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Irrigation and Agricultural Applications
There are many groundwater sources in or near principal agricultural areas, and those groundwaters are quite diverse indeed in terms of their chemical composition. Many of these groundwater sources have high TDS content, primarily salt or alkalinity. Many of these groundwater sources have high content of a pernicious ion such as selenium or arsenic and are therefore unusable for animal and/or plant consumption. Many of these groundwater sources have TDS or pernicious ions substantially above the drinking or agricultural water standard, which in the United States is typically 250 ppm chloride and the same order of magnitude for other dissolved ions for drinking water and 500 ppm chloride for agricultural use. It is not necessary to reduce water for irrigation and agricultural application to quite as low a level as drinking water in many venues, but this is not universally true. For example, in Saskatchewan the irrigation standard is lower than the drinking water standard for sodium (Na). This is because the clay soils in Saskatchewan turn to "hard pan" when saturated with small amounts of Na. Thus to render the land continuously arable at an economically competitive tilling cost, the Na content must be reduced to as near to zero as possible. Reticle is ideally suited because it is nondiscriminatory; it removes every ion in the water. This means that Reticle Carbon CDI is actually infinitely flexible. Reticle Carbon can completely purify water, allowing it to be blended with impure waters with the blend remaining the threshold, or it can be used directly.
Organic content in irrigation and agricultural waters may or may not be a problem. Pernicious compounds such as textile or newsprint dyes, fertilizers, or pesticide residues might have to be mineralized or prefiltered to be removed. Reticle Carbon CDI in combination with an organic mineralization or filtration technology combined to solve the problem. Other compounds such as human or animal waste that might be present in agricultural water often do not erode the utility of that water. Dissolved inorganic ions may or may not be a problem in irrigation or agricultural uses depending on what they are. Reticle Carbon is customizable to the problem, amenable to use in combination with an upstream filtration or mineralization process or alone.
Biological agents (e.g., microorganisms) are themselves intrinsically "charged particles" and are therefore directly removed by Reticle Carbon CDI. Microorganisms are often problems in remote, decentralized, localized water purification systems. Many disease problems emanate from poorly conceived or poorly maintained localized water systems that become contaminated and harm people or animals in agricultural uses. People often "pour the chlorine" to such systems, but that is not a particularly satisfactory solution. Chlorine is dangerous, poisonous, and expensive. It is not desirable to have highly decentralized chlorination systems spread across the countryside. It is more desirable to have decentralized Reticle Carbon systems.
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