Enhance Plant Vitality Via Use of Ionic Colloidal Silver Misting
COLLOIDAL SILVER AND PLANT VITALITY
Plants, like animals are harassed by pathogens such as bacteria and viruses and also parasites, such as fungi, grubs and sap suckers, not to mention they are food to many insects and their offspring. There are thousands of inexpensive but dangerous chemical pesticides and repellents, expensive natural plant oils and other treatments but the one shining light to plant vitality is extremely low cost ionic colloidal silver.
Home use ionic silver generators can produce ionic silver for as little as 80 cents a gallon, while commercial horticultural production equipment make it for as little as 5 cents a gallon. It is thus not only very economical, effective and safe but also ecologically Green!
What is colloidal silver? By definition it is tiny particles of metallic silver suspended in pure water but that is relatively useless, metals having little bio-availability. Ionic colloidal silver on the other hand has well proven biocidal effects and utmost safety plus you can inexpensively make your own at home. An ion is a atom of a metal with one or more electrons removed, so a powerful stray radical. Our EPA classes silver as an oligodynamic biocide, meaning it is fatal to primitive life forms such as bacteria, viruses, prions, eggs, etc. yet readily used by our more complex cells to kill off pathogens. Death to pathogens is believed to be by the silver ion attaching to the pathogens respiration site, causing death by suffocation.
Silver is a natural biocide and in the ionic form (water soluble) is oligodynamic (fatal to primitive life forms such as eggs and pathogens) yet is utterly safe to plant, animal and insect cells (mature life forms). Many insects such as bees and Lady bugs are beneficial to plants so chemical insecticides are dangerous. Applied as a mist to plant leaves and stems ionic silver can be absorbed by plant cells, to aid in the immune systems natural destruction of plant pathogens while at the same time destroying eggs laid on the plant, breaking the target insects life cycle. Like any pesticide, spray only when appropriate, I.E when unwanted insect eggs are first deposited. Generally beneficial insects would not be laying eggs on the plants so may be of low concern.
Here in Florida ionic silver has controlled tomato mosaic virus, fruit tree leaf curl, kills the mango flower egg (grub) that causes bud drop, kills rose rust, etc.Seeds germinate at 100% and grow robustly when soaked in ionic silver to sprout, etc. In the garden tomato plants sprayed a few times will produce massive yields, due to maximized plant vitality.
Logically, you should not hesitate to use ionic silver on house plants or in any agricultural environment, first from an economic viewpoint as an aid to plant vitality and thus up to 30% improved yield and in particular as a non chemical pesticide, fungicide, virucide and bactericide. From a business mans return on investment consideration the ionic silver equipment can pay for itself in a matter of months. While to the average bloke using a "pharmaceutical grade" product on plants may sound like a waste, consider the real production cost is under 10 cents a gallon, which relates to under a dollar to "mist" an acre, for a superior yet chemical free biocide with pesticide benefits! Even the workers will gain, with less health problems!
A brief look at grape production indicates the mist application requirement is 1-2 gallons per acre to wet the leaves - see: mistsprayers.com for what appears to be the most logical applicator on farms. Droplets should be avoided to prevent wetting the soil too deeply for friendly bacteria in the soil would then be destroyed. Further, a dedicated spray tank should also be used, to prevent the formation of nearly non-soluble silver salts (the result of mixing with soluble minerals) as they are generally 10,000 times less bio-available then the highly reactive ions.
Evaporation of the water will leave reduced silver and or salts, which have a minor but sustained bio-benefit. In my 10,000 gallon swimming pool it took 40 gallons to reach the effective biocidal dosage (20 parts per billion) but requires only one gallon per month makeup, due to the high residual effect of the poorly soluble silver salts.
The little I know from local tomato growers is that after each rain another application of pesticides is made so there should possibly be weekly applications. Unlike chemical pesticides the ionic silver is harmless to mature insects (oligodynamic) and a great aid to plant vitality so no problem if applied often, so long as the soil is not soaked. As a minimum it should be re-applied after insect pests deposit eggs on leaves and stems, to break their life cycle.
You have to think out of the box, to realize ionic silver is ideal as a general plant health aid in addition to being an anti-pathogenic material fatal to primative life forms (including eggs). In humans, besides being biocidal it has strong anti-inflammatory effects, promotes the production of mast cells, aids DNA repair and so likely has similar benefits to plants.
You can hardly consider 5 parts per million to be concentrated so there is no risk of over use burning the leaves, just do not saturate the soil.
There is utmost safety, for if you look at our EPA's data on silver (http//www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0099.htm#oralrfd) there is no risk of silver "overdosing" during spray applications other then the rare case of Argyria, a discolorization of the skin when absorbed in gross doses for extended periods (silver salts are photosensitive so darken after light exposure). They compute the safe daily dose (rfD) at 14 teaspoons of 5 PPM daily for 70 years!
Ionic silver vapors are routinely breathed for lung problems and in fact a Dr. Brooks Bradley cured (6) patients with "terminal lung problems" by having them breath a few ounces of ionic silver mist daily - even lung cancer responded! I routinely use an ultrasonic vaporized to breath the vapors, for persistent allergy problems. The amount a field worker would breath would be far less then a ounce and I have customers that have their whole family ingested a quart a day with no side effects! I caution all to avoid overdosing with anything, for the body reacts by more rapid excretion, reducing its effectiveness but they insist their health has never been better and have used the high dose daily for years. Reported cases of Argyria are only 8 per year according to our FDA and never from silver ions but from non-soluble silver salts that most "home generators" produce when ultra pure water (double distilled grade) is not used.
I have just sprouted (30) Moringa tree seeds in ionic silver saturated paper towels - always get 100% germination as no pathogenic problems. Moringa you may know is the Worlds answer to starvation, called the food tree as leaves, seeds and roots are eatable and extremely nutritious. I plan to add the leaves and eventually seeds to my diet, as it is a very fast growing tree.
Fred Peschel is a graduate Mechanical Engineer with 40 years experience in custom electronic design and manufacture in the high voltage test equipment area. Upon retirement he started studying self healing and in the last 10 years has become a world class expert on colloidal silver manufacture and applications.