Michael,

What is your purpose? To educate the masses on poor water quality? Expound away. What have you learned? There has been many threads concerning different water quality problems, especially from well water. Please don't sell us a water quality system or recommend a brand. That is a no-no. Most people can take a water sample and find out what is in their water from a County Ag Extension Service or local lab. Why have you done your research? Aloha

Lehua13: Nope, not selling anything. I am not trying to educate the masses, simply looking for folks who have dealt with water quality issues both to learn more myself and to help if possible. It just seems, and I may be all together wrong, that most people pay attention to water quantity and delivery without much thought to quality and soil. I admit that in the past, I too I have been guilty of the same thing.

My current esearch is being done to deal with the compounding effect of bicarbonates in my irrigation water on the calcareous soil and the micronutrient deficiencies beginning to show up in the apple orchard. Previously, I was aware of the nature of calcareous soils and how to manage them to avoid micro deficiencies, then I found out the water was high in bicarbs and was adding to the problem. It was off to the races on research from there.

What have I learned, be happy to share later, lunch break is over.

Michael,

There have been past threads on this subject but as I recall not very often. You sound like you have a soil chemistry based background which most Ag people tend to have. I am sure you can assist others with their high calcium soils and calcium fortified irrigation water as well and all water transporting experiences. They can benefit from your learning process and where you looked for your enlightenment. Welcome and Aloha

Lehua: Thanks for the welcome mat. I do have an extensive horticulture background including school, gardening, vegetable crop nutrition research and greenhouse ornamentals production. For the past 7 years I've branched out into tree fruits, mostly apple, pear and peach in addition to small fruits. It is becoming obvious that perennials are a whole new ball game!

My schooling was in CO so the soils education certainly leaned to western soils, hence the familiarity with western soils and water issues. The bad news is much of what I've learned has to be re-learned but that's OK.

I'll be happy to give a coherent account of the bicarbonates issue when I have it all in my head clearly enough to explain it to others. Having read a number of your responses in threads, it is obvious you have a great deal of experience with irrigation systems and know the difference between knowing something well enough to put it to use and knowing it well enough to be able to explain it to someone else. I once tried to explain the "Florida Weave" trellising system to someone, having done many, many hundreds of feet of it myself and found it challenging putting to words what my body can do without thinking.

Had to look up the meaning of Aloha, thank you.

Michael

Michael,

You will be an outstanding asset here. Mahalo for your kind words. Looking forward to reading your bicarb treatise on low rainfall areas. You can use us to test your theories before you publish. There are a wealth of practical and theoretical experts here on the forums. Learning and helping others is a passion for me and it sounds like you are the same. Good Luck. Aloha

The treatise will come when I am spending less time out standing in the field and more on my can preparing for next irrigation season. At this point, I'll simply say the bicarbs are not uncommon, they can be a big problem for some (I fall into the unfortunate category) and they can be dealt with in different ways depending on the bicarb loading. In a way, their effect is like adding sodium to a clay soil which can lead to soil colloid dispersion, which can lead to poor water penetration and subsequent salts accumulation.

Anyway, enough for now, don't want to muddy the irrigation water.