Using Collodial Silver on Indoor Herbs
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Bob Richer
Posted on: April 29, 2000

I am interested in knowing if I can grow a large assortment of herbs indoors for medicinal purposes. In the info section in Richters it states the pests involved that can or may affect the growth of the plant. Can colloidal silver eliminate this at all, or affect the growth to a greater or lessor extent. We presently grow indoor wheatgrass, buckwheat, sunflour and alfalfa sprouts with very little problem so far. The moss in the wheatgrass is almost down to nil due to the colloidal silver and other factors involved.

Growing sprouts is very different from growing plants to a more mature state. It is much easier to grow sprouts indoors because the sprouts are not allowed to reach much beyond the stage of three or four sets of leaves. To get this far, seedlings do not require much light or much fertilizer – water and a little light is all that is really necessary.

It is true that sprouts can occasionally have problems with fungal diseases because they are typically grown in very crowded conditions. But fungal problems are much less a concern with herbs grown in pots. Indoors, the number one concern is the abundance of light. Control of pests and diseases are concerns too, but nothing grows without adequate light, and we find that most people do not provide enough light for indoor herbs. For more information on growing herbs indoors and the lighting options available, please go to the Magazine Rack section of the Richters website.

We have not tried colloidal silver as a control for pests and diseases. We have no information on whether it works. In the commercial horticulture literature we have not noticed any discussion of this agent, so we cannot say one way or another whether it really works.

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