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Hydrogen Peroxide and Horticulture
By Bryce Fredrickson
Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) is a clear sharp smelling substance very similar in appearance to water (H2O). Like water it is made up of Hydrogen and Oxygen, however H2O2 has an extra Oxygen atom in an unstable arrangement. It is this extra atom that gives H2O2 its useful properties. H2O2 has been used for many purposes including cleaning, bleaching, sterilizing, rocket fuel, animal feed treatment and in addition many miraculous claims about its health benefits have been made. This article isn't about any of these; instead it will concentrate on horticultural applications. H2O2 is of great use for both hydroponics and dirt/soilless gardening.

1. What Does Hydrogen Peroxide do?
H2O2 is an unstable molecule, when it breaks down a single oxygen atom and a molecule of water is released. This oxygen atom is extremely reactive and will attach itself to either another O- atom forming a stable Oxygen molecule or attack a nearby organic molecule. Both the stable and O- forms will increase the level of dissolved oxygen. This is the method by which H2O2 is beneficial. Pretreating the water supply with H2O2 will drive out the Chlorine many cities use to sterilize it. This will also degrade any pesticides or herbicides that might be present as well as any other organic matter. Well water can be high in methane and organic sulfates, both of which H2O2 will remove. Many disease causing organisms and spores are killed by Oxygen, the free Oxygen H2O2 releases is extremely effective at this. H2O2 will help eliminate existing infections and will help prevent future ones. It is also useful for suppressing algae growth. The free Oxygen atom will destroy dead organic material (i.e, leaves roots) in the system preventing them from rotting and spreading diseases.

2.Over Watering
Roots require Oxygen to breathe and low levels are the main cause of almost all root diseases. Both soil and hydroponic plants often fall prey to the same syndrome although it is rarely recognized as what it really is. Hydroponic crops often fail due to "root rot" and soil crops succumb to "over watering." The real cause of both these problems is a shortage of Oxygen at the root zone. In a soil system the soil consists of particles, a film of water on the particles and air spaces between the particles. When too much water is put into the soil the air spaces fill with liquid. The roots will quickly use up what Oxygen is dissolved in the water, if they haven't drunk enough of the liquid to allow air back in to the soil spaces they will stop working. In this situation roots will start dying within twenty-four hours. As the roots die the plants ability to drink water and nutrients will decrease, this will cause symptoms of nutrient deficiencies (mostly pale, slow, weak growth), and strangely they will start to wilt like they don't have enough water. It is easy to make a fatal mistake at this point and add more water.

In a Hydroponic system the cause is a more direct simple lack of oxygen in the solution, this may be from inadequate circulation and/or aeration. High reservoir temperatures also interfere with Oxygen's ability to dissolve in the water. Temperatures above 70F (20C) will eventually cause problems, 62F-65F (16C-18C) is recommended. The same symptoms will appear as with soil plants but you can also check the roots. Healthy roots should be mostly white with maybe a slight yellowish tan tinge. If they are a brownish colour with dead tips or they easily pull away there is at least the beginnings of a serious problem. An organic dirtlike rotting smell means there is already a very good chance it is too late. As roots die and rot they eat Oxygen out of the water, as Oxygen levels are even further depleted more roots die, a viscius circle may be well under way. Reduced Oxygen levels and high temperatures both encourage anaerobic bacteria and fungi. The plants may still be saved but you will have to work fast.

3. How Hydrogen Peroxide prevents root rot/overwatering.
When plants are watered with H2O2 it will break down and release Oxygen into the area around the roots. This helps stop the Oxygen from being depleted in the water filled air spaces until air can get back into them. High Oxygen levels at the roots will encourage rapid healthy root growth. In a Hydroponic system H2O2 will disperse through out the system and raise Oxygen levels as it breaks down. Strong white healthy roots with lots of fuzzy new growth will be visible. This fuzzy growth has massive surface area allowing for rapid absorption of the huge amounts of water and nutrients needed for rapid top growth. A healthy plant starts with a healthy root system.

4. How to use it.
H2O2 comes in several different strengths 3%, 5%, 8% and 35%, also sold as food grade Hydrogen Peroxide. The most economical is 35% which we recommend be diluted to three percent before using, as at this high concentration it can cause damage to skin and clothing. When working with food grade H2O2 it is very important that you clean up any spills or splashes immediately, it will damage almost anything very quickly. This is extra important with skin and clothing. Skin will be temporarily bleached pure white if not washed cleaned. Gloves are strongly recommended when working with any strong chemical.

Food grade H2O2 can be diluted to three percent by mixing it one part to eleven parts water (preferably distilled). The storage container should be opaque to prevent light from getting in and it must be able to hold some pressure. If three-liter pop bottles are available in your area they are ideal for mixing and storing H2O2. There are twelve quarter liters (250ml) in three liters, if you put in one quarter liter H2O2 and eleven quarter liters (250ml) water in the bottle it will full of three percent H2O2 and the bottle can hold the pressure that the H2O2 will generate. Three percent Hydrogen Peroxide may be added at up to three ml's per liter (2 1\2 tsp. Per gallon), but it is recommended that you start at a lower concentration and increase to full strength over a few weeks. Use every watering even on fresh cuttings. For hydroponics use every reservoir change and replace twenty-five percent (one quarter) every day. Example: In a 100L reservoir you would add three hundred ml's (3%) H2O2 when changing the nutrient. You would then add seventy-five ml's more every day.

