Re: [APD] is Chloride Bad For Plants (CaCl2)

[Jerry Baker <jerry at bakerweb_biz>]

Roger Miller wrote:
> No.  In tiny amounts chloride is an essential nutrient.  Plants use it in 
> larger amounts then required and it can be found in some healthy aquatic 
> plant tissue at fairly high concentrations.   Chloride is ubiquitous in 
> nature and I doubt there is a living thing on earth that doesn't happily 
> coexist with chloride; it is biologically benign.

Tell that to the people who talk about how poisonous and dangerous 
Splenda is because of the chlorine it contains (it's essentially sugar 
with some chloride). They say, "Splenda is potentially harmful because 
it contains chlorine, which is a carcinogen" 
[http://www.splendaexposed.com/articles/2005/11/the_hidden_chem.html]

I'd like to take this time to make people aware of the dangers of 
another chemical that killed more than 3,800 Americans in 2004. That 
chemical is hydrogen hydroxide, and prolonged inhalation is fatal. Yet, 
there are crazy people who fill up large tanks with this chemical and 
keep it right in their homes.

> When salinity problems occur chloride is often part of the problem, but the 
> problem is not unique to chloride.  Anything that reaches sufficiently high 
> concentrations will cause the same problems.

It's a good way to measure by proxy. When measuring stream contamination 
from road salting, chloride is frequently measured to that CaCl, KCl, 
and NaCl are all taken into account in one measurement. Probably where 
the bad association comes from 
(http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0002AB05-B2B9-1318-B2B983414B7F0000).

> Aside from salinity issues I have no idea where the idea came from that 
> chloride was a problem for plants.  At one time the problems seemed to arise 
> from the similarity in the words "chloride" (benign) and "chlorine" (nasty).  
> Now there seems to be someone or something else that is generating the idea.

All those anions floating around without their cations (if the plants 
consume the Ca) scares me ;)

-- 
Jerry Baker
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