more volume of nectar. I am of the opinion that you have to be careful what you wish for. I still remember that freakish zinnia bloom that had so much nectar, and the tiny ants that were attracted to it in such scary numbers. ZM...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 54
Comments (112)Hello Fred, " ...is there a good way to separate out viable seeds to keep and discard those that look like they won't germinate? I'm just yanking out a dozen petals and pinching them, discarding the thinnest ones. And the florets seeds look quite different, thinner, and many look like they can't possibly germinate. " Good question. There is a learning curve here, but you can gently squeeze a green zinnia seed between your thumb and forefinger to "feel" the embryo inside the seed. Seeds with undeveloped embryos will feel flat and empty. The embryo is not really a seed within a seed, but it feels a little like that. The embryo is actually just the baby plant with a pair of tiny cotyledons (seed leaves) and a tap root stub. As an experiment, you can remove the embryo from a green seed and plant just the embryo. I once planted a whole flat of embryos. This is a photo of some viable green seeds that have been dried, which turns them brown. This is a photo of some chaff with mostly floret seeds. This is a photo of some fairly freshly picked green seeds. The green seed technique has been invaluable to me in my zinnia project. I learned it from Jackie_R in a much earlier part of this "It can be fun" message series. ZM...See Morezen_man
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