London Planes and Salinity

mtlea

Hi, This is my first posting and I'd love some advice!

We're based in the Blackwood Valley River area in WA. The area has been hit by droughts this winter and the dam we usually water our trees with is very, very low.

We are thinking about pumping from a different dam but here is the issue. The second dams salinity level is 2700 parts per million. This just pushes it out of the safe to consume band by 200ppm. I'm told by the local land care office that the Blackwood River is 14,000ppm.

We have a mixture of London Planes, Golden Ash, desert ash and oriental planes. I'm most concerned with the two types of plane trees as I understand that they don't like saline water at all.

My questions are as follows:
- Do you think that the level of salinity we have in our second dam would be ok for the above mentioned trees or is it just going to kill them?
- Is there a product that can reduce the salinity by a couple of hundred ppm to an acceptable level for the trees if the current level would kill them?
- If we mixed the water from the safe, first dam with the slightly saline second dam would it make it an acceptable level?

I'm really sorry if these are stupid questions. I can't find the answer anywhere online as to what level of salinity these trees would cope with and I don't want to kill them through lack of water any more than I want to kill them through salt! The trees are about 2 meters high right now and watered on drippers.

Thanks for your time.

MtLea

TreeSpecialist

Are any of these species growing along the Blackwood River?

The sycamores (London planes) typically grow in riparian areas - next to rivers, creeks, lakes, etc. (Ash trees are a little more tolerant of high salt.)

If so, then go ahead and use the water.

If not, look for another water source.

The dose may be the most important aspect to consider. Salts are generally very mobile in soils and can be leached away with large quantities of water.

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