As James mentions, prioritizing water quality for different needs is key. Use the lowest EC water for propagation – most plants and highest value per liter, most sensitive, and that is where RO or similar
is the quickest payback.
Paul Fisher, Ph.D.
Professor and Extension Specialist
2549 Fifield Hall, 2550 Hull Road,
PO Box 110670, Gainesville, FL 326211-0670
From: Water Management and Quality for Ornamental Crop Production and Health <[log in to unmask]>
On Behalf Of Altland, James - REE-ARS
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Subject: Re: [External Email]Re: Salt Water Intrusion Question
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Jeb,
I worked with a nursery in Oregon that had multiple farms, one of which had high salt levels (Na) in their groundwater. Some species were tolerant or indifferent to high salt, while some were very sensitive.
So they grew plants in the different farms according to their sensitivities. You could employ a similar strategy even within a single farm. Taking what Raul mentioned with dilution, you could dilute the water more or less in different parts of the nursery
depending on crop sensitivity. But how do you know which crops are sensitive? That’s hard to know. This nursery learned by experience. Genhua, Raul, and Youping have been studying relative sensitivity of many crops to high EC levels. Their research would
be a very useful start for making a list of sensitive (or tolerant) crops.
James
James Altland, Research Leader
Application Technology Research Unit
220 FABE Building
OARDC
1680 Madison Ave.
Wooster, OH 44691
330-317-9142
From: Water Management and Quality for Ornamental Crop Production and Health <[log in to unmask]>
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Hi Jeb,
On just broad terms, with sea/saltwater intrusion growers will deal with EC increases dominated by NaCl (making over 90% of the total dissolved ions), which will also lead to specific toxicity issues with
these two ions (most woody plants respond negatively to >2 mM Cl and >3 mM Na, or >70 ppm for both). This being said, dilution is the simplest/cheapest way to deal with the brackish water you end up with saltwater intrusion (“dilution is the solution for seawater
pollution”).
A couple of decades ago some nurseries in Texas dealing with naturally brackish (up to 10,000 ppm soluble salts or EC 12 dS/m) groundwater supplies were doing reverse osmosis on some volumes of water, which
then they blended back with the brackish water to dilute the salt content, minimized foliage wetting and use very high leaching fractions to deal with these issues. I believe David W. Reed describes some of these in Chapter 3 of his (edited) 1996 Manual on
Water Media and Nutrition (Ball Publishing). I believe the Texas Water Board allows to dispose of the large volumes/fractions of brine water produced by the RO systems (25-80% waste brine water) by injecting into very deep saline aquifers. You will have to
check with the Louisiana Water boards to see the regulations on RO brine water.
Feel free to call/text/email me if I can be of assistance.
Best regards,
Raul
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Raul I. Cabrera, Extension Specialist
in Nursery Crops Management
Dept. of Plant Biology, Rutgers University
Rutgers Agric. Research & Extension Center
121 Northville Road, Bridgeton, NJ 08302
856-391-7632 [log in to unmask]
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