Has anyone done this? I know that snow is a great source of Nitrogen for plants. As far as other nutes. I have no clue... I would assume the amounts of what ever nutes. are in the snow would vary, each time it snows... Any thoughts?
LOL That's ok. I am pretty sure that snow does contain some essential nutrients that plants need. I do know that it does contain nitrogen, however I'm not sure about any other nutrients. Some people call it the "poor man's" fertilizer... I wish I had a way to test it to see what is actually in it. Because there is a crap ton where I'm at LOL
This is all I can find so far... http://site.cleanairgardening.com/info/snow-as…-organic-fertilizer.html
Another source. This one had more info... Using snow to water plants - Orchid Board - Most Complete Orchid Forum on the web !
"In order for rain our snow to condence, solidify, they do it around particles. Some are bacteria, others are dust etc.... I can only imagine that every snowflake has a tiny amount of bacteria and pollutants from the air. Basically whatever is in the atmosphere ends up in the snowflake. But you can say the same thing about rain water except snow flakes have A: more surface area to gather all sorts of nasties (bacteria, pollutants), and goodies B: snowflakes fly around the air alot longer than rain drops, giving them more chance to gather more nasties and goodies (nitrogen, oxygen etc..) If you are worried about the bacteria, boil the water from the snow before use."...
the nitrogen in our atmosphere is non plant food nitrogen and cannot be absorb through the roots, the plant need aerobic, or nitrogen fixing bacteria to convert the nitrogen into ammonium nitrates, these beneficials are common in all soil, but not in hydroponic set ups
Yes cold is bad for them. You would want to let it melt and reach room temp. OR you can boil (to kill bacteria) and let it cool down to room temp.
You know how much pollution is in the air that the snow picks up on the way down? Me neither, but it would be a good idea to find out before trying...
So I finally melted some snow and did a ph test on it and the result was in between 6.0 and 6.5. I will say that there was a lot of debris at the bottom of the water. Cheers
I have used snow water for a bit now since it has snowed 2 ft lately. I put it in totes and water with it. There has been snow to melt for a month now. I always check the PPM. It is almost non-existent like 005-015 PPm .around there. The Ph is a little low around 5.7 but that can be dealt with. I am almost at the end of this 8 wk and it looks excellent with snow water. Oh and the water does have debris but the water itself is waay cleaner than the tap water