Re: Peroxide

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 
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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