Water: The Most Essential Compound

XxTwoJointsxX said:

Really interesting thread brother...

But what i have in my area is Ca mg/l of 90... is that good enough for my plants or should i be doing something about it?

easy brother

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Double check your measurement. Hardness of water is generally expressed in ppm. If you have a Calcium level of 90 mg/l that would probably be some very hard water and I would recommend you use something with less Ca in it. At least cut it with some distilled or r/o.

doc111 said:

Double check your measurement. Hardness of water is generally expressed in ppm. If you have a Calcium level of 90 mg/l that would probably be some very hard water and I would recommend you use something with less Ca in it. At least cut it with some distilled or r/o.

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Our local water board expresses it in CaCO3, Ca mg/l, ˚clarke, ˚german, ˚french, bit strange but thats what it gives, i think I will need to cut it with bottled wated as i dont really know where to get distilled water from, unless you have any suggestions, im only growing two plants, what do you reckon???

peace

ps my fonts are going crazy

XxTwoJointsxX said:

Our local water board expresses it in CaCO3, Ca mg/l, ˚clarke, ˚german, ˚french, bit strange but thats what it gives, i think I will need to cut it with bottled wated as i dont really know where to get distilled water from, unless you have any suggestions, im only growing two plants, what do you reckon???

peace

ps my fonts are going crazy

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Check your local supermarket. Most of them have those water machines where you can bring your own jugs and get them filled. Those are reverse osmosis (r/o) filters. The water is very cheap and perfect for growing. Although you may need cal-mag or a similar supplement depending on your soil and nutes. Do you notice a lot of limescale buildup on your faucets and around sinks and tubs?

What is the best water for our great plants.

Rain water from countryside away from cities, filtered and boiled and then loaded up with a load of air..with an air atone before serving.. NO?
All i know planet earth wouldn't survive without it..

Jay_normous said:

What is the best water for our great plants.

Rain water from countryside away from cities, filtered and boiled and then loaded up with a load of air..with an air atone before serving.. NO?
All i know planet earth wouldn't survive without it..

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Yes rainwater is usually good for growing. If it's filtered and boiled why not just use r/o water though? Cheaper you say? Perhaps but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through to water your plants (unless you only have 1 or 2). Fact is most water is fine for growing. Even most tapwater is fine. There are a relative few who have really hard water or nasty well water or use a water softener. If you are in any of these categories, I would say that rainwater, r/o, or distilled is probably your best bet. I feel obligated to caution anybody who uses rainwater for indoor growing. Beware of creepy crawlies and other nasty things that may hitch a ride in your water. If you are boiling it then you probably won't have to worry about it but make sure the pH of your rainwater isn't out of wack. Happy growing.

Here is an interesting article I found:



