EC levels .....

Hi All,

i'm trying to treat my irritation-water these days. for this purpose i brought home "zelion" which supply a
very good water without any salt at all, EC=1 micro simens/cm.

now my question is about the levels of EC for my trees, how much fert do i need to dissolve in my new water ?

i'll appreciate any help.

regards,
Efi

efishn wrote:Hi All,

i'm trying to treat my irritation-water these days. for this purpose i brought home "zelion" which supply a
very good water without any salt at all, EC=1 micro simens/cm.

now my question is about the levels of EC for my trees, how much fert do i need to dissolve in my new water ?

i'll appreciate any help.

regards,
Efi

That is extremely pure water. If you use very pure water for a long period of time you run the risk of causing chlorosis from leaching out the nutrients from your trees. You would be okay if you stayed on top of a fertilization program. I end up talking gibberish if I try to discuss EC in detail beyond vague generalities. But I did use reverse osmosis (RO) to purify my water for quite a number of years for my orchids. I got best results if I added some salts back to the RO water. One way is to add a little fertilizer to the water after it is purified. For my orchids I would add enough fertilizer to yield a 75 ppm as Nitrogen solution of fertilizer. I used a 13-2-8 fertilizer, the dose was roughly 1/2 teaspoon per gallon, I think that is roughly 7.5 ml / 4 liters. This would yield 75 ppm as nitrogen in the final solution. It became the basis of a continuous feeding program for my orchids. For your bonsai trees, it would be up to you and the specifics of your growing conditions. I would think you should add at least 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of fertilizer, or blend back into the purified water 10 % or so of your raw water with all the dissolved salts in the raw water to avoid watering with extremely pure water. Even rain water has some dissolved solids due to aerosols picked up as the rain falls.

For myself, the logistics of adding fertilizer after purifying the water was logistically easy for me to do. You may come to a different solution. Fertilizer cakes and other solid forms of fertilizer on or in the bonsai pots may supply enough that you would not have to worry about using excessively pure water.

That is extremely pure water. If you use very pure water for a long period of time you run the risk of causing chlorosis from leaching out the nutrients from your trees.

At which pint it may truly become "irritation" water.

Seriously, though, he may well have water quality problems in Deserty Israel that we don't have. Maybe someone from west Texas, Southern New Mexico or Arizona can help, but I suspect his assistance with that issue make have to come from an Israeli university person somewhere.

JimLewis wrote:

That is extremely pure water. If you use very pure water for a long period of time you run the risk of causing chlorosis from leaching out the nutrients from your trees.

At which pint it may truly become "irritation" water.

Seriously, though, he may well have water quality problems in Deserty Israel that we don't have. Maybe someone from west Texas, Southern New Mexico or Arizona can help, but I suspect his assistance with that issue make have to come from an Israeli university person somewhere.

I was told when we were in Israel in March, 2011 that drinking 10 oz of Dead Sea water would be fatal to humans.

Hi Efi,

Different plants will grow at different EC, plants that are truly sensitive to EC are beech, hornbeam and Japanese maples. There is no official rating to their sensitivity but I think it is in the area of 1250 microseimen/cm In my part of the world I try not to exceed 1000 microsiemen/cm, which gives a good margin for error. Remember that salts will accumulate in the potting mix and so it needs flushing routinely.

I'm not sure what sort of fertilizer program you plan on using or what type of trees you have, but a 70 ppm N (final solution concentration) probably wont get you into the EC danger zone. It very much depends on your fertilizer.

You may well find that you will overfeed maple and hornbeam if you use this concentration continually in your irrigation water. In spring they would only need feeding every 7 days or so.

Many soil and environmental labs can do quick EC tests for not much money. You would only need a few tests to get a good idea of the concentrations you are using.

[quote="Leo Schordje"]

efishn wrote:

thank u Leo.
Efi

[quote="JimLewis"]

I suspect his assistance with that issue make have to come from an Israeli university person somewhere.

hi Jim and thx.

do u think that yours and my Ficus\Juniper\ and so on ..... have different salt sensitivity, because we r in different places ?

thx
Efi

63pmp wrote:Hi Efi,
I'm not sure what sort of fertilizer program you plan on using or what type of trees you have,

Hi Paul,
thank u for the info. BDW- i read a lot of what u wrote here about water and fert, and i got from that a lot of knowledge, so thanx again.

my substrate is 80% lava+perlite and 20% organic
my trees : ficus, junipers, Bougainvillea, Quercus (oak), olive, Eugenia jambolana, and more.
watering: during the winter (~12 weeks) every 4-5 days, in the rest of the year one-twice every day.
i'm planning to balance the pH of the water with acid , and to feed with 20-20-20 every time i watering. it least in the growing season. i have pH + EC meters.
now... what you think about that?
do u know where can i read about EC levels of those trees?
i'm actually looking for a table of data or some rule of thumb to know to what levels of EC i can reach.

