What is this "discolouration"on my Chinese Elm?

Ingvill

Ingvill

Shohin
Messages
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Location
Norway
USDA Zone
6
Three days ago I noticed this "discolouration" on my Chinese Elm;
- the white stuff on the bottom of the grow box.
- the lighter colour or discolouration on parts of the trunk. This doesn't show really well in pics, but big parts of trunk is lighter coloured than rest of trunk.

Anyone know what this is?
Maybe some tips to what I should do about it?

Beyond that the tree seems to be healthy and the leaves look normal.

Any feedback is most welcome :-)

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We do have a lot of calcium in our water, so that might be the issue.
Though I would prefer your explanation @cockroach :-)

Anything I can do about the water? Like tapping the water a day beforehand & let it breathe?
Will the calcium harm the trees over time?
(We are gonna move, but not for another 6-12 months it looks)
 
Ingvill said:
We do have a lot of calcium in our water, so that might be the issue.
Though I would prefer your explanation @cockroach :)

Anything I can do about the water? Like tapping the water a day beforehand & let it breathe?
Will the calcium harm the trees over time?
(We are gonna move, but not for another 6-12 months it looks)
Click to expand...
You can boil your hard tap water. Boiling water only removes some types of hardness - temporary hardness, but it seems to be enough for our use.
https://www.lenntech.com/ro/temporary-hardness.htm ...for more info.
 
Ingvill said:
Will the calcium harm the trees over time?
Click to expand...

If that is all the mineral buildup you have then probably not, since your water probably isn’t that hard. Depending on where you are in Norway you probably get a decent amount of rain and are using mostly surface water (as opposed to generally “harder” groundwater). There are published ranges for greenhouse irrigation water quality. You could find and post your water supply’s water quality report for specific advice.
 
petegreg said:
but it seems to be enough for our use.
Click to expand...
I’d like to hear more about your experience with boiling. What are your alkalinity, Ca, and Mg before boiling? It seems you leave behind insoluble calcium and magnesium carbonate and also lose some water to steam possibly increasing the overall concentration of some minerals. The Ca/Mg insoluble carbonates would be unavailable for root uptake and may flow right through your substrate or stay in the pot and increase the pH. Do you provide a Ca/Mg in your fertilizer?
 
hemmy said:
I’d like to hear more about your experience with boiling. What are your alkalinity, Ca, and Mg before boiling? It seems you leave behind insoluble calcium and magnesium carbonate and also lose some water to steam possibly increasing the overall concentration of some minerals. The Ca/Mg insoluble carbonates would be unavailable for root uptake and may flow right through your substrate or stay in the pot and increase the pH. Do you provide a Ca/Mg in your fertilizer?
Click to expand...
No, I don't boil water for watering. Tap water is semi-hard here, removing Ca built-up once a year from some bottoms of the trunks is enough. That's just a theory, the way how to get rid of Ca. Do you think boiled water is probably not ideal/good for potted trees?
 
petegreg said:
Do you think boiled water is probably not ideal/good for potted trees?
Click to expand...
I don’t know, but it sounds like a lot of work! I think most areas with moderately hard water (depends on alkanlinity, EC, TDS, Ca, and Mg) that also receive reasonable amounts of rain can manage the impact with correct fertilization and substrate additives. The areas with poorer water and less rain are impacted much more by water quality. With a limited number of plants you could also dilute your water with rainwater or the correct type of bottled water.

The standard in the greenhouse industry to deal with alkalinity is acidification. Your link is interesting that water treatment plants can add lime to create insoluble carbonates that can be filtered. Although adding lime probably wouldn’t be good for plants, but you could probably tailor your nutrients for the additional calcium. Although I’m sure it is much cheaper to acidity.
 
Hard water is like the soil discussion, everyone has an opinion about it. I know bonsai folks around here that do reverse osmosis, magnets, and collect rain water (what little there is) in order to fight it. Like everything, if you throw enough money and energy into trying to get rid of it you can. Personally, I do not believe it has a negative impact on my trees health. It is more of a nuisance in having to clean olive leaves, pots or baskets. Just my two cents.
 
hemmy said:
... it sounds like a lot of work! .
Click to expand...
Not if you have just a few trees.
AZbonsai said:
Hard water is like the soil discussion, everyone has an opinion about it. I know bonsai folks around here that do reverse osmosis, magnets, and collect rain water (what little there is) in order to fight it. Like everything, if you throw enough money and energy into trying to get rid of it you can. Personally, I do not believe it has a negative impact on my trees health. It is more of a nuisance in having to clean olive leaves, pots or baskets. Just my two cents.
Click to expand...
Agree, absolutely. Until you use hard water for acid-loving plants like azaleas, camelias and co.
As I said, I use semi-hard tap water and usually after it did its job in my aquarium. ?My azaleas are potted in kanuma, theoretically it should work. For fertilizing whatever available, organic pellets, organic or mineral liquid fertilizers, twice a season I apply a product similar to Ironite and 2-3 times a season Epsom salts just for a prevention. I do not spray foliage too often only few times a month to wash dust. That's all, I think no science behind it.
 
Moving to a new home soon, gonna be my first place with well water...
So I'm gonna be getting rain barrels and going down that road soon...
Not that I can't use the well water, but I don't wanna use the well all the time for tree watering...
 
petegreg said:
Epsom salts just for a prevention
Click to expand...
Prevention of what? Mg deficiency from too much Ca in your water? I’m on the high side of Mg, so I have tried to add Mg only through nutrient fertilizers and not in a higher quantity like Epsom salts.

I should just acidify, but I’m avoiding it because I have multiple hose bibs, young kids and zero outside storage. I’m experimenting with Espoma brand soil acidifier. It is 18% free sulfur and 12% combined (from gypsum and reaction with bentonitic clay).
 
I offer a suggestion, but I do not know if this is a good idea, or a bad idea, so someone here (Adair!) steer me right if I am wrong.

Hardness is caused by dissolved minerals (mainly calcium) in the water. Since rain comes from evaporated water, free from minerals, rain water will be soft.

My suggestion is to change to a drip irrigation line, then you arent spraying the trunk with your hose water.

My concern, is if the spotting is not from the water being "splashed" on the trunk, this will have no effect other than cost you money. :) If it's the UPTAKE of the calcium/whatevers from the roots causing it, this surely would not be a viable solution. Thoughts?
 
I grew up on a farm with very hard water. Made outr hair feel like straw. We added a teaspoon of vinegar to about 2L of water to rinse at the end.
Would mixing a prepared soft water with the hard water not help?
 
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