Three years ago there were handfuls of them. When I was a kid, the clover was alive with honey bees. If everyone could just take a second and notice what is happening. Something is terribly wrong right now. Bees are affected by climate change and chemicals sprayed onto crops and plants in our gardens.
Only solution is go go "organic" by using natural compost to enrich the soil and natural products to deter bugs and pests, such as marigolds or garlic around rose bushes to deter aphids, and other companion planting. We need to treat our planet with respect or it will die - and us along with it. I agree Jan about treating our planet with respect. I care for a 3 acre floral garden. I use very little chemical in the gardens. Only when needed, I have volunteers that help me weed by hand and only when the boss pushes for spraying do I do it carefully and limited mostly to walkways.
We use peat, pine fines and buy compost from a local nursery. The absolute keys to attracting pollinators is to plant the right plants. We have so many butterflies, bees, wasps, birds, and little critters.
When I'm in the gardens I don't feel like there is a problem in the world. I'm not a big believer in climate change, I've been around long enough to see we have cycles and some of the endangered creatures are returning. I try to judge by this method. I could be proven wrong one day but for now this is what I see.
In Oct. I placed my own composit on my Raspberry plants. Then in Nov, spread some pine needles on the bed. I have some Manure in a bag from the store. Would it be safe to spread a little of that also? I have had a decrease in my rasp. I would appreciate any help. Also how can I have the soil tested? Skip to main content. By Catherine Boeckmann. August 13, Tags soil testing. What do you want to read next? Vegetable Growing Guide. Time to Get Tough: Hardening Off Prepare Your Soil in Fall for Next Improving Your Garden with Organic Growing Blueberries: A Plant for Soil Preparation: How Do You How to Take a Soil Test.
Foundation Plantings Checkup. What Is the Best Manure Compost Organic Gardening Basics: How to I am the retired Director of Horticulture at the Mass. Horticultural Societky. Hi Bruce, Thank you for the correction! We have updated the table.
Hello, I planted a young blueberry bush in my garden in the spring. Thank you! As long as you have worked the compost into your soil, there is no reason to delay planting. Sign up for our email newsletter by entering your email address. The final ratio of germinated seeds between each pH was compared using analysis of variance ANOVA test, followed by post-hoc Tukey multiple comparison test.
We used the FlexParamCurve v. This package provides tools that facilitate fitting parametric curves in nonlinear modes, which is computationally efficient and allows the estimation of parameters of biological significance even on relatively small datasets Oswald et al. In detail, the four-parameter generalized logistic curve is described by the equation.
Where y is the estimated value at time t, A is the asymptote of the growth trajectory, k is the rate at which the slope of the curve changes with time, i is the inflection point, corresponding to the time at which the growth is fastest, and m is the shape parameter of the generalized logistic curve. We used the nlme procedure in the nlme package Bates, to fit nonlinear mixed modes NLMMs for investigating whether values of the A, k, i , and m parameters of the curve were affected by soil pH.
NLMMs allow for a large flexibility in the parameterization of both the fixed and the random part of the model, but this flexibility also makes it hard to assess the optimal structure of the model. Following a similar procedure described in Sicurella et al. These preliminary analyses were run by first interpolating logistic curves to data of each plant separately and noting the estimated value of individual parameters. Then, we used ANOVA models, corrected for inhomogeneity of variance whenever necessary, to test for variation in each parameter according to pH.
When these analyses revealed significant variation, the effect of pH was maintained in the final NLMM, while it was excluded otherwise. For instance, ANOVA models showed that parameters A, k and i from individual plant height model significantly varied among pH levels, while m parameter did not.
