﻿UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No 1126 



Washington, D. C. 



April 23, 1923 



THE EFFECT OF BORAX ON THE GROWTH AND 

 YIELD OF CROPS. 



By J. J. Skinner and B. E. Brown, Biochemists, and F. R. Reid, Assistant Biochemist, 

 Office of Soil-Fertility Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Introduction 1 



Review of the literature 2 



Scope and plan of the investigations in 1920 . 4 



Experiments with borax at Arlington, Va. . 5 



Effect of borax on Lima beans 6 



Effect of borax on snap beans 7 



Effect of borax on potatoes 9 



Effect of borax on corn 10 



Influence of rainfall on the effect of borax. 11 



Periodic planting of corn and cotton 13 



Field experiments using fertilizers with and 



without borax 17 



A comparison of two grades of Searles 



Lakepotashin the field 17 



Further results with potatoes and corn. . 19 

 Effect of borax on cotton at Muscle Shoals, 



Ala 22 



The residual effect of borax 2.5 



Symptoms of borax-affected plants 26 



Summary • 27 



Literature cited 30 



INTRODUCTION. 



The United States Department of Agriculture issued a report {12) l 

 early in 1920 on crop injury by borax in fertilizers which was based 

 partly on field experiments conducted in 1919 in cooperation with 

 farmers in the States of Maine, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, 

 North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and partly on investi- 

 gations of the crop injury by borax in commercial fields of potatoes 

 and cotton in certain Eastern States. 



These investigations were made by the department in 1919, as a 

 result of appeals from farmers and fertilizer dealers in many sections 

 of the Eastern States which indicated that important crops to which 

 certain fertilizers had been applied were very seriously affected. As 

 a result of the investigation by the department and by several of the 

 State experiment stations, the trouble was traced to the use of a 

 potash salt containing borax which came from Searles Lake, Calif. 



The results of the experiments in the States enumerated above 

 showed that this potash salt containing borax was injurious to 

 potatoes and cotton, but that the degree of injury was dependent 

 upon the type of soil and the climatic conditions. In experiments 



1 Serial numbers (italic) in parentheses refer to "Literature cited" at the end of this bulletin. 

 9094—22 1 



