Help with battling Chlorine

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terrabamboo
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Help with battling Chlorine

Post by terrabamboo »

Problem: Chlorine kills good bacteria/microbes for plant/root uptake.

I am trying to brainstorm ways to combat large amounts of chlorine. We're talking 50,000 gallons a month scale. I really want some sort of organic matter that will "overtake" anything chlorine kills. I think the filter route is going to be too costly. Another option is misting. I read that chlorine is highly evaporative. If I mist instead of drip, would that second in the air before it fell to the ground help at all?
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by bambooweb »

Would aeration tanks like they use for removing iron evaporate enough chlorine?
Also could you overload the chlorine by fertigation with compost tea.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by johnw »

I thought chlorine dissapated in 24hour once exposed to air?
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by foxd »

I usually let water set for several days before using it to water plants if I don't have enough humidifier water available. I have read that you can use vitamin c to remove chlorine. Depending on the brand, one tablet can treat 100 gallons.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by canadianplant »

Let it sit open for a few days. The larger the amount the longer. You could cheat and go to the pet store and buy dechlorinator. The Hagen brand called "aquaclear" is the best, as it doesnt have many additives if any at all. The best idea is to let it dissipate naturally.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by terrabamboo »

Thanks all to the comments.

I looked into a dechlorinator, but with 50,000 gallons a month it really is not too practical.

Vitamin C tablets, if effective, would be interesting. I could probably get a large (50lb) sack to incrementally add into my inline tank.

I will look into compost tea. Haven't done any research in this area yet.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by stevelau1911 »

http://between-undefined.blogspot.com/2 ... ary-2.html

This guy seems to keep soil moist around young bamboos just with black plastic to hold water in. Seeing how he has like an acre of moso, he's obviously growing to either sell, get a mutation, or just for the fun of it.


I really don't think chlorine is that big of an issue. I haven't done this because of chlorine, but one reason why I've kept 55 gallon barrels around the bicolor is because I like to let the rain fill them up, and it's convenient to water as it only takes a few seconds to take a 5 gallon bucket and pour a few buckets on there. I have lots of barrels so all I really need to do is get them filled up partially and I'll have a source of watering for that particular plant for a long time. I wonder if that's why there are so many worms in that particular grove. That's the only one I still water.

Now if you have thousands of plants, it may be less feasible to get that many water barrels, but you could still get it for the ones you want to establish quickly.

Once the bamboos take hold, and grow for 2 seasons, I doubt there is any need to water them with tap water anymore. You can simply add some gypsum to increase the depth that roots grow, as well as mulch on top to prevent the roots from drying out that quickly.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by Tarzanus »

I tried that kind of black cover, that would replace layer of mulch, keeping plants safe from weeds and soil always moist enough. I tried it with strawberries, main goal was to keep the fruits clean, because after every rain, I had to almost dig them out, berries got thick layer of soil on them. It didn't work too well for me. Plastic cover can heat up during summer and plants with shallow roots and/or rhizomes can suffer quite a lot. Water retention was better, but on the other hand watering was less efficient as well - rain torrented away from the garden bed. Weeds were not a problem, but it attracted something worse - mice, voles and slugs. Wet environment is something slugs love, during the day, they managed to hide from the heat, when it cooled off, they began to emerge from everywhere. Mice and voles were able to hide below plastic cover without even digging tunnels, they were safe from predators, comfortably warm, and had a lot to nibble with all the spare time, since digging tunnels wasn't an issue. :mrgreen:

I think under the line, cover wasn't good choice. Mulch would have all the benefits, would attract critters, but would also add some nutrients into the soil, while keeping root temperature lower than plastic.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by canadianplant »

Get the stuff for ponds. A cap is used for a hundred. Or 1000 gallons
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by terrabamboo »

i hear the resounding "after two years, water will be meaningless".

but I am treating bamboo like turf management. and in turf management, the only turfs that look good "all year around" are the ones that get normal rains AND then irrigation/fertilizer. afterall, bamboo is a big grass. why not manage it the same way a golf course does? or am I missing something? my goal is to water every month (once a month, give a plant a large, large soaking with miracle grow; then let it fight for a month on its own) -- until the rhizomes ultimately bust up my 2" irrigation. I imagine it will happen soon enough (maybe not; pvc is pretty tough psi) -- but until then, I plan on giving it a large dose of water and miracle grow every month.

the end goal is to get my acres producing like a mature grove as fast as possible -- if running 35,000 feet of irrigation gets me even a year ahead of schedule then I have gained an entire year of revenue. i'm hoping it gains me more. only time will tell, as no documentation really is available on the web!!

i am going to throw several worms per mother plant over the next few weeks as well as large amounts of sawdust and compost/manure to combat the chlorine.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by stevelau1911 »

You could try unsulphurated molasses on some of them. I did use it on my bicolor about 1-2 months before I got the 3-4X upsize an the 1 2/3 inch shoot. I don't know if that's due to the greenhouse which holds the temperatures way warmer, or the weak 2011 shooting, but I will start a fertilization and soil conditioning cycle right when I know soil temperatures are high enough to get plants out of dormancy. A sugar supposively feeds micro-organisms such as the myccorhizae that bonds to roots to help plants get more nutrients, and sugars can also be directly absorbed by the plants according to what I've looked into.

I use it mostly in the vegetable gardens more, and I do find that it seems to make especially the greens a bit thicker, but have no idea if it does any good for bamboos. Just found a video that talks about it.

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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by terrabamboo »

we have an awful ant problem in the south. sugar sounds like making it worse? or should I put ant killer in with sugar?


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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by Alan_L »

stevelau1911 wrote:...my bicolor about 1-2 months before I got the 3-4X upsize an the 1 2/3 inch shoot. I don't know if that's due to the greenhouse which holds the temperatures way warmer, or the weak 2011 shooting...
Or maybe it was just time for the plant to upsize, and what you did had little effect.
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Re: Help with battling Chlorine

Post by stevelau1911 »

I think the greenhouse has to at least prevent some winter damage. I know that moso seedlings will typically get top killed or at least badly leaf burned on a typical winter here with no protection so I doubt moso bicolor is much hardier. I've never seen damage on it, but it's also never seen anything below 14F with no wind +99% humidity either in the cool house. I think it's hardiness is at best on par with p nigra.

One observation I did make this spring was that the bamboo yellowed and lost all of its old leaves gradually throughout the shooting season, and the giant shoot seemed to have trouble completing it's growth so it does look like it used up everything it had. There was no leaf drop in the shooting season of 2012 which yielded only 1 little shoot when the bamboo was under a tarp instead.


We should see in a few years whether this super upsize was just bound to happen or if the pampering had something to do with it when some other people get some shoots on bicolor.
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