penumbra
Imperial Masterpiece
Yes, light will degrade the product. Thus the brown bottle.
Using hydrogen peroxide solution on my trees.
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penumbra
Imperial Masterpiece
Apples and oranges comes up a lot on this site.I find it fascinating that the folks who were fearmongering in the discussion thread about chloramine are nowhere to be found in this thread, despite hydrogen peroxide being another substance that rapidly reacts indiscriminately with organic matter via free radical formation. I guess the woo woo superstitions about peroxide are different.
Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
They are two completely different compounds, behave differently, and break down into different components.I find it fascinating that the folks who were fearmongering in the discussion thread about chloramine are nowhere to be found in this thread, despite hydrogen peroxide being another substance that rapidly reacts indiscriminately with organic matter via free radical formation. I guess the woo woo superstitions about peroxide are different.
That said, rainwater delivers other chemical benefits than just hydrogen peroxide - including providing nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and having a lower pH than distilled water. There is no way I could "dose" hydrogen peroxide because I have far too many plants. I would need to set up a commercial watering setup, find a good source of pure water (not city mains water), and then dose chemicals to try to recreate rainwater. Fortunately I live in an area that gets a decent amount of rain, so my irrigation use has dropped significantly from when I lived in SoCal.
Srt8madness
Omono
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They are different compounds, but both form free radicals that will indiscriminately attack organic molecules. Chlorine and chloramine produce Cl• radicals as decomposition products. Hydrogen peroxide produces HO• and HOO• radicals as decomposition products. They’re all highly reactive and will attack a carbon chain.
I find it fascinating that folks who are deeply concerned about a solution of 2 ppm chloramine in water potentially making a tiny dent in mycorrhizal populations in soil are not the slightest bit concerned about the effects of a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution.
Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
I didn't think the chloramine in my irrigation water was the issue... it was the fact that the chloramine came with elevated pH that was my primary concern. That and high levels of sodium.
However I also had a koi pond, and untreated tap water would start killing fish at about 10% strength (when added to an established, stable pond). Then again... rainfall would also kill fish because it tended to crash my pond water pH... which was elevated because I had to constantly use tap water to top off water levels from evaporation. LOL! Drama!
So in a perfect world I prefer to use rainwater, lake water, and well water... in that order, and leave the chemicals to the fertilizer.
Leo in N E Illinois
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I find it fascinating that the folks who were fearmongering in the discussion thread about chloramine are nowhere to be found in this thread, despite hydrogen peroxide being another substance that rapidly reacts indiscriminately with organic matter via free radical formation. I guess the woo woo superstitions about peroxide are different.
Shhhh.. . be very quiet. Don't wake them up
penumbra
Imperial Masterpiece
Oh I am awake, I have just lost interest in voicing my views and what I have found that works for me.
Deep Sea Diver
Imperial Masterpiece
Hmm… interesting. Imho some of this skepticism about messing with my soil critters has to do with some folks not yet understanding the rhizosphere and the resiliency of the microbial populations within.
New learning is allowed.
Btw Granted the entire point is to reboot the ectosphere, those by products you mentioned may be half reaction results, wouldn’t the final reaction simply be this? … I’m the end producing water and giving a burst of Oxygen to the system?
Cheers
DSD send
Deep Sea Diver
Imperial Masterpiece
Wondering if you had the time to look at the decomposition reaction included in the post above?
Curious
DSD sends
It is a catalase reaction, the peroxide uses all the catalase in every living organism in the soil including plant tissue to neutralize into water. Some of it can react with certain fertilizer ions. When sprayed on foliage, sunlight can neutralize.
I am really trying to find out if this is a one-time deal, like when you put the peroxide on a plant for the first time it flips a switch, like all the resources get turned on and it is almost hormone-like, yet it might not work multiple times. Wondering if the same treatment can be used the next year with any success, or is it once. Peroxide triggers Systemic aquired resistance, or SAR.
penumbra
Imperial Masterpiece
I thought I was done with this thread but it is an exercise in futility. You can attempt to analyze the crap out of it, you can try it, or you can ignore it. But like anything else in life, if it works for you, nobody is going to convince you that it doesn't. If you are convinced it is snake oil, no one is going to convince you otherwise.
Firstflush
Chumono
If you are interested in some testing, the Rusted Gardener on YouTube has been using it for years to treat bacterial and fungal issues in veggies. He did some workups on concentration vs results.
It depends on what those HO• and HOO• free radicals collide with first. Free radicals are extremely reactive, so they tend to react immediately with whatever they hit. Some of those compounds will be unstable and will react further until stable end products are formed. So, some portion of those free radicals will collide with each other and perhaps end up as water and O2. If they run into an organic molecules, they will react with it instead, displacing something else that was on the carbon chain or perhaps breaking a double or triple bond. In the events where the free radical reacted with an organic molecule, O2 is likely not on of the end products. If you’re using hydrogen peroxide to try to kill off unwanted microbes, it’s this interaction of free radicals with organic molecules that is doing the killing. Dose matters.
