Just to catch people up I'm taking weekly tissue tests of some fields this year and corn and soybeans, and doing to test strips for applications of boron using various methods. So far my tissue tests have pretty much been unresponsive to any boron treatments I've done. And this week I'm completely baffled by what I just got back.

I just got done putting 10 gallons of 32% and .4 lbs of Boron(Solubor) through my irrigation on Sunday and took the leaf samples on Monday. The HCB and HCG were the areas hit by that treatment, while the other two areas did not get treated prior to taking leaf samples.....yet.....the untreated areas spiked in their boron tissue tests, while the treated remained flat???????????? WTF? How is this possible? Is it possible that they screwed up at the lab? Just the residual from water evaporation on the leaf surface from the irrigation might have given me a little boron. Even the untreated strip at sidedress spiked this week, that has received no boron at all this year except for .75 lbs in my strip till fertilizer. I really expected to see the spike in the leaves of HCG and HCB this week due to surface contamination from the irrigation applied nutrients(not so much from root uptake since it had only been 24-36 hours since treated), yet its the exact opposite.


I am also doing a boron test with soybeans this year to see if applying boron through the irrigation works. And at least I am seeing something that makes sense. This was treated last week, so there were about 6 days between treatment to leaf sampling. NSY and NSN are the test areas for my irrigation boron treatment.
NSY is Yes boron
NSN is No boron



At least that is certainly showing a response in the first week to the treatment. I'll continue to monitor for the next few weeks.

I am really amazed at how much my nutrient levels in corn jump around from week-to-week.  Especially boron its all over the place.  I hypothesized a few weeks ago that I don't really expect to see much of a leaf response to soil applied boron treatments in corn because 90% of its boron needs are in the grain itself, and boron is relatively immobile in the corn plant.  You don't neccesarily want high leaf levels, but it would be nice to see something that makes a little sense.  Its a little frustrating when you get data back that conflicts with rationale.

My soybean tests are the opposite, they have been really consistent and you don't see the wild swings in nutrient levels.  Look at how close all three samples are in levels, and they are all following the same trends(except for boron this week).