We also plotted the range of parameters from curves fitted to individual plants and, in the NLMMs, allowed for random variation in those parameters which, at a visual inspection, showed large heterogeneity see also Sicurella et al. Finally, we controlled for heteroscedasticity by assuming a variation of the variance with time according to an exponential function, as suggested in Oswald et al. Differences in plant dry weight, number of inflorescences, inflorescence size including only plants that did produce inflorescences , and time to pollen emission between plants grown at different pH were tested in ANOVA models, generalized linear models assuming a Poisson distribution and corrected for overdispersion, linear mixed models and parametric survival regression models assuming a negative exponential distribution Kleinbaum and Klein, Plant dry weight was entered as a covariate in all the other models.
Plant identity was included as a random grouping factor in the mixed model of inflorescence size to account for repeated measures taken on the same plant. This model was also corrected for heteroscedasticity by assuming that variance increased exponentially with plant dry weight. Time to pollen emission was considered an interval censored variable Kleinbaum and Klein, as pollen production was evaluated only during periodic visits.
Intervals where therefore considered right censored, but not left censored Kleinbaum and Klein, Analyses where run in R 3. Under the simulated conditions significant differences in the germination percentage were observed between the tested pH values. These values of pH were retained for further analyses regarding the growth rate of plant traits and allergenicity. Figure 1. We collected 11 measures for 15 plants. One plant, grown at pH7, lost leaves before the last measure, thus we could not measure lateral spread, leaf length and width, but we measured height because the plant was still alive.
Sample size is therefore measures for plant height and measures for the other parameters. Final NLMM of common ragweed height indicated that at pH7 plants were shorter than those grown at pH5 and pH6 as suggested by the significant difference in A parameters of the generalized logistic curves Table 1. In addition, plants grew faster at pH5 than at pH6 and pH7 as indicated by the difference in k parameters of the growth curves.
Overall, growth trajectory of plants grown at pH5 and pH6 were similar, while that of plants grown at pH7 differed Figure 2A. Figure 2. Generalized logistic growth curves of vegetative traits [plant height A , lateral spread B , leaf length C and leaf width D ] of A.
Common ragweed plants grown at different pH showed similar final lateral spread and final size of leaves, as suggested by the fact that A parameter did not differ among pH levels in all models. However, leaf development was slower at pH7, as indicated by the fact that i parameter, indicating when curves reach the inflection point, was larger for plants grown at pH7 than at lower pH in all models Table 1 , Figures 2B—D.
At pH6, however, plant leaves seemed to grow more quickly than at pH5, as indicated by a significantly lower value of i parameters of models of leaf length and width Table 1. In contrast, no significant difference was observed in i values of the model of lateral spread Table 1.
Leaves seem also to increase in size at different rates at different pH, as suggested by the significant interaction between k parameter and pH. However, post-hoc tests could not identify any significant pairwise difference in these parameters after Bonferroni correction Table 1. Overall, growth curves showed that common ragweed canopies grew at similar rate at pH5 and pH6.
Table 1 , Figure 1B , but more slowly at pH7. Figure 3. No significant differences were detected among the treatments.
Figure 4. Means number of inflorescences and inflorescence size of A. At pH7 the plants did not produce any inflorescences. Pollen from plants grown at pH 5 and 6 was assessed by slot blot technique in order to preserve protein conformation, on which IgE binding may depend. Identical amount of proteins from pollen extracts were bound on a nitrocellulose membrane and subjected to immunoreaction with a sera mix from selected ragweed allergic patients.
The Figure 5A shows a representative membrane after immunodetection. At least three protein extracts from each plant were analyzed and the mean results of five independent experiments were calculated and statistically elaborated Figure 5B. Figure 5. A Representative slot blot membrane probed with a pool of selected patient sera showing the total allergenicity of pollen samples collected from plants grown in soils at pH5 and pH6. Pollen proteins obtained from single plants by independent extractions were loaded.
S Standard protein extract from commercial pollen, Allergon ; B Mean total allergenicity of pollen collected from plants grown at pH5 and pH6. On average, all the pollen samples collected from plants grown at pH5 showed a statistically higher IgE-binding signal, ranging from 1.
