Why Air is Necessary in our Water!
One reason is that aerating water (adding dissolved Oxygen) is a way of treating stagnant water and killing anaerobic bacteria - organisms that live in the absence of oxygen, such as iron bacteria. These are fairly common in bores and wells, clog up and destroy traditional pumps and stain gardens and equipment that brown colour we see in many places that irrigate with bore/well water.
Another reason is Plants!
Plants depend on a number of things for optimum growth. Some are obvious – like sunshine (or appropriate artificial light), appropriate nutrients in the soil, air and of course water.
Most people think about fertilizer, sunshine, air and water, but hardly anyone knows about the importance of dissolved Oxygen IN the water.
Sadly most of our water supplies are depleted of oxygen.
Apart from various dissolved compounds and chemicals, dissolved oxygen makes a significant difference to water. You can do your own research to get into more details, but here is an outline about the problem and the simple solution:
Bore/well water, as well as most other water supplies are usually depleted of dissolved oxygen. That is one of the reasons iron bacteria can flourish in bores/wells, among other anaerobic bacteria and they are not good for us, for plants or the equipment to get the water to up from below ground.
Studies have shown, that water poor in DO (dissolved Oxygen) will take away oxygen from plants through the root system as well as deplete soil oxygen, both of which are needed for a healthy plant and a healthy soil bacterial flora. Water does this in order to return to a balanced oxygen state.
Insufficient water DO can lead to other problems as well. For instance Nematodes prefer oxygen poor soils and irrigating plants with water poor in DO will allow them to come near the surface where they can easily damage plant roots.
Past research has shown that reducing the concentration of DO in the root zone of plants will compromise the plants’ ability to absorb nitrate and water. Research has also demonstrated that roots are injured by O2 deficiency and that plant metabolism changes during acclimation to low concentrations of O2.
Oxygen deprivation in plants is called internal anoxia and one of its results is sucrose degradation whereby the plant goes into an energy-conserving pathway to compensate for the lack of oxygen. So basically the lack of soil DO is a problem that keeps compounding the longer it lasts.
There are number of ways to fix this, but you may or may not know - that if using bore/well water – the Brumby Pump aerates your water significantly via its vortex action adding oxygen to the water. This action helps bring the water back to life.
The Brumby Pump is one simple, easy to install, economic solution that not only pumps water out of your bore/well, but also deals with a number of issues in one simple action.
