Well then in seattle you wouldn't need RO water either?

I have just never heard of anyone needing to use that stuff to grow plants
before.

Maybe we are just lucky..........;-)


"Jerry Hoffmeister" wrote in message
newsgSIa.92366$YZ2.263864@rwcrnsc53...
here in seattle it's in the 30s

"Bolero" wrote in message
u...
Wow I just use water out of the tap here. Our total dissolved salts and
minerals is around 60 to 80ppm.



"James Aldridge" wrote in message
...
Just as a general water note, I spent five years trying to maintain a
medium-sized orchid greenhouse in north Texas using well water with an
EC of about 1800 uS/cm (roughly 1300 ppm TDS). It didn't work very
well for most plants. Small RO systems, even those billed at 75 GPD,
didn't provide enough water. I finally spent nearly 2K for a 350 GPD
pumped RO system from SpectraPure (www.spectrapure.com) and my plants
couldn't be happier.

I soften the well water with a KCl ion exchange softener (though I
think NaCl would be ok too), and then send it to the RO system. I end
up with water having an EC of 35 uS/cm (about 25 ppm TDS).

I recently started using the Michigan State RO Water Special
fertilizer (www.blackmoreco.com) featured in the June issue of Orchids
magazine. I'm now using a dose that delivers about 125 ppm N, but I am
thinking about halving this dose. Any thoughts?

Jim
James Aldridge, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
- www.JamesAldridge.us
- www.FWCDS.org