Regards,
Efi

Efi,

I know we've discussed your watering quite a bit here. Did you ever get a complete water test done on your water supply? If not, how can you be sure you need to switch over to something like "zelion", whatever that is. Is it a bottled water?

Couple of things to be aware of. Since this water is so pure, if you use it exclusively you're probably going to have to add all of the required plant nutrients when you fertilize. So you'll need a complete (probably hydroponic) type fertilizer with a good distribution of macro and micro nutrients, including iron, copper, manganese, etc. Maybe the organic component of your mix would provide some of the micronutrients, but I don't know if you'd want to rely on that.

Depending on what salts are in your standard (tap) water, you might be able to mix it with the pure water to add in some of the nutrients like Leo suggested.

Also...if that water is indeed as pure as you stated, you may not have to add any acid...the fertilizer may provide enough acidity. And since there will be no buffering capacity (alkalinity) in the water to begin with, any acid you add will rapidly drop the pH. Be careful of that!

do u think that yours and my Ficus\Juniper\ and so on ..... have different salt sensitivity, because we r in different places ?

I think it is quite possible. Identical species that are separated geographically tend to drift apart genetically, over time, caused partially by the environments they find themselves in. (Eventually, of course, in time frames well beyond anything we could consider, they'd become two different, but related, species. This all would be less likely, of course, if you were growing nursery plants that were brought into Israel from somewhere else. In that case, one F. microcarpa probably would be much like another.

Probably.

But trees are living things and living things can adapt -- within limits, of course. If moved into a too-different environment than its genetics have prepared it for, your F. microcarpa would die.

coh wrote:the fertilizer may provide enough acidity. And since there will be no buffering capacity (alkalinity) in the water to begin with, any acid you add will rapidly drop the pH. Be careful of that!

Hi Chris,
firs, unfortunately i dont have yet the test water. the idea was to try using distilled water + all the nutrients, to get full control over the irrigation water.
now, i know there is some problems with that.

"zelion" (here in Israel) its a industrial container with resin polymer which filter salts in the water. usually it's installed in labs or other places that need distilled water for washing purpose. the company here gave me one zelion for trying. so i'm doing now- a test.

thank you very much for the info.
Efi

efishn wrote:


now... what you think about that?

I think it's great!

I have reread most of your posts on other threads and I'm amazed at the vigour in which you are researching pH, EC and fertilizing. Good onya!! (as they say here in Aus)

To get specific details on salt tolerance of plants, simply google "salt tolerance" and the plant species, lots of information will turn up. Using that information as more than just a guide is difficult because most lists specifically refer to soil salinity. EC will vary slightly with different methods of obtaining soil extracts, so it's possible to get lists with different EC limits for the same plant species. These limits also vary quite a bit with plant cultivar, age of growth, temperature etc. They really are just a guide. However, it looks like most of your plants are tolerant to very tolerant and this makes things easier.

There are also two types of EC to look at, one is your irrigation water EC, the other is soil EC (as mentioned above). Don't get the two confused. Water EC generally looks at how quickly the medium you are irrigating will become saline, or directly affect the plants. Ground soils have a hard time in shedding (leaching) salts while with potting mixes it's not so difficult, though high salinity will restrict plant growth just the same as in the soil. (incidentally, salts can also enter the plant through the leaves and burn them, so it's not just the roots that at as a portal.)
A word of caution about hydroponic fertilizers, these products are not for trees, but vegetables and hippie lettuce. I think that their fertilizer solutions are much too strong for trees, and need to be diluted quite a lot before use.

