Chlorosis on the rise

An early summer pattern of rainy weather has continued unabated. One out come of this is appearing on a number of plants: chlorosis. This is when plants are not synthesizing enough chlorophyll and leaves appear yellowish although the cells along veins are greener. This happens whenever plants are growing but can not getting enough nutrients, especially iron. It's not that iron isn't there in the soil, but our basic, alkaline, soils make if difficult for some plants to take up enough iron. The chlorosis is more pronounced in plants that like acid soils, low pH, some of my magnolias, particularly the sweet bay, azaleas and rhododendrons, some hydrangeas, and others. A lot of rain seems to worsen the condition perhaps encouraging growth that depletes nutrient supplies. So one of today's chores will be to spread some nutrients aroung to help these plants out a bit. Best to treat your plants before the situation becomes severe when it can take a long time for the plant to recover. In this case you can use a foliar spray or apply some "copperas", iron sulfate, to the soil.  

Something we all need - TNT detecting plants

Genetic engineering opens so many possibilities that only your imagination limits what you can do, but this really does boggle the mind. Plants bioengineered to become extremely chlorotic when they detect minute amounts of TNT. And the cool thing is that all you need to do to solve the problem is give them some nitrogen. Uh oh, the African violet says we have a bomb threat. OK, quick, give it some fertilizer. Several concerns do come to mind. First, even "fast" plants aren't known for their rapid response time, and explosions tend to be hasty things. Second, what will all those explosive sniffing dogs to for a job now? Kibble doesn't grow on trees. Third, paranoid gardeners will go into shock everytime one of their plants is a bit chlorotic. According to my azaleas al qaida is hiding in our garden. Imagine what an infestation of white flies means! Still you have to admire the creativity of who ever decided you could get a plant to detect TNT. But how do they do with fertilizer bombs? Would a plant turn chlorotic just to get at the fertilizer? Hey, but maybe there'll be some new job opportunities for botanists and horticulturalists in homeland security.