I want to explain the importance of water in plants and how they grow. First, I need to review some basic plant physiology so that we are all on the same page and you can understand how I look at plants. My basic model of a plant is a leaf stuck in a straw, at the opposite end of the straw is a cotton wick, the root. That is your basic plant: leaves, stems, roots. All plant tissues consist of cells, which can be imagined as a wet cardboard box (the cell wall) with a water balloon (the plant cell) inside. The balloon itself (the cell membrane) is leaky. Water and other small molecules can move through it. This explains why the box is wet! In addition, there are proteins in the membrane that can quickly move salt ions, usually potassium, into the cell. Other proteins move sugars in and out of the cell. This allows the cell to be saltier and sweeter that the water around it. Water moves from a solution of low concentration into a higher concentration solution to dilute it. Since the cell can actively move salts into the cell, water moves into the cell as some water leaks out, and a balance between inflow and outflow occurs.
Plants can make virtually everything they need from water and air with a few nutrients that the roots absorb from the soil. The plant uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. It discards the oxygen as a waste product. The plant uses the hydrogen to make sugar from carbon dioxide in the air. Both plants and people use oxygen in the air to burn sugar and make energy to live. The sole purpose of the leaves is to harvest light and make sugar. Take a moment to consider the structure of a leaf. It is wide and flat, which it can catch a lot of light but the large surface area means water loss is a problem. It has a waxy cuticle to reduce water loss. The leaves get water from the roots. Air enters the leaves through small holes in the leaves called stomates. When the stomates are open they let air in but they also lose water through evaporation. This is an important point to remember because if those stomates close to conserve water, photosynthesis and sugar production stops. It does not matter how much sunlight you have, if the plants are drought stressed growth stops! That's why they irrigate in a desert. Water is the single most limiting factor in plant growth.
Water is truly vital for growth. Plants grow in two ways, cell division and cell expansion. Cell division creates more cells and cell expansion is the increase in cell size. Cells grow by taking up water. Imagining plant cells as a wet cardboard box with a water balloon (the plant cell) inside makes a lot of sense. The cell takes up water and swells, pushing against the inside of the box causing it to swell. Young cells expand and produce new cell wall at the same time. Eventually, the cell wall becomes so thick that the cell can no longer expand and growth stops. If water is reduced during growth, final cell size is reduced. This means fewer, smaller leaves, smaller fruit, shorter, thinner stems and fewer roots. Drought stress results in a smaller, weaker plants.
Just as we can look at leaves as organs, which harvest light, roots are organs, which absorb water. This is their primary function. Most of the water is taken up at the root tips. There is a zone of active cell division at the root tip where new cells are formed. Directly behind the tip is a region known as the zone of elongation where the new cells grow by increasing in length. This elongation pushes the root into the soil. There are no barriers to water movement in these young tissues and water can move freely into and out of the root. Behind the zone of elongation is the zone of differentiation, where the cells develop into different cell types. In the center of the root is woody xylem tissue, which carries water from the roots to the stems. Around the xylem is a layer of cells called the endodermis. These cells have thick waxy barrier between them. This barrier is called the 'Casparian Strip' and prevents water loss. In order to enter the plant, water has to enter the plant cells of the Casparian Strip in order to get into the roots. This barrier is not only effective in keeping water in the root but also prevents its easy entry into the plant. You can test this if you have any potted plants. When potted plants wilt you can water them. You could also cut a stem off the plant and place the stem in a glass of water. The cut stem will return to normal much faster than the potted plant because it does not have to pull water through the roots. As the soil dries out, root growth slows. The zone of elongation becomes shorter and the casparian strip reaches almost to the root tip. This reduces both water loss and water uptake by the root.
Many plants have root hairs on their roots. These are tiny rootlets from the outermost cells of the roots, which penetrate the soil around the roots, increasing the root's surface area, which increases the absorption of water and nutrients. In most root systems, most of the roots are located in the uppermost soil layer. As the soil dries out during the growing season root growth moves deeper and deeper in the soil. This means that the plant is able to draw water from a larger volume of soil.
Water has to enter the plant cells to get into the roots, but plant cells do not actively take up water. The water moves into the cells because they are full of salts and sugars. Root cells receive sugars from the leaves and actively absorb salts from the soil. This concentration of salts and sugars causes water from the soil to move into the cell. This water is then pulled to the xylem by the active transport of salt ions into the xylem. The stem of the plant is simply a plumbing system. The inner layers are the wood or xylem, which carries water from the roots up to the leaves.
Water in the xylem is drawn up the through the stem by suction from the leaves because water is evaporating through the stomates into the air. If water flow into the roots cannot keep up with evaporation from the leaves then the stomates begin to close. This usually happens every day. The stomates open at dawn in response to light and photosynthesis begins in the leaves. By the late morning, the roots are struggling to keep up with the demand for water from the leaves and the stomates begin to close and photosynthesis declines. Later in the day, in the mid- to late afternoon when the roots have caught up, the stomates open and photosynthesis increases.
There are several bottlenecks that impede water flow from the soil to the roots. One, is the soil-root contact, which is not continuous and as the root dries out it shrinks away for the soil particles. Another is that water has to flow through the soil to the roots. Water can flow through wet soil fairly quickly, but the flow slows as the soil dries. Finally there is the barrier inside the root (the Casparian Strip). In essence, there is a continuous path of water through the soil and the plant then out the leaves into the air. Soil and plant scientists call this the Soil-Plant-Air-Continuum (SPAC). The movement of soil nutrients towards the roots is with the water that is being drawn to the roots by the plant's uptake of water. We call this movement of water and the nutrients dissolved in it mass flow. That's how water moves in the soil and into the roots.
