pH level in bonsai .....

drgonzo wrote:
Knowing my situation with hard well water prevents me from keeping some pH sensitive tropicals that I would LOVE to work with as they would be subject to my well water indoors throughout our long Upstate NY winters, they would come out in spring well beyond their acceptable pH threshold, no doubt both Iron AND magnesium deficient...and in short pretty poor looking.

Would something as simple as a brita filter remove enough of the impurities to allow you to grow these? Obviously you wouldn't want to rely on this method to water your entire collection, but maybe for a couple of trees during winter...or maybe your water would clog up a brita too quickly.

Hi Chris,

yes i'm still here .... u know... i'm here from the beginning

i don't know nothing about the other parameters in my water.sorry.
my mixture : well, i build it from my experience.nothing special. is "heavy on the organics" is bad ?
my trees: Ficus , Olive, Bouganvillea , Ulmus, Callistemon, Juniper, Pine, Pistacia , Cercis
siliquastrum L.

thx
Efi

coh wrote:

drgonzo wrote:
Knowing my situation with hard well water prevents me from keeping some pH sensitive tropicals that I would LOVE to work with as they would be subject to my well water indoors throughout our long Upstate NY winters, they would come out in spring well beyond their acceptable pH threshold, no doubt both Iron AND magnesium deficient...and in short pretty poor looking.

Would something as simple as a brita filter remove enough of the impurities to allow you to grow these? Obviously you wouldn't want to rely on this method to water your entire collection, but maybe for a couple of trees during winter...or maybe your water would clog up a brita too quickly.

The metallic salts are dissolved in the water, I don't think I couldn't filter them out any more then I could filter out the sugar from a sugar water solution. I don't know how brita filters work as I don't own one. To the best of my knowledge the only way to remove them is via reverse osmosis.
-Jay

Here I'll do a quick water sample test for you Efi.....

Does your water leave white chalky stains/residue on your shower curtain or Bathtub that are difficult to scrub off?

If so you have hard water, but I am guessing if your water pH is 7.8 its soft, as metallic salts dissolve more easily in acidic solutions then those that are mildly basic. I you are on municipal water from your city or town it may likely be chemically softened and can contain a significant quantity of salt that will harm your plants if used regularly.

Your water at pH 7.8 is alkaline. But thats only the pH, what you'll need to find out is what's DISSOLVED in your water.

Ultimately Chris is right a quick water test telling you total dissolved solids and Electrical conductivity will be the foundation upon which you can build further refinement as you work out what "works" best for your situation.

-Jay

Brita filters use activated carbon and some kind of resin, they supposedly remove some of the dissolved metallic contaminants...it's not just a filter. Might be worth a try! I'm just trying to help you acquire more plants

And of course, small "under counter" RO systems are not all that expensive these days!

coh wrote:Brita filters use activated carbon and some kind of resin, they supposedly remove some of the dissolved metallic contaminants...it's not just a filter. Might be worth a try! I'm just trying to help you acquire more plants

And of course, small "under counter" RO systems are not all that expensive these days!

I will look into it further. It sure would open the door for several different tropicals I would like to keep! And I won't tell my wife, should she ever meet you, that you were the guy who recomended the means by which all the windows in the house are now filled with tropicals all winter long!

-Jay

efishn wrote:Hi Chris,

yes i'm still here .... u know... i'm here from the beginning

i don't know nothing about the other parameters in my water.sorry.
my mixture : well, i build it from my experience.nothing special. is "heavy on the organics" is bad ?
my trees: Ficus , Olive, Bouganvillea , Ulmus, Callistemon, Juniper, Pine, Pistacia , Cercis
siliquastrum L.

thx
Efi

I don't think "heavy on the organics" is necessarily bad, if you've developed your cultural regimen (watering and fertilizing) to accommodate that. It's just that most people these days use "soils" that are largely inert and coarse to facilitate drainage.

That said - can you tell us how your plants are doing? Are these plants that are in bonsai pots or are they in nursery pots "in development"? How long have you been working with them - do they seem to be healthy and growing well, or are they suffering various leaf maladies and declining? Some photos might help.

I mean, if what you're doing is working, you don't need to change it - right?

drgonzo wrote:Here I'll do a quick water sample test for you Efi.....

Does your water leave white chalky stains/residue on your shower curtain or Bathtub that are difficult to scrub off?

If so you have hard water, but I am guessing if your water pH is 7.8 its soft, as metallic salts dissolve more easily in acidic solutions then those that are mildly basic. I you are on municipal water from your city or town it may likely be chemically softened and can contain a significant quantity of salt that will harm your plants if used regularly.

Your water at pH 7.8 is alkaline. But thats only the pH, what you'll need to find out is what's DISSOLVED in your water.

Ultimately Chris is right a quick water test telling you total dissolved solids and Electrical conductivity will be the foundation upon which you can build further refinement as you work out what "works" best for your situation.

-Jay

Hi Jay and thx for your help.
I'm starting to be a little bit confused. till now we talked about pH. now i need to know how much nutrients do i have in my water? what for?
It doesn't matter where the nutrients come from, soil or/and water, whatever. we also have to balance the pH to make the nutrients available to the tree . to my understanding - that's it. tell me please where is my mistake ?

Efi

efishn wrote: now i need to know how much nutrients do i have in my water? what for?

There can be many dissolved solids in you water including different salts that are not by any means nutrients for plants. In fact they can be quite detrimental. A professional water test will let you know what your irrigation water has dissolved in it before YOU begin to add your own nutrients to your water.

