There are a lot of innovative ways to cure and prevent illnesses in the garden that no sane gardener would try at home. Even though treating plants with hot water seems like one of those bizarre home cures, when done correctly, it may be highly beneficial.
Hot Water and Plant Growth
You’ve certainly heard a lot of strange home cures for bugs and plant illnesses (I know I have! ), but pouring hot water on plants is an efficient way to kill some pests and pathogens. Unlike certain pesticides or home cures, hot water baths for plants may be fairly harmless for the plant, the environment, and the gardener, as long as the water is applied carefully.
Before we get into all of this nonsense, it’s crucial to understand how hot water affects plant development. There are no two ways about it: adding too hot water to plants will destroy them. The same boiling water that cooks your carrots in the kitchen will likewise cook your carrots in the garden, and transferring them outside does nothing to change that.
Keeping this in mind, using boiling water to kill and manage weeds is a viable option.
How to Heat Treat with Water
Heat treatment of plants has long been used to combat aphids, scale, mealybugs, and mites, among other soil-borne pests. Many bacterial and fungal diseases are also killed when seeds are placed in water heated to the same temperatures as pesticides. For seed disinfection, the ideal temperature is at 120 degrees F (48 degrees C), or 122 degrees F (50 degrees C).
You can’t just throw hot water on plants at random any longer. Because many plants cannot handle hot water on their leaves or above-ground parts, administer the water only to the root zone. In the event of insect pests, it’s typically best to submerge the entire pot in another pot of water heated to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) and hold it there for 5 to 20 minutes, or until your probe thermometer reads 115 degrees Fahrenheit on the inside of the root ball (46 C.).
Watering with hot water will not hurt your plant as long as you don’t burn the roots and protect the leaves and top from the heat. In fact, watering with hot water is preferable to watering with very cold water. In general, use temperature in room forwater to avoid scorching your plant and its fragile tissues.