Quote:
Originally Posted by GregoryJ
I'm wondering if the local city tap water has too many... chemicals! and this alters the pH or damages the roots? After a couple days, pH stabilizes and root growth is good... maybe after the chlorine in the water evaporates?
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The "ch" word, huh? Your
nutrients are in fact made of chemicals aren't they? Anyway, chlorine is one of the beneficial (not essential) elements that plants use in small amounts but in bigger than micro nutrients, a bit like Na and Si, etc. Top soils contain an average of 10 ppm of chlorine, up to 80 ppm is borderline and at 100 ppm toxicity starts. I even used to add up to 25-30 ppm of chlorine to my nutrients as Cl misses in my tap water. All is about the dose, as with so many things and all that is related to the "ch" word
There is a bit of a controversy about letting sit tap water overnight to let chlorine evaporate. Most say that in fact some will evaporate, but actually only little.
It doesn't affect your PH, - but if chlorine is introduced through calcium chloride to your tap water, the extra calcium will affect PH and buffer a high PH longer. What the actual problem her is, is always the water
hardness. Fluoride would only be present in very small amounts and wouldn't affect plant growth. But here also it gets introduced through calcium fluoride and more calcium.
Than again so called airborne fluorides (from atmospheric pollution) are a serious matter. I guess that's a bit like with sulfur, as S is one of the essential elements in plant nutrition, although it was always considered a dangerous pollutant in the atmosphere.
It's strange though, that your roots alternatively turn brown, growth stagnates - but take off again with white growth of roots a couple of days later. Never seen it and never heard of it in that context of yours.