Ths thread has wondered off topic a bit (not a problem, but.. ): I was originally proposing an ORDER SHARE for Chinosol to reduce postage costs from Kakteen-Haage, and have edited this post just so we do not lose sight of this cost-saving idea!
Dear Folks,
I am about to order some more Chinosol (8-hydroxyquinoline sulphate) from Kakteen-Haage in Germany.
It costs 12.9 Euro / 80g there, which seems about par for the course? Anyone able to get it cheaper from elsewhere?
I seem to recall that their basic postal charge per shipment to UK was very high last time (more than the Chinosol!), so if anyone else in the UK wants some Chinosol too, shall we put in a pooled order?
Please PM me to say that you would like an 80g bottle, and I can tot up the total after a few weeks?
This is meant to make it cheaper for all of us, and I will not be making any money from it!
Yours, Euan
Last edited by LithopsRule on Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Euan Arnott (Cheshire, UK)
Novice grower renewing his teenage enthusiasm. Rapidly burgeoning Lithops, Lophophora, and Ferocactus populations, plus a few old stalwarts which have acompanied me through the years!
I've been told that its better to avoid chinosol, especially for seeds treatment. But opinions are different. I'm using Captan and I havent noticed any bad side effects. Unfortunately, I could bet its forbidden to send it to EU
I often use it on seeds and seedlings, and I have not seen any negative effects. It has stopped, and probably also prevented, mold outbreaks, so I will continue to use it.
Last edited by anders on Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have found Chinosol to be very useful to me as an extra preventative measure against damping off.
One certainly does NOT need it in most cases, and many people do perfectly well with just soil sterilisation by heat, which is cheap and environmentally-friendly!
One SHOULD be aware that Chinosol it is sometimes claimed to be inhibitory of germination, or to cause genetic abnormalities in some seeds. The reason is presumably that the quinoline ring is a DNA intercalator, leading to the same sorts of mutagenicity see with ethidium bromide, etc.
This also means that one should be careful using Chinosol from a human health perspective: avoid any powder inhalation, skin-contact with solutions, etc.
From an environmental perspective, amount of Chinosol discarded down the drain should be minimized. A good way to do this is to recycle any surplus solution back into more seedling pots (filtering to remove soil if necessary using a paper coffee filter) so that there is no excess liquid solution to throw away after planting. This is also cheaper, of course, since there is no wastage of expensive chemical.
The simplest test of effect on sowing is to perform two identical sowings of 100 seeds, one with Chinosol and one without.
In my limited experience, this has not shown any inhibition of germination or visible genetic defects (i.e. higher rate of odd-looking plans!) in Lithops or any of the particular cactus species I have tried out (e.g. Lophophora, Stenocactus, Ferocactus, Copiapoa, Matucana).
I was, for example, wary of using it on my Bursera seeds until Tina encouraged me not to be fearful, and the result has been a much higher rate of seedling survival!
I have noticed that the delicate Boswellia sacra did not seem to like a pre-soak in Chinosol on the one occassion I tried it, but this may simply be because the solution (0.5 g/L) is pH 4.0: it is quite tedious and expensive to truly get to the bottom of apparent effects since one needs to perform a statistically-significant trial. This is one of the reasons for the proliferation of contradictor anectodes: I could have stated boldly that "Chinosol inhibits germination of B.sacra", but I do not actually have enough data to make this statement, since I did not perform identical parallel trials!
Anyway, anyone else want me to order some to save them postage costs?
Euan Arnott (Cheshire, UK)
Novice grower renewing his teenage enthusiasm. Rapidly burgeoning Lithops, Lophophora, and Ferocactus populations, plus a few old stalwarts which have acompanied me through the years!
Can't talk for Chinosol, but certainly Cheshunt compound led to decreased germination, and higher death rate of young seedlings earlier in their life as compared to just sterilising the compost- doing this has meant I've not had damping off problems in years and haven't had to worry about paying for and importing harder to acquire chemicals!
I agree IanW, Cheshunt compound is definitely NOT on my list, but Chinosol is. I sow between 80 and 130 species each year, and always use a dilute solution of chinosol in the first soak before bagging the pots up. I can only go by results, which suggest that it doesn't make any discernable difference to germination, nor do I find any mutated seedlings. The most important factor in germination is seed quality, and everything else fades into insignificance.
I have had 100%, or close to, germination (with Chinosol) on many seed packets, but also a lot less on others. This seems ot vary with teh source of the seed, and so I can't see why Chinosol might have a differential effect.
I don't have the post germination problems that I used to, other than as a result of my own silly mistakes like having the propgator set too high, or too cold.
Haage says Chinosol, Koehres says Captan.... I guess we should follow seed supplier's recommendations. Or give something else a try and see what happens
Fact is, when I was growing cacti professionaly, I didn't use any kind of fungicide. I have cooked the soil mixture and washed glass boxes (propagators) with 99% alcohol. Never lost seedlings because of fungi. I had Fusarium moniliforme show up few times (my guess was that seeds were not treated well), but it was enough to open the box for few hours. Pulling most of it out with tweezers helped too.
Nowadays, when I sow for 'fun', i.e. small amounts... welllll I just feel like lazy to cook small amount so I add captan. I will try chinosol too if I ever find it here
I think any kind of fungicidal pretreatment of seed has the potential to affect germination, but a fungus attack later can sometimes kill off more seedlings than any extra seedlings that germinated through not using one. So as with all chemicals and drugs it is a question as to whether the side effects outweigh their beneficial effects.
DaveW
Nottingham Branch BCSS. Joined the then NCSS in 1961, Membership number 11944. Cactus only collection.
Have you used this before Euan? It does not appear to have the registered trademark after the name chinosol. The tablets I use have the registered trade mark, so I wonder if this is the same? The tablets are made by Dermapharm in Germany. I have written to ask where I can buy them but have not had a reply yet.
Allan
Orkney
conophytums,Lithops,Sempervivum, Tylecodons, small cacti. and Haworthias
): I was originally proposing an ORDER SHARE for Chinosol to reduce postage costs from Kakteen-Haage, and have edited this post just so we do not lose sight of this cost-saving idea!