This study demonstrates for the first time that growth and reproductive performances of the IAP A. Specifically, results confirm that A. On the contrary, the total pollen allergenicity was lower at pH6 than pH5, the only two pH values at which plants produced flowers and then pollen.
Since, there is a number of important environmental factors that may control the distribution of common ragweed i. Despite this, we would point out that: a soil pH is known to control the uptake of macro- and micronutrients N, Mg, and so on from soil so it is a quite important factor to be monitored, especially for invasive plants; b we used natural soil for growing plants and measuring the pH; this choice made experimental conditions more close to those of field conditions and then the subsequent results useful for future field experiments regarding the species' control; c we observed in a crop field as specified in the introduction that the amendment of soil using calcium hydroxide highly reduced the species growth.
The method we used in our test to modify the original reaction condition of soil, which implies the addition of calcium hydroxide to increase pH value, can have changed the original quantity of calcium. Thus, calcium could act as confounding factor in understanding the effect of pH on plants. Although calcium is not a major nutrient, it plays a key role in many physiological processes such as the stabilization of cell wall structures, the function of a major secondary-messenger molecule in plants under different developmental cues, the participation in mechanisms of water and nutrient uptake, etc.
White and Broadley, As a consequence, the addition of calcium hydroxide were intended to reproduce conditions similar to field ones in which calcium is generally the most representative cation in soil exchange complex and to simulate the actual system regulating pH values.
The germination rate of A. These results are in accordance with those of Sang et al. In general, among the intermediate values of pH tested in this study for the subsequent analyses growth curve and reproductive investment , plants grown at pH5 and pH6 performed better than those grown at pH7. With regard to vegetative traits, the shortest height as well as the slowest growth rate for all vegetative traits were recorded at pH7.
This results are in disagreement with those of an old work of Turner reporting that A. Tessmer et al. Nevertheless, in our results although A. Physiological mechanisms of adaptation of plants to non-optimal soil pH are well-known in literature. This behavior is consistent with observations we made in our study, since the pH of soil conspicuously decreased over time at all the pH values monitored data not shown.
However, observing the whole dataset of vegetative plant traits, plants grown at pH7 exhibited the lowest absolute value of biomass even if not significantly different from pH5 and pH6 , in addition to the lowest values of plant height and velocity of growth in addition to the lack of male inflorescences.
Likely a trend, not captured by our data, indicating less vigor of the species at pH7 can be invoked and should be taken into account. In any case, these results should be carefully evaluated considering some confounding factors relating to the soil ecosystem: a soil pH is known to influence the availability and uptake of a micronutrient like Mg that is implicated in the plant's photosynthetic efficiency Dighton and Krumins, For instance, at high pH, Ca, and Mg tend to form less or not available compounds when reacting with P and many micronutrients Barber, ; b complex interactions between biotic i.
Key elements of soil useful for plants growth are nitrogen N , potassium K and phosphorous P that different plants species can preferentially absorb according to pH. Since A. However, Leskovsek et al. With regards to reproductive investments, at pH6 and pH5 A. This behavior of the plants at pH7 could also be due to the effect of an excess of calcium hydroxide after the manipulation of the natural soil we used in our experiment.
With regards to time to pollen emission it significantly decreased with plant dry weight shorter at pH5 than pH6 , as expected.
The influence of pH on the reproductive investment has been already observed for other species no literature information were found for A. For instance, in a work on the effect of different pH values from 4.
Plants growing in too acid or too calcareous i. Consequently, a non-optimal soil pH condition for a plant can affect its growth and reproductive performances, as we have observed in this study for A.
In any case, also reproductive investment in response to different pH ranges is species-specific as a result of evolutionary history and adaptation ability to environment of each species Ware, ; Zeng and Clark, ; Offord et al.
