Peroxide

From: Ted.Held at hstna.com on 2001.12.12 at 15:55:19(7891) The main problem with peroxide is that it is not specific in its action. It will oxidize whatever susceptible matter that it touches. That can be a fungus body, a bacterium, or plant tissue. The concentration we buy at retail here in the US is 3% active peroxide. It is probably useful as a disinfectant down to about 1%, but the effectiveness will decrease proportionally as it becomes more dilute. If you are targetting a pathogen, you run the risk of using up all the oxidizing power on extraneous organic material surrounding the target. Peroxide does have the advantage of decomposing into water. But I think for horticultural purposes, killing the target pathogen is the primary intent.

From: Alektra at aol.com on 2001.12.13 at 04:07:24(7898) I think Ted put the main advantage and disadvantage of hydrogen peroxide quite beautifully. Now I'm going to shock everybody with a very naive question. It's naive +More because I know nothing about aroid tubers (except how delicious taro is as poi and chips and chopped up in chicken stew)... Is there anything wrong with using a dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite for killing pathogens? After all, when doing home tissue culturing, you rinse the leaf pieces in it before you put them on the growth medium in the baby food jars, and it doesn't kill them. In fact, the sodium hypochlorite is necessary to prevent the leaf pieces from being overrun by microorganisms before the baby plants can grow. My naive thoughts are as follows: -Nonpoisonous -Compared to complex organics, less persistent -Not absorbed by tissues (the prize plant or our skin and lungs) -Breaks down into water and ordinary salt -Even cheaper than hydrogen peroxide -Does not oxidize living tissue -As for friendly microorganisms, they can repopulate the sanitized areas very rapidly by spreading from the healthy surface of a tuber, or from healthy dirt -Very low concentrations will kill germs -You don't have to wear a respirator or chase away the kids and pets. May I please get the thoughts of the better-informed about this? In a message dated 12/12/1 3:55:32 PM, Ted.Held@hstna.com writes: << If you are targetting a pathogen, you run the risk of using up all the oxidizing power on extraneous organic material surrounding the target. Peroxide does have the advantage of decomposing into water. But I think for horticultural purposes, killing the target pathogen is the primary intent. >>

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