Has anyone experienced any differences watering your garden herbs, fruits
and vegetables with non-chlorinated water? Is chlorine an inhibitor? I can
generate 50 galllons a day of chlorine free water for a small amount of
money. Is it worth even that?

Paul

On May 28, 1:01*am, "Paul M. Cook" wrote:
Has anyone experienced any differences watering your garden herbs, fruits
and vegetables with non-chlorinated water? *Is chlorine an inhibitor? *I can
generate 50 galllons a day of chlorine free water for a small amount of
money. *Is it worth even that?

Paul

Have a look:

Johnson et al. 1957. Comparative chlorine requirements of different
plant species. Plant and Soil 8:337-353.

ABSTRACT:

Recognition of chlorine as a plant micronutrient has been extended to
include ten species. Acute chlorine deficiencies or decreased yields
were produced with lettuce, tomato, cabbage, carrot, sugar beet,
barley, alfalfa, buckwheat, corn, and beans. Squash plants showed
neither loss in yield nor other deficiency symptoms when cultured at
the same time and under the same conditions as the aforementioned
species. All plants acquired more chlorine during their growth than
can be accounted for from seeds, inorganic salts, or water used in the
experiments. Plant species least susceptible to injury when cultured
upon low chlorine salt solutions were also the ones most capable of
acquiring extrinsic chlorine. Of the species studied, lettuce was the
most sensitive to ldquominus chlorinerdquo culture solutions and
squash, the least sensitive. However, the concentration of chlorine in
all of the species cultured under limited chlorine supply was not
greatly different. It is inferred that plants such as corn, beans, and
squash survived the ldquominus chlorinerdquo cultures by reason of
greater accretion of extrinsic chlorine from the atmosphere. The form
of the atmospherically borne chlorine is not known.
***END ABSTRACT***

Not sure why you would want to limit chlorine. I'd be a lot more
worried about lead and cadmium.

Chris

PS:

Paper (or at least the Abstract) is available at:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t562q4t82q523035/

Whole paper is probably paywalled since Springer is a greedy bastich
of a company.

PPS:

As to chloramine, I found one Abstract (totally paywalled and
available only through my faculty access at my college library) that
said even a one-hour exposure to chloramine (in the form of
hypochlorous acid) significantly reduced lettuce yields. Now, I don't
know if NY City adds chloramine to my water, but I water my lettuce
with tap water and am satisfied. If you know your area adds chloramine
to your water, you may want to treat it, as described by another
poster.