In this work, the soil pH at which a plant was grown affected common ragweed pollen allergenicity, which, in our experimental condition, was lowest at pH6. Unfortunately, no specific studies on the effects of soil pH on pollen allergenicity were performed to date. For instance, Ghiani et al. Climate change was indicated to affect pollen allergenicity determined by a higher concentration of the Amb a 1 allergen in pollen of plants exposed to higher temperatures and drought El Kelish et al.
Cloutier-Hurteau et al. They found positive relationships between the concentration of some trace elements Cd Ni and Pb in pollens and in soil or roots. Unfortunately, they did not measure the allergenicity of those pollen grains; moreover they did not find any relation of the trace elements concentration in pollen grain with soil pH probably due to the limited pH range of the investigated soils 7.
In our experiment, we can suppose that the addition of calcium hydroxide to soil in order to increase pH from 5 to 6 interfered with pollen allergenicity. Indeed, we noticed a higher amount of flavonoids in pollen extracts from plant grown at pH6 probably produced to face the presence of calcium.
This higher amount of secondary metabolites likely affected the IgE binding explaining the lower allergenicity detected for pH 6 pollen. Despite the fact that our results in controlled conditions indicate better performances of A. In contrast, other authors found that the presence of A. However, it should be noted that in such studies the vegetative vigor and the reproductive performances of the plant in the growth sites were not reported.
The inconsistency of field studies on pH preference of weeds has been related to the covariation of pH range with climatic gradients annual rainfall and temperature; Pinke et al. In our study, a neutral soil, obtained after the addition of calcium hydroxide to a natural acid soil, inhibited the emission of flowers besides the plant height during the observation period. This result supports field observations by Italian farmers working on croplands highly invaded by A.
In the management of IAPs, manipulating the soil attributes is one of the strategies to achieve a successful control, especially in agricultural environments. Particularly, nutrient and soil nitrogen management, highly dependent on soil pH values, or the addition of activate carbon have been used to achieve desired soil properties, and thus plant communities resistant to invasion Kulmatiski and Beard, ; Vasquez et al. Although we acknowledge the limitations of only testing the effects of soil pH in controlled conditions, our study suggests that further in-field research on the effects of liming on the growth and performances of A.
Species-specific approaches, may be implemented by applying soil liming methods that may have management problems and high costs also tested in combination with other restoration methods such as N management, plowing, herbicide application, etc.
In fact, it is surprising that the effect of invasive plants on soil pH has been investigated in numerous circumstances Ehrenfeld, , but not the opposite. Interesting findings of our experimental study are that: a in not optimal pH conditions pH7 in our study A.
These factors should be considered and may have possible implications during the evaluation of health risk linked to pollinosis. RG and SaCi conceived and designed the experiments. CM and SaCa conducted laboratory analyses.
RG and RA analyzed the data and wrote results. RG and SaCi wrote the manuscript Introduction and Discussion ; all authors provided editorial advice and revised manuscript. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Abbasi, H. Environments Aina, R. Exposure to cadmium-contaminated soils increases allergenicity of Poa annua L. Allergy 65, — Anderson, R. Growth of garlic mustard Alliaria petiolata in native soils of different acidity. Join the RHS today and support our charity Join now. Save to My scrapbook.
Soil pH colour chart. Quick facts. Suitable for All soils, but not potting media, fertilisers or manures Timing Test at any time Difficulty Moderate.
When to test soil pH It is especially worth checking soil pH before designing or planting a new garden, making vegetable plots, planting fruit, when growth is disappointing, or where yellowing of foliage occurs. Interpreting the results of a soil pH test A pH test measures soil acidity or alkalinity. The addition of lime can help break up acid clay soils pH 5. Clay soils often require very large amounts of acidifying material and soils with free chalk or lime are not usually treatable.
Problems Certain plant diseases such as club root and nutrient deficiencies can be associated with acid or alkaline soil conditions. See also You may also like. Acidifying soil. Chalky soils. Chalky soils: plants for. Clay soils: plants for. Hardy heathers. Lime and liming.
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