The stem of the plant is simply a plumbing system. The inner layer the wood or xylem carries water from the roots up to the leaves. In the leaves most of the water is evaporated out to the air. This water is not really wasted because it cools the leaves as it evaporates. If you do not think the plant gets hot, go stand in the sun all day in a dark green suit and see how much you sweat. Both you and the plant are cooling yourselves by evaporation. When the plant's loss of water through evaporation exceeds the amount of water coming into the leaves from the roots, the leaves begin to wilt. To go back to my analogy of a plant cell as a wet cardboard box filled with a balloon when we let water out of the balloon the box will sag. This is what happens when plants wilt. The hydraulic pressure in the cells is no longer enough to hold the cells erect. The guard cells around the stomates in the leaves close the stomates when they wilt. When the guard cells are plump and full, they hold the stomates open.
A tiny amount of water is used in photosynthesis to make sugar. The rest is used to carry the sugar through the plant to where it is needed. Leaf cells load the sugar they have made into the phloem, which is made up of long cells laid end to end. The phloem is the other half of the plants plumbing system. Where the xylem carries water and nutrients, the phloem carries sugar. Unlike the xylem, which is an open system, the phloem is a closed system. When water flows into it after the sugar it creates pressure that moves the plant sap to the various organs that use it for growth. This could be to new leaves and shoots, to the fruit or the roots for new root growth and to provide energy for the root's metabolism. The cells that are using the sugar unload it from the phloem. If these cells are actively growing they will also absorb some of the water. The water that is not absorbed is evaporated or diffuses back into the xylem where it is drawn off to evaporate somewhere else.
Now, lets look at how the plant grows and uses water over the course of the year. In the early spring, as the ground begins to warm, the roots begin to grow. The roots use sugar, which was stored in the roots the previous year, for this growth. Many growers will put on fertilizer at this time so the roots can absorb it. But the roots take up very little, because plants with no leaves don't use water. As the buds begin to grow they use sugar that was stored in the buds. The new leaves do not have a waxy cuticle, so water is lost fairly rapidly. Now the plant begins to take up water from the soil. The roots and shoots are growing at the same time. There is plenty of water and sugar to go around. The roots grow where the conditions are best. Most root growth takes place in the moist warm surface soil early in the year. If the soil is saturated with water, as in flooded fields, the roots may drown. As the soil dries, the roots grow downward. If the soil remains wet, because of a wet spring, a high water table, or a low spot in the field, then the root system will remain shallow.
After bloom as the fruit begins to grow, the shoots, fruit and new leaves demand lots water and almost all the sugar that the leaves produce so that root growth slows. At this time the root system of the plant is about as big as it is going to get during the growing season. The early period of fruit growth is very important in determining final fruit size. For about a month after bloom the fruit grows by cell division. Later, the fruit grows by cell enlargement. So, two factors influence fruit size, cell number and cell size. Bigger fruits have more cells, so the final fruit size is determined in the month after bloom. Lack of water reduces the growth of new shoots and leaves. This means that there is less sugar to be used for fruit growth. Fruits compete with the shoots and leaves for both water and sugar and are often at the end of the line. If there is a heavy crop only those leaves nearest the fruit will supply the energy needed for growth. Among the fruit, fruit from the early blooms is the largest and gets first call on nutrients. For good sized fruit, we need to maintain a good flow of water from the roots to the leaves. Since the root system is no longer rapidly growing the soil needs to recharged with water by rain or irrigation to keep the root system moist.
As the soil dries, the volume of water moving to the stems decreases and it becomes harder to maintain growth. As growth slows, first fruit growth stops, then shoot growth stops. The energy from the leaves is not being used to maintain top growth but is transported to the roots to maintain root growth into moist soil as the roots grow. Roots cannot grow in dry soil. Plants in sandy soil or plants that have shallow root systems from flooding or soil restrictions are at a real disadvantage because they cannot maintain contact with the soil if it dries out rapidly.
As the drought stress increases, we begin to see visible signs, such as wilting during the day. Stem growth stops. This actually happens one to two weeks before we notice it, because new leaves continue to emerge after the shoot stops growing. There may be three or four leaf buds already formed in the shoot tip. The shoot tip stops forming new leaves, but those already formed continue to grow and emerge. Sometimes we notice that leaves in the middle of the shoot are smaller or have pointed tips. These are signs that water was limited when these leaves were expanding so they did not grow to their full potential. If drought stress continues, the older leaves will turn yellow and drop off. This reduces the leaf area, reducing water loss, but also decreasing the plant's ability to make sugar and stunts the plant.
As long as we maintain soil moisture throughout the growing season the roots will be able to maintain an adequate flow of water to the leaves to maintain growth. By the time of final fruit swell, most of the shoot and leaf growth for the season has stopped. Fruit growth takes all the plants energy. Sugar and water are used to produce large, juicy fruit. After harvest the plant begins to prepare for next years growth. Sugar is stored as starch in the bark of the shoots and in the roots. At this time, root growth begins again and the roots will be actively growing if the soil is moist. If the soil is dry and drought stress continues then food reserves for next seasons growth are reduced and the root system is small and weak. This can result in decreased growth next year because the root system is small and there is little energy available for growth. Fall is also the time when plants prepare for the coming winter and stress can reduce winter hardiness and also weaken growth in the spring making it more susceptible to spring frost.

