Welcome to Gardening tips
Article
Using Hydrogen Peroxide in your Hydroponics Gardening System
Jason Willkomm
Ask any hydroponics gardener who has lost a crop to bacterial wilt, pythium, or fusarium and you will hear a sad story of complete destruction and great loss. The pain and sadness of these individuals should be enough to convince any serious gardener to take up preventative measures. Here is one of the best.
There are no doubts about the benefits of using hydrogen peroxide properly in a hydroponics system. This becomes especially true if your nutrient reservoir is kept above 72 degrees. Warm water holds less dissolved oxygen, and therefore encourages the growth of more viruses, fungi, and anaerobic bacteria. Hydrogen peroxide adds oxygen to you water and cleans the water of pathanogens. Benefits include healthier root systems, increased nutrient uptake, thicker stems, and bigger leaves.
One expert claims it should be used on all soil gardens as well as in hydroponics sytems. Knowing as much as I do about beneficial fungus and micro-organisms and the benefits they provide to living plants, I am shy in taking this advice. However, when this first line of defense fails and plants become sick I often resort to using hydrogen peroxide treatments on my soil grown plants.
The chemical formula of hydrogen peroxide is H2O2. You may notice it is simply water with an extra oxygen atom. In fact, as hydrogen peroxide breaks down in a solution the result is oxygen and water. Its application helps deliver oxygen to over watered plant roots and helps to sterilize the growing media by killing harmful anaerobic (not oxygen compatible) bacteria and pathanogens that cause disease. This includes bacterial wilt, pythium fungi, fusarium fungi, and others.
I avoid using the common 3% hydrogen peroxide you normally find at drug stores. This is because such low percentage solutions are unstable, and chemicals are added to the peroxide to keep it from breaking down before it can be used. I did a little research because I did not know what chemicals were used for this, or if the plants uptake these chemicals, or if there was a health risk associated with any of these stabilizing chemicals.
Hydrogen peroxide is usually stabilized with acetanilide. Acetanilide is a synthetic compound that was first used for its fever reduction and pain killing properties in the late Nineteenth Century. For many years it was utilized as an alternative to aspirin to treat various ailments, but large-scale medical use stopped when the toxic side effects of consuming acetanilide became apparent. This was enough to make up my mind to use 35% hydrogen peroxide instead.
Firstly, 35% peroxide is caustic and should be treated with the same caution as a strong acid. 35% strength hydrogen peroxide should be readily available at any quality hydroponics supply shop. The stronger concentrations do not use the added stabilizers.
The recommended dosage is to add 2-3 ml to each gallon of water, however, I use 5 ml per gallon and have never had any problems. At every nutrient change treat your fresh water with hydrogen peroxide. The general idea is to let the hydroponics sytem circulate the hydrogen peroxide solution for about a half hour to let the peroxide work against pathogens and to let the solution stabilize before adding your nutrients.
The beneficial effects of using hydrogen peroxide last about 4 days. There are some gardeners who add a little peroxide to their nutrient reservoirs every 5 days in between nutrient changes. If you decide to do this
, stick to the guidelines and always make sure your solution is thoroughly mixed before exposing your plants roots to it. Another option is to top off your nutrient reservoir with peroxide treated water whenever it is low.
The original article with pictures and additional info can be found at http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/using-hydrogen-peroxide.html
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, my name is Jason, from Jason's Indoor Guide. I have ten years experience growing indoors, under lights. No less than two of those years I was using hydroponics methods. It is my goal to improve the results of every organic and hydroponics gardener through accurate, easy to understand information. Visit me at http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/
Gardening Accessory Best products
Gardening Accessory News
gardening accessory
It won't require sunshine to have bright spring colors next weekend at the Orchid Society of Western Pennsylvania's annual orchid show at Phipps Garden Center in Shadyside. The theme of this year's show is the mystique of orchids -- their beauty ...
Read moreGarden show casts a light on orchid's mystique - PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
PLYMOUTH – The Rotary Club of Plymouth will be on TV and online March 12-14 with its 15th annual auction. Viewers can bid on hundreds of items donated by local businesses. The Rotary Club returns all proceeds as contributions to community groups ...
Read moreBriefly: March 12 - Abington Mariner
Good Shepherd United Methodist Church will hold a Strawberry Festival and Arts/Craft Show for the entire community on Saturday, March 13, 2010 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Fresh strawberries and homemade shortcake will be available for sale, as well as ...
Read moreFeatured Events: Things 2 Do - WZVN-TV
LOS ANGELES -- If you plan well and have a little luck, you can see the world in Los Angeles. If not, all you'll see is a world of traffic. More likely, you'll experience some of both. Tourists might think "Hollywood" when they begin to plan a ...
Read moreJammin' in LA: A little planning can route you around ... - Duluth News Tribune
Stuff. Lots of stuff to get rid of. Sure, you can take the usual routes — hold a garage sale, cart it off to Goodwill, take out a classified ad. Or you can entertain yourself in the process of purging. We've cooked up a few fun ideas for lightening ...
Read moreDump your stuff - Akron Beacon Journal
March 12 (Reuters) - Commerce Department seasonally adjusted data on U.S. retail sales. Percent Changes: Feb Jan Rev From Dec Nov Feb10/09 Retail Sales 0.3 0.1 0.5 -0.2 2.0 3.9 Excluding Autos 0.8 0.5 0.6 -0.1 2.0 4.2 Motor vehicles/parts -2.0 -1.5 0 ...
Read moreTABLE-U.S. Feb retail sales rose 0.3 pct - Reuters
In honor of Women's History Month, the International Women's Air & Space Museum at Burke Lakefront Airport on Cleveland's downtown lakefront hosts a special Family Day 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The museum is a part of Burke Lakefront Airport, set ...
Read moreCelebrate women's history at Air & Space Museum - Morning Journal
-- Comparable store sales increase 8.4% -- Reports EPS of $1.71 versus $0.47 a year ago -- Adjusted EPS increases to $1.42 versus $0.30 a year ago -- Ends the year with no debt -- Issues performance goals for fiscal 2010 Kirkland's, Inc. (NASDAQ ...
Read moreKirkland's Reports Fourth Quarter and Annual Results - StreetInsider.com
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt hardly did any homework as a Harvard undergraduate. While enrolled in classes like General Paleontology and English Letter Writers, he concentrated on editing the school newspaper, dating debutantes and ...
Read moreThere’s a New Deal at Roosevelt’s Dorm - New York Times
BCBGeneration — the lower-priced, more youthful version of designer Max Azria's BCBG label — opened its first retail store in New Jersey on Thursday afternoon at Garden State Plaza in Paramus as part of a multi-state rollout of the concept. The ...
Read more