5. Where to get it.
35% food grade: called food grade because it has no toxic impurities
Of course your local hydroponics retailer, whom you can locate over the web at www.hydromall.com. Direct order off the web (there may be shipping restrictions on high strength peroxides). H2O2 is used to bleach hair so the local hairdresser may have a source. The local feed supplier may have it in small towns. Prices range from fifteen dollars per quarter liter to eighty dollars a gallon. One gallon will treat up to fifty thousand liters of water.

3%5%, 8%
Can be found at most drugstores or pharmacies, prices start at a less than a dollar for a one hundred-ml bottle that will treat one hundred liters.

6. What to do if you already have root rot.

In Dirt:
Use peroxided water with anti-fungicide (benomyl) and a high Phosphate fertilizer (9-45-15, 10-52-10, 0-60-0) for root growth. Root booster (5-15-5) or any other product with rooting hormone dissolved in it is helpful in regrowing roots and is strongly recommended. If a plant is wilty adding Nutri-Boost may save it. Water heavily until liquid pours out the bottom of the pot. This sound like bad idea, but it flushes out stagnant dead water and replaces it with fresh highly oxygenated water. Don't let plants sit in trays full of water, the soil will absorb this water and stay too wet. Don't water again until the pot feels light and the top inch or two of the soil are dry.

In Hydro:
Change your nutrients. Add H2O2 to the system. This will add oxygen and chemically eat dead roots. If roots are badly rotted and can be pulled away by hand you should pull them off. They are already dead and will only rot, causing further problems. Add a fungicide to kill any fungus that is probably present in the rotted tissue to prevent it from spreading. Root booster will speed recovery. If plants are wilty Nutri-Boost may help save them. Increase aeration of the water, get an airpump and air stones, or more of them, for the reservoir. An air stone under every plant is usually very effective, but will require a larger air pump. Models that will do from forty to four hundred stones are available. Decrease the reservoir temperature, oxygen dissolves better in cold water and disease causing organisms reproduce slower as well. A good temperate range is 62F to 65F; anything above 70F will eventually cause a problem. It is also a good idea to remove any wilty plants from the system and put them on a separate reservoir so they don't infect plants that are still healthy.

Summary
The key to big productive plants is a big healthy root system and Hydrogen Peroxide is a great way to keep your roots healthy. It is a must to ensure the biggest best crops possible and to increase the chances of your plants thriving to harvest. Peroxide users will rarely lose plants or crops to root disease and will harvest larger and more consistent crops.

http://www.quickgrow.com/gardening_articles/hydrogen_peroxide_horticulture.html

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H2O2: PEROXIDE PLANT PERFECTION
or Just Another “Blonde Moment”?

by IAN MALLEY

WHEN YOU FIRST GET EMBROILED in the world of growing your own produce it can seem a bit of a minefield when it comes time to hitting the indoor gardening shop in search of your grow-room essentials.

With so many different lotions, potions, additives, supplements, etc., as well as pH up, pH down, buffering solutions, etc., to be stocked up on by the first-time grower, it becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees. Expensive too, at least initially.

So how can you be sure that the grow shop is not spinning you a line with regard to what’s “necessary” and what is a “beneficial” or growers choice, (like Liquid Silicon)?

I come from the old “organic” less-is-more school of thought. Essentially, if it doesn’t smell like it’s just been shovelled off the farmyard floor, then I don’t want to know about it, preferring the sweet taste of truly organic grown produce.

But the truth of the matter is, this short-sighted approach to growing means I miss out on a lot of things that other growers take for granted. Like massive hydro yields for instance!

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that given a pack of seeds and a 14-week diary to keep, the hydro-grown plants will grow bigger, faster, and stronger than similar plants grown under organic conditions, and here’s the reasoning as I see it.

Organic nutrients tend to comprise “raw materials,” that is, a set of components that, as they stand in the bottle, are almost useless to the roots. This is why organic fertilizers seldom work very well when fed to hydroponically grown plants unless accompanied by a heady mix of bacteria, as seen in the new breed of “bio” hydro nutrients, such as BioSevia.

But for the privilege of using a bio-product we have to spend even more of our hard-earned on buying the bacterial solutions we need to add to get the fertilizer to work as it’s meant to. Not exactly cost effective for the grower on a tight budget.

In hydro there are no bacteria at the root zone. Not good bacteria, anyway. We feed bare roots with a cocktail of salt-based fertilizers that are, once mixed with water, absolutely ready for the grower to serve, and for the plants to use, as is. Fast, as well as efficient and straight to the point (or is that straight to the roots?).

But with organic gardening, things happen a little differently.

First of all, we actually encourage microbial activity at the root zone, because this is the organism that actually processes the raw materials we provide and, in doing so, feeds the plants. Of course (as mentioned earlier), there are good bacteria as well as bad bacteria, and this is where the boundaries become a little blurred.