There is some conjecture of what a good irrigation water should be, some think as low an EC as possible is good, which is why rainwater is good for bonsai plants. Others think the ideal irrigation water will have the following qualities, pH 5.5 - 6.5, alkalinity 60 -80 mg/L, Calcium 40 - 120 mg/L, and magnesium 6 -25 mg/L, no sodium, chloride or boron. The alkalinity counteracts the acidity produced by fertilizing, and the calcium and magnesium are useful nutrients that are generally missing from fertilizers. I think some people have ideal water, its something to aim for, but I unfortunately don't have good water, which is why I study all this stuff.

An irrigation water that has a high EC will limit the amount of fertilizer you can add. Also, waters with high EC often carry unwanted nutrients, like sodium, bicarbonate, chloride, or it may contain good elements, like calcium and magnesium. Generally the bad elements will outweigh the benefits of the good elements, and this is why a water test is so important when you have issues with irrigation water. Once you know what you have, you can dilute with treated water to get workable water, as Coh has suggested.

If you plan on using one fertilizer strength for all your plants, then plan for your least salt tolerant tree. There is a number of ways of fertilizing, some better than others, but you need to choose one and stick with it for awhile and observe results. Plants that are highly salt tolerant will grow well at these lower EC ranges as at higher ones (though often they are more vigorous with stronger fertilizer solutions).

If you plan to use treated water with a very low EC, I would suggest using a product like Dyna gro, or another hydroponic fertilizer, but greatly diluted to suite your EC targets. You will not need to fertilize every time you water, trees are remarkably good at taking up nutrients. pH and salinity would become less of an issue with this approach. A 20:20:20 fertiliser may not have all the elements you need, in the right ratios. But it depends on your water. There will be a period of trial and error until you work out what works for your plants in your part of the world, unfortunately there is no one great way of balancing water quality with fertilizer recipes.

The water tests could provide useful information regarding alkalinity, hardness, sodicity, and nutrient levels, which may affect your fertilizer plans.

What is the EC of your water?

I used mix bed ion exchange resins for treating water in the lab I used to work in, it was very good, though they tend to have short lifespans, and the saltier the water going in, the shorter the lifespan of the resin. Blending will lengthen the life of the resin. The rate of flow of water through the exchange resin is an important factor in how much salt is removed. Most of these units have a flow regulator, you may find that the flow is inadequate for your hose if you use one to water.

In previous threads you inquired about using acids to adjust pH. Any acid will lower the waters pH, but you have to judge if you want to change the nutrient levels of your fertilizer by the choice of acid. For example, phosphoric acid adds P to the solution, nitric acid, nitrate. By using these you may influence plant growth. Acetic acid will lower pH but not affect plant nutrient levels (it smells bad though). I recommend 35% sulfuric acid as it is easy to get, not as aggressive as nitric or 98% sulfuric, and many fertilizers need a boost of sulfate, rather than N or P. I don't ever recommend hydrochloric acid as small levels of chloride can be detrimental to plant health.

While plants will adapt to an environment, it takes some time (a couple of years) for this to happen, and will be limited by the plants physiology. We can't expect a tropical plant to survive hard frosts and snow, nor a cold climate one to grow in a desert. But there are horticultural practices which will help, and really what they are is attempting to create a micro environment as close as possible to the plants original environment. That means that things like water quality, fertilizer, humidity, temperature, light exposure, soil pH EC, all have an impact on the plants ability to cope with a stressful environment.

We've covered a lot of ground here very superficially, and in a fairly random manner, but I hope this helps with your plans.
If nothing makes sense, or you have questions, than please ask them.

Paul

Paul,

Good info as always. I do have a question about one of your comments:

A word of caution about hydroponic fertilizers, these products are not for trees, but vegetables and hippie lettuce. I think that their fertilizer solutions are much too strong for trees, and need to be diluted quite a lot before use.

Are you referring to the micronutrient concentration? Because if I use, for instance, dyna-gro 7-9-5 at the 1 teaspoon/gallon rate I get the following ppm in solution: N 92 P 52 K 55 total PPM 200 (235 supposedly when all the trace elements are added in), but if I use 10-10-10 at 1 teaspoon/gallon I get N 130 P 58 K 109 total PPM 299. I'm not familiar with other hydroponic fertilizers, though...maybe they tend to be more concentrated? I guess my basic question would be, why be more concerned with the hydroponic fertilizers, especially if starting with essentially pure water?

63pmp wrote:I think it's great!

