Meaning of Bordeaux mixture | Babel Free

Definitions

A mixture of copper sulfate and lime that is sprayed on plants as a fungicide.

countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Reports are coming to hand from a very large number of districts as to the success which has attended the use of the Bordeaux mixture (sulphate of copper and lime) as a preventive of potato disease.”

“The aggressiveness of several plant diseases in Europe between 1878 and 1882, particularly the downy mildew upon the grape, which, about 1878, had invaded Europe from America, stimulated a search in the former country for effective spraying mixtures. Trials of many chemicals were made, but it was left to accident to suggest and to the genius of Millardet, of Bordeaux, France, to perfect the happy combination of lime and bluestone that we now know as the Bordeaux mixture. It was customary in certain vineyards to sprinkle a few rows of grapevines near the road with a mixture of milk of lime and bluestone to give them a poisonous appearance to ward off depredation of the hungry passer-by. The vines so treated in 1882 were noted by Prillieux and Millardet to be less injured by the mildew than were other vines, and they ascribed the beneficial effect to its proper cause, the lime-bluestone mixture. While several investigators were engaged simultaneously in experimenting with these chemicals upon the mildew, it was Millardet who first planned and executed experiments and published results which demonstrated the commercial value of the lime-bluestone treatment. The first systematic applications of copper, and of copper with lime as a disease preventive, were made under the direction of Millardet, August 18, 1883. In 1884 the work was repeated, and in 1885 Millardet published the first directions for preparing BORDEAUX MIXTURE Water...........130 liters (34 gallons) Bluestone........8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) Lime..............15 kilograms (33 pounds) This mixture was to be shaken upon the plants with a broom. Following this demonstration came the introduction of an era, not yet at an end, of active experimentation with fungicides, wet and dry, which has already yielded results of incalculable value.”

CEFR level