permaculture

[Bob Howard <rmhoward@omninet.net.au>]

>

Rick Valley wrote:
[snip]

> The interesting thing about these suburban soils is that one of the common
> and more problematic contaminants is the DDT family, since gardeners often
> got pretty loose with the stuff- "more is better" Testing for those is more
> expensive and I don't yet have a good handle on how to deal with them,
> beyond "get fungi and bacteria to work and don't eat off that ground
> until???"
>

Couple of clues -
White rot fungi - normally found in forest wood is reckoned to be the best way
to break down Organo-chlorines.  Sorry no quantitative experiments known - 
grow
trees or piles of rotting wood (depends on water etc.)

As to cheap measurement there was a paper published from India in the early
1980's (search Envirinmental and Pollution Abstracts if your near a Uni
library). The technique was to use the chlorine detecting chemical from pool
kits (ozoline???). They published neat fingerprints of potatoes on paper 
showing
extra chlorine being detected on blotting paper turning purple. Cheap and 
dirty
but it works - won't tell you whether it's DDT or PCP or whatever but will
certainly give you a good argument for spending real money on a lab test.

Bob Howard



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