83°F
weather icon Clear
Las Vegas, NV
Bob Morris

Distilled water can deflocculate soil

BOB MORRIS
April 16, 2013 - 1:21 am
 

Question: In a past posting on your blog, you mentioned that using 100 percent distilled water for container plant irrigation might mess with the potting soil. What did you mean by that?

Distilled water has no minerals in it. This can pose problems for soils and cause the soils to “deflocculate,” which means the soil can start to seal and begin to slow the water movement through it by taking minerals from the soil particles.

So it is best to add just a small amount of fertilizer — very little — so that you replace the minerals that are no longer there. Think of it similar to drinking distilled water as opposed to water that has some “good” minerals in it and the effect on our bodies.

Good salts to use for replacing the salts taken out would be fertilizer salts from a good quality fertilizer or a light compost tea. How much to add? How much salt remains after water evaporates from irrigation water? Very little. A pinch or two of a fertilizer salt in a gallon is enough.

Bob Morris is a professor emeritus in horticulture with the University of Nevada and can be reached at extremehort@aol.com. Visit his blog at
xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. For more gardening advice, see the Home section of Thursday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal.

MOST READ
Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.
THE LATEST
The cultivars of hibiscus range from cold-hardy to tropical varieties. (Getty Images)
The sun sets on my days as RJ’s gardening columnist
By Bob Morris Gardening

Thanks to everyone who has supported my journey into journalism by reading my gardening column over the years and contributing questions.

Pine trees typically develop taproots for stability and to secure enough water. (Getty Images)
What’s ailing my mature pine trees?
By Bob Morris Gardening

When native pine trees are grown on their own they will develop taproots or sinker roots for stability and to secure enough water.

Mallow is an annual weed that appears in the lower left of this picture. It is difficult to con ...
Gaining control over this annual weed is not easy to do
By Bob Morris Gardening

To make sure it doesn’t return you have to interrupt the seed-to-flowering-plant cycle at least for a couple of years and fill the voids with something competitive.

When they are young and newly planted, it’s normal if bird of paradise plants produce le ...
Why did my bird of paradise plants quit blooming?
By Bob Morris Gardening

They were in bloom when we planted them five or six years ago, and they bloomed the following year as well. But they have not bloomed again.

MORE STORIES