Cleaning and/or sterilizing trays etc.

[dice]

quaternary ammonium compounds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium
(No mention of formaldehyde, but some people have allergic
reactions to these compounds in themselves. They are in all
kinds of household products, like antimicrobial hand soap, etc.)

[b54red]

If you are using a 10% bleach and water mix just let it dry. No need to rinse because in that mild a solution little will remain to cause any problems as it oxidizes so fast.

I am not sure the bleaching of the trays does much good. I get damping off occasionally whether I clean with bleach or not. I always use new seed starting mix so I think I'm either getting it from the water or the air.

[clkeiper]

Dice, You are correct. The reaction is there even if it is only "contaminated" with the compound. Quaternary and aldehyde compounds are a red flag for me. There are no liquid soaps or pretty much liquid products at the store to purchase with out this ingredient, which is used as the preservative. I have gotten a good education on this in the past few years. some of the expensive lotions that are such "nice" skin and/or aging compounds are loaded with aldehydes.ewww yuck!

[tjg911]

i bleach my containers because i often have them in the garden on the ground when taking plants from them to be planted into the garden soil. my assumption is i am preventing contamination from the garden soil on those containers.

carolyn and others, did you do that and still did not bleach containers? i'd be more than happy to stop if unnecessary.

tom

[clkeiper]

I bleach because I was taught to do so in school and at work (greenhouses are notorious for recycling aka being cheap) to avoid contamination from one crop to the next. I just do it. Molds, bacterias and fungus are hard on the new crops. So I do it as a preventative measure. But only on used containers. I have skipped on flats that didn't have crud on them, though.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tjg911

i bleach my containers because i often have them in the garden on the ground when taking plants from them to be planted into the garden soil. my assumption is i am preventing contamination from the garden soil on those containers.

carolyn and others, did you do that and still did not bleach containers? i'd be more than happy to stop if unnecessary.

tom

Tom, I just wrote you a long post, my front door opened and startled me but it was just Phil my wonderful UPS man and I hit a wrong key and deleted the post.

I'll be back, trust me on that b'c your soil in CT is no different than mine here in upstate NY with regard to soil borne systemic pathogens.

Bye! Now have to do BILLS.

[LuvsToPlant]

Bacterial speck, spot and canker are three good reasons why to disenfect.

Soaking in 1 part bleach and 9 parts water is a wonderful solution...
soak in a bucket...no need to rinse
Important!...remove as much soil as possible.

For the organic gardener... Green Shield or Oxi Date are an alternative.

Prevention is the best medicine!

[bobberman]

I never clean my styrofoam boxes. I leave them out in the freezing cold all winter so that must kill everything! Compost it seems to me would have all kinds of fungus in it but it seems not to hurt. Maybe you are killing good stuff also! If I was using hydroponics I would consider the bleach!

[LuvsToPlant]

oh dear bobberman...
I'm afraid that thinking that the freezing cold will kill everything is often a big mistake.
Fall clean up is very important...and part of plant disease management.
Burning of dead plant material and disenfecting tools and equipment is a part of it.

I bet if you contact or google...in your own state of PA
The College of Agriculture Sciences ...they could give you alot of info why you should.

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Tom, I just wrote you a long post, my front door opened and startled me but it was just Phil my wonderful UPS man and I hit a wrong key and deleted the post.

I'll be back, trust me on that b'c your soil in CT is no different than mine here in upstate NY with regard to soil borne systemic pathogens.

Bye! Now have to do BILLS.

carolyn,

you get those bills paid yet? waiting to hear your comments!

tom

[kurt]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Fact is that I have never used bleach on my seed pans or even the plastic 4-pak inserts that I use when I transplant from the seed pans to standard nursery trays, and they never were treated with anything either.

I don't see how and diseases would cling to the sides and bottoms of seed trays, pots or whatever. If there is damping off in the seed trays, maybe, but otherwise I just can't envision it. Use a porper mix for seed starting and you aren't going to see damping off and mixes are not contaminated with systemic diseases and foliage diseases are transmitted via air and in raindrops or with irrigation.

And I used to raise about 500-700 plants each season with no problems whatsoever.

I just banged the mix out of the seed trays on some hard object to get rid of any clinging mix and did the same with the inserts but more gently b'c they were more fragile and I did use them for several years before they started to crack.

My commercial friend Charlie used new inserts every year and his seed sowing system was a mechanical one that none of us would have.

So while I don't see the necessity for using bleach as several of you above have said, I made my decision based on the fact that I never had any diseases, so no carryover problems, but perhaps some of you have had that problem.

And Charlie raised ALL of his many thousands of tomato plants in greenhouses and he didn't have any problems either.

So just a different perspective from me.

But I would like to know which specific tomato diseases some of you think you're preventing with bleach treatment of seed starting pans and pots and inserts? Just curious.

When I first got into the mater growing hobby I was having a problem with gray mold and powdery mildew on plants that I found out came from that god awful Miracle grow seed starting and potting soils.At that time we were getting real heavy rains and the humidity was running at 80-90 for weeks at a time.The second year was dry but the mols and fungus came back.So on the third year I got some Physan(mentioned in another post) and nuked all the pots ,seed starting trays,shovels wheel barrows, scissors stakes and all the containers,you name it I nuked it.Never had a problem since.My conclusion is if you get something(desease.fungus,mold)it will morph again when conditions are ripe.So for a precausion I nuke every year.I live here in extreme South Dade County Florida and humidity is a major problem.Also I got away from Miracle Grow(Scotts) and use only Pro Mix soils which stays drier and dos not turn to mud and has excellent drainage..

