Re: Summer reading: The Garden of Evil

**Ron Whitehurst r*@rinconvitova.com**

Can someone explain to me what happens to the plants that have sopped up all
the toxins?

Mature plant cells are mostly vacuole - a bag that is sealed off from the
metabolically active cell guts. Plant membrane mechanisms actively pump toxic
stuff from the active sap into the garbage dump (vacuole). Some are better than
others and are selected for phytoremediation (thanks Bob Ewing for link). You
grind up a plant and it has a bunch of toxic minerals in it, but the live plant
segregates them so they dont interfere with its day to day functioning.

Advertizement:
We sell some microbes that are useful for bioremediation. One way of looking at
what we do is rehabilitate farm fields that have been poluted with toxic
pesticides. We have archea bacteria (Biozome) that eat petrochemicals
(pesticides), then some general decomposers and root stimulants (Rhizoboost). A
big part of getting off of toxic pesticides is restoring the life to the soil.
A teaspoon of healthy soil will have 25,000 different kinds of microbes.
(That's more than the number of bacteria that we have categorized.) Putting a
few bacteria and fungi into the soil that lay the foundation for a succession
of microbes will help a lot. Put them on with suitable food and they work even
better.

--
* * * * * * * * *

Ron Whitehurst
Marketing Manager

Rincon-Vitova Insectaries,
P.O. Box 1555, Ventura, CA  93002-1555
805-643-5407   800-248-2847 (BUGS)   fax 805-643-6267

e-mail:  bugnet@rinconvitova.com
web:  http://www.rinconvitova.com

Biological Solutions for Pest Management

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