Forgotten Boron: Lessons for Production Agriculture in Andic Soils of Guatemala.

Sugar cane and other field crops in Guatemala continuously underperform in soils that possess adequate physical and chemical properties for high crop yields. Boron has proved tremendously valuable for Guatemalan vegetable and coffee production. The search for the cause of underperformance in sugarcane via soil and plant analyses led to Boron as a forgotten nutrient in tens of thousands of hectares dedicated to this crop despite the lessons in vegetables and coffee. Another crop with lower than expected performance is rubber, particularly during its immature stages, and here too, low B content in soils and tissues indicated widespread Boron deficiency in tens of thousands of hectares. This work was devised as a field based approach to identify and correct Boron deficiencies in vast areas of crop land. Due to the Andic properties of many of the Guatemalan soils, evaluations of B fixation were also performed in order to estimate B availability after land applications. This work on Boron hints at the need for further field research on other micro-nutrients such as Cu, Mo, and Ni in Guatemalan soils.