FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

...using yellowish water for carnivorous plants? Uh..., not *that* kind of yellow water but the kind with pollen in it. Here in the south things are blooming and the pollen count is climbing, and climbing, and climbing. Cars are suddenly turning yellow...sleeping black labs are turning into yellow labs....everything is turning....yellow. Yellow.

I knew we had a chance of rain coming in starting yesterday and it would last a few days...but only small chances of good precipitation falling...then no more rain in the forecast. So yesterday afternoon, OCD-Me washed the area of our metal roof off that I use to fill my buckets up with. Basically setting the water nozzle on jet, sending a stream of water high in the air to fall hard on the roof thus washing debris and pollen off. It works pretty good to clear the gunk off before the rain hits. Well, that was yesterday and late this afternoon we got a small rain that resulted in an inch or so of yellowish water (that pollen collects fast!) so I emptied the buckets out. A couple of hours later we started getting good rain. Well, I guess the pollen hadn't all rinsed off cause the water has a light yellow tint to it.

I checked it with my TDS meter and got a reading of 5-7ppm so that part is good. I've read that pollen will start decomposing after a while, though, and the water will acquire a bad smell. Will it hurt the plants to use this water quickly so it doesn't have time to go rancid, even though it will have pollen in it? In the wild the plants have to deal with the pollen, so....??? But, if I use it before the pollen starts to decompose in the water then the pollen will still decompose in the plants' growing medium won't it? Are there any problems with that? *Could* the decomposed pollen possibly turn into an unwanted nutrient?

It's still raining good right now, so I feel like the pollen in the water will get more diluted as cleaner water goes into the buckets. I'll filter it through a layer or two of t-shirt or something but I know that won't get all the pollen.

Feedback is welcomed. Thanks!

Pollen in the water isn't a problem.

Thanks, Panman. I wasn't sure. Seemed like there wouldn't be a *lot* of it to decompose, but being my first pollen-season... I did go out a few minutes ago and tilt the buckets over to dump most of the yellow "ring" from around the edges...and there's a band of rain headed this way in the next hour or so so that will help dilute the pollen in the water a bit more. A while back I was wondering whether to swap out some higher TDS water in some jugs for lower TDS water I had collected. Ya'll basically told me to save all of it. I'm glad I did as we went through a mini-drought there for a while and burned through those 5-6 gallons. Thanks for the recommendations!!!

Well, the band of rain that was headed this way busted up QUICK!!! No rain. Maybe later today. Indiana's getting some good rain as are parts of a few other states south of the Great Lakes.

Don't eat pink snow either!!!

I had to look "pink snow" up. Yeah, I think I'll refrain from eating *any* snow...down here there's lots of dirt and grass and whatever else is laying on the ground in the snow...it's hard scraping that 1/2" of snow up off the ground and keeping it clean! (Now watch, this coming winter will be one of those freaky winters where we get 1-1/2' of snow!!! That'll shut things down for a few days around here! Kind of nice, though, no cars going by, stranded at home, etc.,.