Hi Paul,

just tell me please, where your knowledge ends.. ? u r really full of knowledge. you r the main reason y I didn't see my wife lately.....
I'm reading and reading...... can I promise her that I'll be free in the end of ....2015.... ?
I am just joking of course, all your posts r very interesting and I'm enjoying to read them. This is the time to say THANK YOU for your patience and your will "to spread" the knowledge.

ok.... to our business...

U said that my trees "are tolerant to very tolerant and this makes things easier". if for your susceptible trees your limit EC is 1250-1500 µS/cm, what would be your EC limit for tolerant and for very tolerant trees?



about - "You will not need to fertilize every time you water, trees are remarkably good at taking up nutrients. pH and salinity would become less of an issue with this approach" - is this approach fine also if i seek for max growth ?

in my water the EC = 635 µS/cm pH = 7.65. As you suggested i bought lately sulfuric acid to balance the pH. before that i have bought
"pH Down" from hydroponic store, still using it. i don't know if its contained chloride as you said, cause the manufacturer doesn't tell us.
this is the product : http://gb.eurohydro.com/regul_ph.html

i have now a new mix bed ion exchange resins. so far so good. the water is very clean ~ 4 µS/cm after consuming of 170 L. the company doesn't know how much water i can get form it till 200 µS/cm, so they gave me one to test it. will see....

If you want, later on, I would like to consult about an idea that I have related to bonsai pre-treatment that may prevent death due to stress.

thx again

Regards,
Efi

Hmmm......What is EC?

Libby

EC - electrical conductivity

See, for example, http://www.smart-fertilizer.com/articles/electrical-conductivity

I use a Mir. Grow at 1800ppms every 7 dys during the summer. No problems at all. I just worked up to this higher dose.

Again . . . I'm just going to say it. I'm NOT gonna debate it.

But I think everyone is OVERTHINKING the intricacies (or, actually, lack thereof) of fertilizing your bonsai. It's NOT rocket science!

But if it lights your fire, okay. Just don't give beginners the idea they need advanced degrees in chemistry or biology to grow good, healthy trees!

Jim, I wouldn't have checked the EC had I not already had EC meter. I had it and was just curious. Only used it twice lol

Please don't apologize for checking the EC, pH, etc...or talking about it. This is a discussion forum.

No one is advocating that everyone should be doing this. Specific questions were asked and answers were provided. Fact is, some people need to consider these issues, so having this information available is potentially beneficial. The standard advice to "use whatever fertilizer is on sale and follow the label" doesn't work for everyone.

Fore said

I use a Mir. Grow at 1800ppms every 7 dys during the summer. No problems at all. I just worked up to this higher dose.

Are you sure its 1800 ppms? And what types of trees are you fertilizing? What is your water like?

I'm glad it works for you, really

Paul

Libby,

EC stands for Electrical Conductivity.

Water as a pure substance does not conduct electricity, however, when salts are dissolved in it, it will conduct electricity. The more salts dissolved in the water the higher the electrical conductivity. Pure water has zero conductivity, ocean water is about 20,000 dS/cm. Plants are affected at different levels of salinity (usually measured on a soil water extract or irrigation water), intolerant plants are affected at about 1500 dS/cm, very tolerant at about 8000 dS/cm, but it varies for each individual species and cultivar. Electrical Conductivity is abbreviated to EC and it helps to understand if your water is going to cause problems. High soil salinity inhibits water uptake by plant roots, initially at marginal salinity it will slow plant growth, at high levels it will kill the plant. By the way, there are chemicals that will dissolved in water but not alter the EC. Urea in fertilisers is a non ionic molecule and is not detected by an EC meter, but it makes the water affect as if it has salts. So Miracid (or any miracle-gro product, because all the N is urea) will give a low EC reading, but actually behave as if it has a high EC.

Hydroponics growers monitor EC as an easy way to gauge the strength of the nutrient solution. When plants feed on the nutrient solution the EC drops, when water is removed by plants or evaporation, the EC increases. This way they can monitor the solution but don't have to measure individual nutrients. Typically they run a solution for a week and then discard it.