hey doc, like i said earlier. what is the best additive safe for plants to disinfect water with? i went to the store and saw all kinds of chlorines for pools but was unsure if it was safe enough to use for plants. have any idea?

aeviaanah said:

hey doc, like i said earlier. what is the best additive safe for plants to disinfect water with? i went to the store and saw all kinds of chlorines for pools but was unsure if it was safe enough to use for plants. have any idea?

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I am only aware of a couple of safe means of chemical disinfection for water: Chlorine and Iodine. Too much of either of these will more than likely create problems for you. The good thing about Chlorine is that it evaporates from the water relatively quickly. Unfortunately it's depndant on how much water you're disinfecting and how much chlorine you use. I honestly don't think that chemical disinfection is the way to go. You could look into one of those handheld water purifiers for camping. They work good but they only filter a relatively small amount of water per day. I found this website which sells UV water disinfecting systems. They are a bit pricey but if you have a lot of plants this shouldn't be too big a problem.

http://www.expertwatersolutions.com/ultraviolet.html

What do you think about well water?? It has to be much better than city water. Mine is hard and has mg, ca, and fe in it. Just seeing what your thoughts are, on this issue.

Klaat said:

What do you think about well water?? It has to be much better than city water. Mine is hard and has mg, ca, and fe in it. Just seeing what your thoughts are, on this issue.

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it all depends on what your well water is like.... it could be too high in sulphur or iron.... or it could be some damn good water.... it all depends on your source for the well

gogrow said:

it all depends on what your well water is like.... it could be too high in sulphur or iron.... or it could be some damn good water.... it all depends on your source for the well

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Exactly!^^^^^^

doc111 said:

Exactly!^^^^^^

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Well hopefully it's the "damn good water!" I'll let yall know!

Klaat said:

Well hopefully it's the "damn good water!" I'll let yall know!

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I'm interested to know how it turns out.

Hydrogen monoxide

Tyrannabudz said:

Hydrogen monoxide

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Do you mean "Dihydrogen Monoxide"? Yeah, that's the same thing as water.

Next!!!

the Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions that are in normal water before it is soffened are replaced by
the Na+ ions (which do not form scale) ...by using a water softener.

is this a good thing or no?

TheOldRat said:

the Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions that are in normal water before it is soffened are replaced by
the Na+ ions (which do not form scale) ...by using a water softener.

is this a good thing or no?

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Softened water isn't good to use for growing.

A hydrogen bond is the attractive force between the hydrogen attached to an electronegative atom of one molecule and an electronegative atom of a different molecule. Why is this important you ask? To really understand why water is so important and what gives it its special properties one must look at water on the molecular level. Hydrogen bonding is so important that life as we know it simply would not exist without this seemlingly insignifcant little attractive force. I found this article which I think really explains hydrogen bonding far better than I ever could. It's a long read but if you want to better understand the "Most essential compound" this is a great article. It was too long to copy and paste but I provided the link. Enjoy:

http://www.chem1.com/acad/webtext/states/water.html

This website also provides links to some good reads about water (I recommend you smoke a fatty before tackling some of them).

Doc...great thread. Currently on my first grow. Organic soil. I'm bubbling tap water for now...and using pH down to bring into the 6.2-6.5 range. I'm probably going to get an RO filter...but it's months away.

In all my research on organic grows, I keep finding that maintaining your micro-herd in the soil alive and thriving is one of the most important things. While bubbling gets rid of Chlorine...Chloramine not so much. I'm using FF Ocean Forest. I'm just concerned that the Chloramine is going to kill any beneficial little guys in my soil.

A couple of things:

1) Do you think I'm okay until I can get an RO filter?
and
2) Can you help me read this thing? http://www.denverwater.org/WaterQuality/QualityReports/
I'm looking at the 2009. I don't know what is acceptable on there for plant consumption...and what is not. It's a one page brochure type of thing.

Thanks for your help.

BudsworthII said:

Doc...great thread. Currently on my first grow. Organic soil. I'm bubbling tap water for now...and using pH down to bring into the 6.2-6.5 range. I'm probably going to get an RO filter...but it's months away.

In all my research on organic grows, I keep finding that maintaining your micro-herd in the soil alive and thriving is one of the most important things. While bubbling gets rid of Chlorine...Chloramine not so much. I'm using FF Ocean Forest. I'm just concerned that the Chloramine is going to kill any beneficial little guys in my soil.

A couple of things:

1) Do you think I'm okay until I can get an RO filter?
and
2) Can you help me read this thing? http://www.denverwater.org/WaterQuality/QualityReports/
I'm looking at the 2009. I don't know what is acceptable on there for plant consumption...and what is not. It's a one page brochure type of thing.

Thanks for your help.

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Your water looks pretty good as far as I can tell. Chloramine is pretty conroversial. I've seen articles saying that it is bad for growing and others that say there is no evidence it hurts anything. I'm not a scientist so I've done no experiments of my own in this area (my tapwater is disinfected with chlorine anyway). Grocery stores have water machines which are r/o filtered. If you bring your own jug they are usually about $.25 per gallon. I think you will be ok until you get an r/o filter of your own if you decide not to go that route. You can get r/o filters for cheap on e-bay too. Best of luck and thanks for the compliment.

P.S. You can try using molasses which is supposed to help keep your beneficials happy.