[LuvsToPlant]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Fact is that I have never used bleach on my seed pans or even the plastic 4-pak inserts that I use when I transplant from the seed pans to standard nursery trays, and they never were treated with anything either.

I don't see how and diseases would cling to the sides and bottoms of seed trays, pots or whatever. If there is damping off in the seed trays, maybe, but otherwise I just can't envision it. Use a porper mix for seed starting and you aren't going to see damping off and mixes are not contaminated with systemic diseases and foliage diseases are transmitted via air and in raindrops or with irrigation.

And I used to raise about 500-700 plants each season with no problems whatsoever.

I just banged the mix out of the seed trays on some hard object to get rid of any clinging mix and did the same with the inserts but more gently b'c they were more fragile and I did use them for several years before they started to crack.

My commercial friend Charlie used new inserts every year and his seed sowing system was a mechanical one that none of us would have.

So while I don't see the necessity for using bleach as several of you above have said, I made my decision based on the fact that I never had any diseases, so no carryover problems, but perhaps some of you have had that problem.

And Charlie raised ALL of his many thousands of tomato plants in greenhouses and he didn't have any problems either.

So just a different perspective from me.

But I would like to know which specific tomato diseases some of you think you're preventing with bleach treatment of seed starting pans and pots and inserts? Just curious.

Is this the post your looking for
...the one you may have thought you deleted?
HoPe I helped....if not please excuse.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by LuvsToPlant

Is this the post your looking for
...the one you may have thought you deleted?
HoPe I helped....if not please excuse.

No, the one I deleted was in answer specifically to Tom in CT and I guess I should answer that one again.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tjg911

i bleach my containers because i often have them in the garden on the ground when taking plants from them to be planted into the garden soil. my assumption is i am preventing contamination from the garden soil on those containers.

carolyn and others, did you do that and still did not bleach containers? i'd be more than happy to stop if unnecessary.

tom

Tom, I'll try again.

Tom, you don't live that far from me and in our area there are few to no systemic soilborne diseases so I don't think you're preventing contamination with soil borne pathogens.

The exception would be if your plants in a previous year(s) did have some foliage diseases and the spores and/or bacteria fell to the soil and you didn't turn the soil over. The common foliage pathogens can last in soil up to about three years and if you didn't turn over the soil deeply then you could get what[s called splashback infection starting with the lower leaves.

But since the majority of foliage infections are via wind and rain, preventing splashback infection does nothing to prevent the NEW possible infections.

If you want to continue using bleach then fine, but personally I can't find a good rationale for it where we live in terms of disease since we have just a bit of Fusarium, usually from plants imported from the south and sometimes a bit or random Verticillium and same for Bacterial Canker, no Root Knot nematodes, etc.

But your choice on what you want to do and if you have continual fungal foliage infections consider using a good anti-fungal such as Daconil and if bacterial foliage infections with Bacterial Speck or Spot, or mixed infections, consider using a copper containing product such as Kocide for example,

I'm one who has just not been that impressed with the feedback I've seen with Serenade and Messenger and similar products such as Actinovate.I do know that some have been very impreesed, though/

One season there can be few to no foliage infections, the next year they can be a major problem, so unless a specific product is used in a year when there are major foliage infection problems and CONTROL plants grown at the same time I think it's almost impossible to state what the efficacy of a product really is/

Lots of choices and it's up to you to know what infections your plants have had in the past so as to plan what might help in the future..

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Tom, I'll try again.

Tom, you don't live that far from me and in our area there are few to no systemic soilborne diseases so I don't think you're preventing contamination with soil borne pathogens.

The exception would be if your plants in a previous year(s) did have some foliage diseases and the spores and/or bacteria fell to the soil and you didn't turn the soil over. The common foliage pathogens can last in soil up to about three years and if you didn't turn over the soil deeply then you could get what[s called splashback infection starting with the lower leaves.

But since the majority of foliage infections are via wind and rain, preventing splashback infection does nothing to prevent the NEW possible infections.

If you want to continue using bleach then fine, but personally I can't find a good rationale for it where we live in terms of disease since we have just a bit of Fusarium, usually from plants imported from the south and sometimes a bit or random Verticillium and same for Bacterial Canker, no Root Knot nematodes, etc.

But your choice on what you want to do and if you have continual fungal foliage infections consider using a good anti-fungal such as Daconil and if bacterial foliage infections with Bacterial Speck or Spot, or mixed infections, consider using a copper containing product such as Kocide for example,

I'm one who has just not been that impressed with the feedback I've seen with Serenade and Messenger and similar products such as Actinovate.I do know that some have been very impreesed, though/

One season there can be few to no foliage infections, the next year they can be a major problem, so unless a specific product is used in a year when there are major foliage infection problems and CONTROL plants grown at the same time I think it's almost impossible to state what the efficacy of a product really is/

Lots of choices and it's up to you to know what infections your plants have had in the past so as to plan what might help in the future..

Edited to add something I forgot. All bacterial and viral pathogens that Iknow of to date have been found to reside in the endosperm of a seed. So any surface treatment such as fermentation, bleach, oxi-clean, for instance, have no ability to remove anything in the endosperm, which is inside the seed. If you look at Stokes or any of the commcial catalogs you'll see that they offer hot water treatment of seeds, mostly directed against endosperm bacterial pathogens. It isn't cheap and there's a loss of seed viability with such treatment. So the bleach you mention or others have mentioned have no activity against non surface endosperm pathogens and that includes the two most common bacterial foliage pathogens of Bacterial Speck and Spot.