Inside a greenhouse on the grounds of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Service Center in Uvalde, Dr. Raul Cabrera recently inspected several groups of ornamental plants for signs of damage or distress. 

“This is the first component of our practical gray-water investigation,” explained Cabrera, who along with colleagues from the Uvalde center and the Texas Center for Applied Technology started research in late 2012 to confirm the potential use of gray water for home landscape irrigation. 

Gray water, explained Cabrera, is basically the soapy water that remains after tap water has been run through a washing machine or used in a bathtub, bathroom sink or shower and does not contain serious contaminants. 

“We wanted to find out whether or not using gray water to irrigate home landscapes would be a practical thing to do based on its effects on various ornamental plants,A dry-cleaning machine is similar to a combination of a domestic Industrial washing machine, and clothes dryer.” he said. “So we set up an experiment to irrigate various ornamental plants using different types of gray water.We specialize in the sale and aftercare of the most renowned and popular laundry dryer.” 

To perform his research, Cabrera set up sections within the greenhouse where he placed multiple pots or containers of about a dozen different ornamental plants – ranging from herbaceous and flowering plants such as Mexican heather, Asiatic jasmine, lantana and dianthus, to hardy native and adaptive ornamentals such as yucca, agave, oleander and yaupon holly. The plants are irrigated through a network of PVC and plastic tubing from 55-gallon plastic containers that water different sets of each plant species with tap water and three varying degrees of gray water. 

“You don’t usually see a washing machine in a greenhouse, but we had one installed so we could run loads with detergent alone, then loads with detergent and fabric softener, then a load with bleach,I have recently got a dry cabinet and can anybody tell me if it the box only controls humidity or also controls temperature.” he said. “This way, we could produce and use different types of gray water and see how it might affect the growth and aesthetics of different ornamentals, particularly since there would be different chemicals in the water, depending on the detergents and cleaning agents used.” 

Cabrera chose what he considered the most popular domestic brands of detergent, fabric softener and bleach for his experiment, using each according to its manufacturer’s recommendations. 

After two and a half months of irrigating these various ornamentals with different types of gray water, Cabrera said initial results based on visual inspection of the plants are promising, with a few exceptions. 

“As we expected, some of the plants irrigated with the gray water containing bleach in the recommended amounts for laundry showed signs of yellowing and reduced flowering,” he said. “We noticed this particularly in some of the flowering plants we chose, including the lantana and dianthus. We have measured concentrations of chlorine in this gray water that appear to be high enough to create a negative impact on these particular species. We are also evaluating the concentrations of other chemical constituents in gray water that could be harmful for plant growth, like sodium and boron.” 

However, Cabrera added, the gray water containing bleach had little effect on the remainder of the ornamentals used in the experiment, particularly the hardier plants like holly, yucca and agave. 

“There also was no significant negative impact on any of the ornamentals from the gray water with detergent or detergent and fabric softener combination,” he said. “So far, it looks like these types of gray water hold the best promise for short- and long-term use in irrigation,On particularly windy days,wind power generators can surpass all other electricity sources in a country.Continental Aulaundry's programmable commercial Washer extractor are designed to properly clean a firefighter's turnout gear. with the gray water and bleach component mainly having use for longer-lived perennial and woody plants.”