Next target: Blackberry
Blackberry is the main reason I concocted this salt weed killer, because there is tons of it here. In researching salinity sensitivity in plants, I was encouraged to see that blackberry is very sensitive. So far in the plants I've sprayed, this seems to be true! In only a few hours, the leaves are wilting. The test of course will be if it gets to the root ball and finishes it off for good.
9/10 10:56 am
12:56 am
9/11
I ran out of the Hain Sea Salt which I had got at Grocery Outlet for $0.50 per pound a few months ago. Decided to try 40 lb bag of Diamond Crystal Solar Naturals salt which I picked up at the local grocery for $8.
The salt crystals are course, not fine, like the Hain was and consequently don’t dissolve as quickly. Lots of stirring needed. After spraying some blackberry, the results don’t seem to be as good as they were with the Hain. I figure the salinity wasn’t as high, so now I’m grinding up the salt into a fine powder using my coffee to see if that makes a difference.
From what I’ve read online about sea water salinity and salt absorption, sea water is some 35 grams of salt per liter whereas the maximum salt saturation level in water is nearly 10x that at 357 grams of salt per liter. I’m guessing that’s probably where the first batch using the Hain was at, not so sure about the Diamond Crystal. Will know more later today, when I hit the blackberry using the salt powder water.
Seawater has a salinity of roughly 35,000 ppm, equivalent to 35 grams of salt per one liter (or kilogram) of water. The saturation level is dependent on the temperature of the water. At 20 °C one liter of water can dissolve about 357 grams of salt, a concentration of 26.3%.
9/14 10:36 am
Salt water is doing the trick! Everything I spray it on quickly begins to wilt and start to die.