Efi

Thank you for the compliments but there is much that I don't know, and stuff I just don't understand. I have only been making my own fertilizers for about three years now, and I'm still making mistakes as I go along. Every year it evolves and I learn a little more. This spring's lesson: maples really can't handle ammonium in spring. To try and control rising pH in my potting mixes due to water alkalinity (about 150 mg lime/l) last autumn I ended up using a ratio of 2:1 nitrate:ammonium in my water (total N 70 mg/l) fertilizing for 3 days, flushing on the fourth day. (It varied of course with hot days, rainy days etc). We also had a cloudy cool kind of autumn which helped. This seemed to work OK. This spring the same ratio was obviously too high for maples, hornbeam and beech, all showing obvious signs of excessive ammonium. But still good for all the conifers. So I have had to rethink how to do things again. So while I sound knowledgeable, I really have a lot to learn. But certainly use hydroponics as a guide, but use pot tests before subjecting your precious bonsai to new fertilizer regimes, or dramatic changes.

I don't regard your EC as being excessively high, but it certainly is in the "could cause troubles if not handled properly" camp. So potting mix EC could rise if not leached properly. Couple of ways to manage this, when you water wait until water is actively flowing from the holes in the bottom of pot before moving to next plant. Don't wait for the pots to become really dry before watering (there is a point when the potting mix is dry but the plant hasn't wilted yet, don't go to this level of dryness) You can also dilute your irrigation water with equal amounts of treated water, so EC drops to around 300. A water test will give the details of your salt load and alkalinity which will help pinpoint what may be harming your trees and the management required.

Chris,
That is a good question. Because we a talking generally, and because Efi is looking at using continuous feeding for his trees, I'm thinking within this context that using solutions at levels described by hydroponics is excessive. Of course it depends on your plant and your solution, where and how you grow trees. Vegetable growers use solutions from 1500 - 2000 uS/cm, nitrogen in the range of 100 - 350 depending on the veg, continuously. They also adjust nutrient and solution strength from seed raising to fruiting. Recent growth in my back yard suggests that these will be too strong for constant feeds.

Newer solutions like the one Efi is looking at, and Dyna Gro use weaker dilutions (my calcs for Dyna gro 795 say 1 teaspoon /gallon gives N =90 mg /l, P=51 mg/l) which will be too high for some plants. If we water with this every day; a plant like Ficus microcarpa will laugh it off, where as Japanese maples will struggle. I'm not sure how indoor tropical plants will deal with this as I have no experience with them. So the statement was a general kind of warning, but valid I think for continual feeding. Other concerns with hydroponic type solutions, and all fertilizers really, is diluting does lower the micro nutrient levels, but I'm not sure how much of a problem this is , as I don't know what the lower limits are for tree growth. Less is probably better then more.

Also, there is always someone who will read this and then go out and kill his trees with dyna gro or the like and don't want to be responsible for that. I think people need to think seriously if they want to change their fertilizing habits. Insert your usual and favorite disclaimers here.

Jim,

No doubt standard practice works for a lot of people; I've tried it, it's what sent me on this sojourn. Unfortunately, standard fertilizing as described by yourself, Fore and Mr Pall doesn't work for me and others. I really think there are many people who start out with bonsai and then give up because the standard fertilizer practice doesn't work for them, or they have difficult water. Discussions like this open opportunities for those that don't have perfect climate and water.

Additionally, no one on this thread, or others of the same theme, is insisting that this is the only way to grow plants.

Regards

Paul

JimLewis wrote: Just don't give beginners the idea they need advanced degrees in chemistry or biology to grow good, healthy trees!

This is now maybe the third or fourth time 'round that I've seen you troll a fertilizer, ph, or other thread that delved into more "advanced" horticultural topics and their relation to bonsai culture.

I have also observed that you consistently add little of value to these discussions preferring instead to belittle them, as you have again done here.

-Jay

Efi,

I looked at your pH down product and could only see that it is a strong buffer. This could be anything, though it must be made form a non toxic chemical. If the liquid is black or very dark, I would say it is mostly organic humic/fulvic type materials. I would see this as a benefit to recycled nutrient systems. Value for money in water to waste systems may be questionable.

Paul

63pmp wrote:I looked at your pH down product and could only see that it is a strong buffer. This could be anything, though it must be made form a non toxic chemical. If the liquid is black or very dark, I would say it is mostly organic humic/fulvic type materials. I would see this as a benefit to recycled nutrient systems. Value for money in water to waste systems may be questionable.

Paul

Hi Paul,
its not dark its transparent, like water.

this friday i'm going to sent sample of my water to the lab. and then will see .... thank you for now.

Regards,
Efi