Re: Revisiting vinegar for weed control

> << live in an ag area none was to be found in Farm/Feed stores.Did find some
>  in a chemical supply biz.for a (minimum)55 gal drum $370. some odd >>
> 
> Chemically formulated acetic acid and vinegar are not the same thing.  The 
> base of these two have different chemical properties. 

Hi Claire,

   At the risk of sounding confrontational (which I'm not, but you can't
   tell since this is email), do you have any sources that talk about this?

   Everything that I've found so far in literature and on various chemistry
   Web sites says that vinegar is essentially acetic acid mixed with water.

   As I understand it, vinegar is created when sugars are fermented with
   yeast to convert the sugar to ethanol, which is then oxidized to form
   acetic acid when bacteria ingest the ethanol.

> If you want kill weeds in a path, boiling water will do the same thing 
> although it needs to be repeated over the summer a number of times.  It also 
> requires toting a lot of boiling water to the site.

   I agree that on a path boiling water would be equally effective, 
   although it doesn't discriminate against certain plants.  In the
   ARS study at

      http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2002/020515.htm

   they discovered that vinegar killed the weeds, but left corn crops 
   untouched.  

> There has been a good examination of this subject here with information from 
> all over the country.   Apparently all readers on this list.  A 55 gallon 
> drum of acetic acid is a hazardous waste chemical here in NY.

   That's for 100% concentrations, not the 20% available from feed stores?
   Here's a safety data sheet for 20% acetic acid concentrations:

      http://www.greensense.net/vinegarmsds.html

Chris

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