Salt damage to guava from saline or salty water in the overhead irrigation (water applied to the leaves) |
A.
I am not going to talk about the pros and cons of water softened with sodium
chloride versus potassium chloride for personal use. This is not my area of
expertise but I can speak the subject of watering plants with softened water
and your irrigation system.
Normally, softened water starts
after the water from the street has been tapped for your irrigation system. If
this is done, it should not be a problem for you. It most likely would be a
problem if you have tapped an irrigation system from a hose bib coming from the
walls of your house. Many houses have their water softener conditioning water
going to every water outlet in the entire inside of the house.
Salt applied to the ground from saline water applied through drip emitters |
This will mean that softened water
is delivered to both hot and cold faucets as well as the hose bibs you use for
hoses outside the house. So if you have a water softener and you have some sort
of irrigation system attached to a hose bib, then you are most likely watering
outside plants with softened or saline water.
Whenever you use a hose attached to
a faucet coming from the walls of your house, then it will be carrying softened
water. If you are watering houseplants from an inside faucet and you have
softened water, then you are most likely watering them with softened water.
Salt damage to rose leaves from soil salts, not applied to the leaves through overhead irrigation but salt in the soil |
What to do? As you mentioned,
potassium chloride is an alternative water softening salt to regular water
softening salt but it is more expensive. In fact, it can be double the price or
more. Potassium is a mineral contained in fertilizers and used by plants in
fairly high quantities. So potassium chloride would be a better alternative for
plants than common water softening salt.
Pitting of the sidewalk from water runoff from the lawn of water containing salts |
When I installed my irrigation
system, I put hose bibs in the landscape that were fed by the pressurized main
line of the irrigation system. This way when I watered with a hose I was not
using softened water. I avoided using water from hose bibs coming from the
house.
When I watered houseplants, I use
distilled or RO water instead of water from the faucets. I mixed a very small
amount of houseplant fertilizer in the water so that it had some good minerals
in it. This avoided the use of softened water on houseplants which can be very
toxic to most of them.
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