This would be your tap water (or whatever you use to water your trees with) you would want to have tested, without any additives. Straight from the spigot.
-Jay

i have an industrial RO unit plumbed into the unit and it is not the route i'd go down for plants - it creates water so pure it is devoid of everything - (we use it to replace evaporation on the martine coral test tanks). RO is even dangerous to drink as it will leach essential minerals FROM the body, so would need a full scale replenishment of dissolved minerals and elements to be balanced for plants. Brita will mostly remove impurities added to tap water - RO filters leave a dissolved solid value of 0.00ppm.

efishn........which species are thriving in your collection and which do you think could be better?

cheers Marcus

marcus watts wrote:
efishn........which species are thriving in your collection and which do you think could be better?

cheers Marcus

In general all my species are fine. the Ficus, Olive, Bouganvillea , Callistemon, Pine, Pistacia are great.
The Ulmus and Pistacia could be better.

tnx
Efi

drgonzo wrote:

efishn wrote: now i need to know how much nutrients do i have in my water? what for?

There can be many dissolved solids in you water including different salts that are not by any means nutrients for plants. In fact they can be quite detrimental. A professional water test will let you know what your irrigation water has dissolved in it before YOU begin to add your own nutrients to your water.

This would be your tap water (or whatever you use to water your trees with) you would want to have tested, without any additives. Straight from the spigot.
-Jay

JAY- if my water was "quite detrimental" i was already knew that, no ?! believe me they are just fine.
now, let's say I'm giving my trees distilled water. and i have commercial pH down (i already purchased one) so what now ?

thx
Efi

efishn wrote:

marcus watts wrote:
efishn........which species are thriving in your collection and which do you think could be better?

cheers Marcus

In general all my species are fine. the Ficus, Olive, Bouganvillea , Callistemon, Pine, Pistacia are great.
The Ulmus and Pistacia could be better.

tnx
Efi

you seem happy that your trees are doing great so you do not need to do anything different- only fix what is not working or you end up very confused. For me Ulmus likes very organic soil and not free draining bonsai soil, but your climate and conditions are not like mine, so giving concrete advice is difficult

marcus watts wrote:
you seem happy that your trees are doing great so you do not need to do anything different- only fix what is not working or you end up very confused.

Efi,

Your above post is the first mention you've made that your trees are doing fine, if thats the case then don't change anything. If there is ever a problem, thats when you want to investigate your growing conditions (ie fertilizers, water quality, soil composition) further to help determine cause and then treatment if necessary.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.
-Jay

marcus watts wrote:i have an industrial RO unit plumbed into the unit and it is not the route i'd go down for plants - it creates water so pure it is devoid of everything - (we use it to replace evaporation on the martine coral test tanks). RO is even dangerous to drink as it will leach essential minerals FROM the body, so would need a full scale replenishment of dissolved minerals and elements to be balanced for plants. Brita will mostly remove impurities added to tap water - RO filters leave a dissolved solid value of 0.00ppm.
cheers Marcus

Marcus, I don't know if the small home RO units are quite as efficient as what you are using, they may leave more impurities in the water. In any case, I've read that some people will mix a small amount of unfiltered water back into their RO water to add back some minerals. That is always an option. Also, some of the hydroponic fertilizers are designed to work with pure water, probably one would have to use one of those.

Don't know how much or exactly what kinds of impurities brita-type filters remove, but their website claims a variety of dissolved substances are removed. I know that our brita-filtered water has absolutely no residual taste of chlorine, metal, etc, but I currently have no tools to measure pH or EC with any accuracy.

We are fortunate to have very good tap water in my city... the water treatment facility publishes water quality reports regularly and mails it to customers with a monthly statement. It is probably also available online and your local community may have similar information available. For my irrigation system I have a well.

John Quinn wrote:We are fortunate to have very good tap water in my city... the water treatment facility publishes water quality reports regularly and mails it to customers with a monthly statement. It is probably also available online and your local community may have similar information available. For my irrigation system I have a well.

The Federal Safe Drinking Water act requires city water companies to furnish that information -- or at least make it available.

this thread was / is a really good read and time to give it a BUMP .

i calibrated a new high end ph meter we need for work this afternoon and out of curiosity ran off 120 liters of my tap water into a barrel - tested 8.7.    

2 hrs later 8.6 - - i smile at early comments about "ignore ph, trust your tap water, neutral is fine so dont make things complicated" - frankly this is a load of rubbish as how can you trust in something you dont know the level of without testing ?

in the hot / dry spell we are well and truly having here I have been using the hose most evenings for weeks now, as well as the watering can of acidified solutions at the weekend and a big container that can soak a whole pot and tree if needed. Doing this (using the tapwater) has changed several of my trees colour to a much paler green - white pines, white beech, a garden potted standard baytree, many newly imported trees etc

the soil components and part of our fertiliser regime has obviously helped shift the ph more towards neutral but thats the end of lazy hose watering for me - water butt, test and shift ph to 6 for my collection xxx and water from there with pump or can.....(xxx observation shows several trees thriving - great colour, healthy growth etc so these will be hose watered - several chochubai quince are stunning, all the junipers thrive - the collected japanese mountain trees are from alkaline areas originally) . i know tap water ph shifts depending upon supply, maintenance work, treatments etc so each time a barrel is filled it will be checked and adjusted - i put money on the white pines going deeper in colour again - if so ph is not something to be dismissed straight away

cheers,