Yeah if you don't have a good reason to be confident that the place you're collecting from is pesticide-free, it's definitely a risk. I only collect from parks where I know they don't use pesticides, and I don't collect from anyplace right next to a roadway, but if you're lucky enough to have a decent forest nearby it can be quite safe.
I dont know this to be true, but I've read that pestisides get into the deepest of forests, as long as things are baked in the oven, they should be sterile. Pet stores aren't the best place to get pets, but the products there are safe, I think...
Yes, pesticides can get into forests, but typically that is from streams and rivers that are running through agricultural lands before getting to the forest. Avoid those as well and you will be fine.
No. Over that period of time ordinary pesticides would have lost potency. However, there is a spray used to control oak leaf gall (targets mites) that is a long duration plasticized toxin intended to continue killing for an entire year with one spraying. Whether that spray was used and if so is it still a hazard is anybodies guess but is it really worth taking the chance?.It is from a park where the flora is often carefully cared for and pest control is much more likely.
Those should work! As long as you can get into any details that would work fine
That's the stuff. Designed to kill mites which can take many generations of them to seriously dent their populations. So they formulated these long term latent insecticides.
This is why alcohol is the most common weapon of choice. Evaporates and is gone without residues.
More often than not it's the opposite. Parents commonly demand pest free environments for their kids without thinking of the consequences. This mentality is the cause of most poisonings of children in homes. It never occurs to the adult anything toxic is a ticking time bomb, both in storage and in use.
I'm confused about this recommendation - when sterilizing stuff in the lab, we use 70% ethanol, because if the concentration of ethanol is too much higher, many bacteria can survive by condensing their outer coat proteins and then rehydrating later, whereas if you use ethanol with ~25%-35% water in it, those bacteria die. Plus higher concentrations evaporate much faster, meaning they're in contact with the bacteria for less time, again increasing bacterial survival. So what am I missing?
Serious paradox isn't it? Alcohol needs to be 70% concentration to kill the majority of organisms. But certain organisms can convert high concentrations of alcohol into an acid giving them an ideal environment.
I suppose since we only work with less dangerous pathogens (lvl 2) those other contexts aren’t relevant to us. Cool info!
I'm wisely leaving targeting specific pathogens to you brainiacs in those funny smelling departments with the huge counter spaces.
Some places don't. Last time they tried to spray at Berkeley Park, (Calif, bay area), they had a full scale riot on their hands.