H2O2

So, I’m standing in the hydroponics shop looking at the obligatory solutions required for a successful grow, and the owner points out the H2O2. So I pick up the bottle and start to read the label: “Contains Hydrogen Peroxide at 17.5%”!

It’s worth mentioning at this stage that science lessons were never really my strong point in that dim and distant memory which is my school days. I hardly attended any of them, for one thing. Happiest days of your life?

The facts of the matter as I see them are as follows: why on earth would I spend good money on nurturing a healthy and active micro-herd in the root zone and then set about pouring hydrogen peroxide over them? It’s corrosive, and it makes your hair go white!

So I set about finding out the reason, and what I found was like an epiphany of enlightenment. It also made me wish I had paid more attention during my previously mentioned science lessons, because I would have been using this stuff a long time ago.

How It Works

So, we pour hydrogen peroxide into our water, which gives a slight reading of EC or electrical current/conductivity, so that needs taking into account.

The H2O2 is very unstable in its current form and quickly breaks down once in the nutrient solution. Essentially, within a short space of time it’s present only in its component form, and in reaching this form it releases a single oxygen atom. This oxygen atom is ultra-reactive as well as aggressive. It’s looking for a fight, but instead of looking to cause problems, it’s actually on your team.

So the unstable single oxygen atom sets off, looking for mischief to make. If it comes across another oxygen atom, it attaches itself to the other atom, forming a larger, more stable oxygen molecule, or ion. This gets taken in by the plant through the roots and benefits growth above as well as within the root zone.

If, however, the rambunctious oxygen atom comes across an organic molecule, such as a virus or fungal spore, as it waxes and wanes through your nutrient solution, it will attach itself to the pathogen and quite literally oxidize itself, as well as whatever organism it had attached itself to.

And this stuff actually works!

So, what this means is not only does H2O2 supply the nutrients (and indirectly, the plants) with a massive boost of pure oxygen ions, it will play a huge part in keeping your reservoir fresh, highly oxygenated, and free from organisms such as Pythium, Fusarium, and mould, as well as a plethora of other nasties we encounter daily as hydroponic growers.

Not only that, but when the crop comes down there is no better cleaning agent to use (albeit in higher concentrations) than hydrogen peroxide. Not only will it clean as effectively as bleach but, as explained earlier, it attaches itself to other organic micro bad guys, and oxidizes them into nothingness. They simply cease to exist, leaving your grow room clean, sterile, and ready for the next crop.

Safety First

With this in mind it’s worth mentioning that your hands are also “organic organisms,” so its worth reading the safety data sheet, which any good hydroponic shop will be able to supply with the aggressive liquids they sell, as well as getting some gloves and goggles.

Speaking of goggles, I could tell you a nightmare about a grower who left a pipette full of 81 per cent nitric acid hanging out the top of the bottle, only to catch it with his sleeve, sending it airborne and filling the surrounding environment with microscopic droplets of industrial grade nitric acid at the perfect altitude and vector to land in someone’s eyes. If you think safe, handling these ultra nasty liquids becomes a whole lot easier.

But I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Cleaning is for girlies!” and “What does it do for the plants?”

Right?

O2

If it even needed saying, a fresh and regular exposure to pure oxygen will work wonders in how your plants look and “feel.” Oxygen invigorates, it heals, it’s present (and necessary) in every living form, and plants just can’t get enough of it.

With lots of oxygen available, nutrient uptake is massively boosted, and if the plant’s getting the nutrients, it will use them. Also, this extra nutrient, along with a blast of oxygen, is going to increase the production of proteins at cell level across the board, especially if the plant is getting plenty of CO2 (the carbon source the plants use to actually “build” themselves). This means thicker, stronger stems with shorter internodal spacing, as well as lush, deep-green healthy foliage. Which makes it also better equipped to handle the complicated conversions as a result of the photosynthetic processes the plant carries out in the creation of the sugars and starch’s necessary to feed it.

As a result of this mad growth, your plants will supply readily the smaller side branches necessary to facilitate a productive run of cuttings.

So, no matter what your chosen growing method is, get some hydrogen peroxide in the grow room. Whether used for oxygenation or for pathogen destruction and prevention, or as a cleaning agent, H2O2 fills all these roles and more, with aplomb.

http://www.progressive-growth.com/article-h202-peroxide-plant-perfection.php

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Using Hydrogen Peroxide in your
Hydroponics Gardening System


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. Using hydrogen peroxide adds oxygen to you water and cleans the water of pathogens. 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 for 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 pathogens that cause disease. This includes bacterial wilt, pythium fungi, fusarium fungi, and others.




Using 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
In your Hydroponics Garden
I avoid using hydrogen peroxide you commonly find at drug stores. This is because such low percentage (3%) 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 apparant. This was enough to convince me to use 35% hydrogen peroxide instead.




Using 35% Hydrogen Peroxide
In your Hydroponics Garden
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 using hydrogen peroxide. The general idea is to let the hydroponics system 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.


http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/using-hydrogen-peroxide.html

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