Chlorine or chloramine at 2 ppm concentration inside the pipes of a municipal water supply, where there’s hardly any organic matter present, is sufficient to keep microbe levels low enough to ensure the water is safe to drink when it comes out the tap in your house. Hydrogen peroxide at similar concentration in pure water in plastic pipes would likely perform similarly as an anti microbial agent. The reason they don’t use hydrogen peroxide instead of chlorine or chloramine in municipal water supplies is because it’s not stable enough to stick around and do the job all the way from the well to the tap. It decomposes rapidly via the Fenton reaction when an iron catalyst is present. Iron and its oxides are routinely present, both in the well water itself and in the pipe infrastructure. So, it wouldn’t work for that purpose.
In a 3% solution (equivalent to 30000 ppm), there’s enough hydrogen peroxide present for it to have some effect in soil before it decomposes. (But, of course you still wouldn’t want to use it for municipal water systems.)
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Deep Sea Diver
Imperial Masterpiece
Ok I’m confused.
You’re posting information that’s already been explored over time…
What is the point you are trying to make here?
Is it “It doesn’t work? or “ I’m not sure I want to use it? or just arguing for the sake of argument?
If it’s “It doesn’t work?” Take this up with the CDC. They somehow seem to think it’s effective for pernicious resistant microbes for surgical suites.
If it is “I’m not sure I want to use it”
Your trees, your choice. But please don’t inflict your opinions on the rest of us. Out here, we’ve been using it for four years successfully. It is effective on all our many species of trees, cuttings, younger stock and also on our orchids and indoor plants.
I actually first picked this tip up from Kathy Shaner, an International Bonsai Master who found Hydrogen Peroxide to be effective for many years on all her bonsai. She was so
Positive about its use that it was included in one of her videos. Which is likely still on line.
For me the question is more, what else will it be effective on?
Yet if you are just posting to show everyone your personal level of erudition, not sure why you are spending your valuable time on this when you could instead be outside improving your trees?
I’d love to chat about your tangible efforts towards making show quality trees.
Speaking of which, I’ve actually got some Satsuki to slip pot….
Cheers
DSD sends
You’re posting information that’s already been explored over time…
What is the point you are trying to make here?
Is it “It doesn’t work? or “ I’m not sure I want to use it? or just arguing for the sake of argument?
If it’s “It doesn’t work?” Take this up with the CDC. They somehow seem to think it’s effective for pernicious resistant microbes for surgical suites.
If it is “I’m not sure I want to use it”
Your trees, your choice. But please don’t inflict your opinions on the rest of us. Out here, we’ve been using it for four years successfully. It is effective on all our many species of trees, cuttings, younger stock and also on our orchids and indoor plants.
I actually first picked this tip up from Kathy Shaner, an International Bonsai Master who found Hydrogen Peroxide to be effective for many years on all her bonsai. She was so
Positive about its use that it was included in one of her videos. Which is likely still on line.
For me the question is more, what else will it be effective on?
Yet if you are just posting to show everyone your personal level of erudition, not sure why you are spending your valuable time on this when you could instead be outside improving your trees?
I’d love to chat about your tangible efforts towards making show quality trees.
Speaking of which, I’ve actually got some Satsuki to slip pot….
Cheers
DSD sends
I like using peroxide, use it undiluted on non-healing branch wounds (with mixed results) and undiluted on leaves with any crud. Just wondering about the 3% undiluted to the soil and what it can do, and if that is enough for roots to drink it and cause a response.
A few points:
- If you are using hydrogen peroxide for the purpose of killing soil pathogens, it may do an ok job at that if applied in sufficient concentration. I wouldn’t make a habit of applying it on a regular basis though because if you’re using enough to kill off pathogens, it’s also going to impact the good microbes that you actually want.
- If you are using it in an attempt to supply more oxygen to the roots, I think you’re wasting your time and may be doing more harm than good. If you’re using it at a concentration high enough to actually generate an appreciable quantity of oxygen, you’re also likely damaging the microbiome enough to offset any gains.
- Dose is everything. Neither chloramine nor hydrogen peroxide would have much effect on soil if administered in a 2 ppm aqueous solution because there is such an enormous amount of organic matter and so many millions upon millions of microbes present that the chemical would be all used up before it had any appreciable effect. A 3% hydrogen peroxide solution is about a 10000-fold higher concentration. That may actually be enough for it to actually be useful to sterilize soil for cuttings, etc.
- The concerns about “chemicals” such as chloramine are rooted in ignorance about chemistry. People fear the unknown. Likewise, the woo woo notion that something is automatically a positive beneficial thing if it has more oxygen (typically in some nebulously-defined way that has little relationship to how it actually functions, chemically) is bunk. Yes, human beings breathe oxygen and that’s a good thing. But, oxygen is also a key cause of aging. The specifics of the chemistry involved matters in regards to whether or not oxygen is a good thing in a particular situation.
That is the watered down version of it.
