I have a dozen trees of peach, pear, apple, paw paw and some other stuff. I really really don't want to use fungicides and pesticides.
I was having some problems on a peach trees and a Honey Crisp apple tree. I'm in southern Michigan.
I have a degree in chemistry, and biology, and for my day job, I'm a doctor. And I tinker a lot. Organic gardener for a long time.
So anyway, around the graft on the peach tree, it had an open "sore" that encompassed about 40% of the circumference. NOT GOOD. The first big crotch had the same problem.
It had been oozing that thick gelatinous nastiness. There were a lot of wood lice (pill bugs, sow bugs, roly polies, Armadillidiidae), but I think they primarily feed on dead and dying plant tissue, except strawberries. I don't think they are the cause, just the symptom.
Both trees are in their 3rd year, and the HoneyCrisp apple tree had looked pretty miserable the last two years. So that's really since I planted it. It never thrived. Lots of roundish and irregular brown patches on most of the leaves, perhaps 1/8" to 1/4" in diameter, and they looked dried out and some looked shrunken. Some of the tips of the branches looked burned. It had this problem both years, but worse the second year (last year).
For various reasons, I became aware that some people make this ionic silver stuff to drink or to put on externally to kill bacteria, viruses, etc. I have no desire to drink the stuff, but I wondered if it would have any effect on my trees.
It turns out it's pretty easy to make, so I whipped up a batch and tried it starting with the first tiny leaves, and it seems to be working. I sprayed once a week for a month, then every two weeks or so.
If I can, I will attempt to post some before and after pictures, though I suck at that, so don't get your hopes up.
I was so overjoyed at inventing this, I did a patent search and found out somebody else beat me to it.
Since I now have no financial interest in this, I figure I should give it away as fast as possible to everyone who wants it.
Here's what you do:
Buy a cheap battery charger for car batteries, here's one as an example:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Schumach ... ccessories
I'll have to look at what mine is rated in amps. It's pretty low, an amp or two at the most.
Get a five gallon plastic bucket and fill it with water 2/3 of the way.
The people who drink the stuff mostly use distilled or reverse osmosis water, so they can measure the concentration more accurately. I just used plain old hard well water.
Get two pieces of pure silver, you can buy silver wire. I had some pure silver one ounce coins because that's what I had laying around. Clip one to each lead of the battery charger and hang them over the side of the bucket so the silver touches the water (like half way immersed), but the clips for the battery charger don't touch the water.
Turn the battery charger on for 1-3 hours until the water noticeably changes to a light grey color.
Boom, you're done.
Go spray your trees that are having various fungal or bacterial or viral problems, and let's find out what it fixes and what it doesn't.
I am also experimenting on a peach tree of a church friend that has long standing problems. Every single peach rots, every year for more than five years. I'll look at that one tomorrow and see how it's doing. It has only been sprayed three times.
I will try to post some before and after pictures tomorrow.
Finest regards,
Troy
Ok, here's the photos:
This is the peach tree, the first main crotch, pre-treatment:
Here's the base of the trunk after I rinsed off all the gooey nastiness off:
Here's the crotch as of today:
A nicely healed wound, no oozing mess.
Here's the graft/trunk:
It's still a little rough, but when I started, the bark was pretty much gone on half of the trunk, down to and below the soil line. Now it has real bark, and no more oozing goop, or a million roly polies.
I don't have a good "before" picture of the honey crisp apple tree, but I did find a few leaves with similar damage now, so here's a photo of that:
The difference being, last year the vast majority of the leaves looked like that, and many of the tips of the branches looked dry and dark and burnt. Now I had to hunt the whole tree to find a few leaves with significant damage. Here's an overall shot of the "happy tree" right now:
I sprayed Mic and Martha's peach tree today, and it also looks much better, but no photos yet. Mic said all the fruit would get some sort of rot in them before he even had a chance to thin the fruit. They would all start to rot on the same side (I forget if he said east or west or whatever) and then it would progress to the whole fruit, so they never get edible peaches. I'll try to take some photos of their tree next sunday.
I would encourage folks to replicate this experiment. Ionic silver, even in fairly low concentrations, has significant anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties.
Feel free to ask questions. I will also try to take a few photographs of the little battery charger, the bucket setup, etc.
Finest regards,
troy
Fascinating idea,Troy.
I love these kinds of experiments. What I use is compost tea, which probably came about because of some similar experiment. It is 100% organic.
I not only love that you came up with the idea, but also that you figured out a handy way for a regular person without a lab to do it, and that it seems to work. Now you are sharing with others. This is my favorite use of these electronic forums. I hope other people try this.
Depending on my schedule I might try it this summer.
Thanks,
John S
PDX OR
PS I assume you know that peaches are famously hard to grow outside of dry, cold western mountainous areas.
Here are photos of my setup to make silver water
The first shows the cheapo 1 amp battery charger. You can get these at Harbor Freight, or any auto supply store, ebay has them. Ten or fifteen bucks:
Here's the whole thing with the hanger wires and the coins clipped in the leads of the battery charger. That's coat hanger wire taped to the alligator clip with black electricians tape:
Here a photo of the coins themselves. These are one ounce silver rounds, about forty bucks each. You could just buy one and cut it in half. I don't know if the much smaller silver wire that is sold for this purpose will work the same in terms of being done in two or three hours: The actual amount of silver that goes in the water is quite small, usually measured in parts per million. These two coins will give me a ten lifetime supply of spray:
Here they are, hanging in the bucket ready to make the next batch. Fill with water until the coins are half immersed, and the alligator clips are not touching the water at all.
The same thing could be tried with copper, at significantly less expense, though I do not expect it to be as effective. That's all part of the big experiment.
To be more objective so people can compare results, you can buy a TDS meter (Total Dissolved Solids Meter) on ebay for very inexpensive. The "best" way to do that is to make your ionic silver water with distilled water or reverse osmosis water, so the only thing you're measuring is the silver.
TDS meters measure all the dissolved solids, like calcium and magnesium and iron in hard water. Of course, that's not cheap to buy that much distilled water. If you want to do it that way, make sure it says distilled, not filtered.
Another way is to use tap water, but use the tds meter to measure the dissolved solids in the water by itself, then add the silver, then measure again so you can get some idea of how much silver is in there by subtracting the difference.
I am hoping someone will have a good raging case of fire blight to test this out on.
Finest regards,
troy
Virtually all coin shops and pawn shops would have some "silver rounds" in stock. This is a category of silver coins that have no collectible value, only the value of the metal itself.
There are also lots of online places that would sell you one and mail it to your house. Ebay for example:
Just do a search for one ounce silver rounds, and a hundred vendors will happily ship you one. Here's one, no relation, blah blah blah:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Silver-Round-Engelh ... 45fb457fcd
The current price varies between $35 and $40. Shipping is typically under five bucks.
HTH,
troy
[quote="Bhangchai":32tkcmig]FYI You only need to use the silver coin for the (+) electrode. That is, the one connected to the (+) of the power supply. The other one can be copper or stanless steel, etc.
Dan[/quote:32tkcmig]
I see you posted already. I have used a stainless fork or spoon for the cathode (-), only the anode (+) silver gives off colloidal silver. Hope I got that right!
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