Student for LEAF Sydney shares something she learned over the summer!
In the Students for Leaf group I have been exposed to a variety of regenerative agriculture practices, one of them being how to clean gardening pruners and why it’s important! I learned it’s important to sterilize pruning tools since disease pathogens can be transferred from a diseased or damaged plant onto other healthy plants. Whenever there are any signs or symptoms of disease on a plant, solely washing and rinsing pruners isn’t sufficient to prevent disease from spreading. Instead, sterilizing pruning tools with a disinfectant such as bleach, isopropyl alcohol,
household cleaners or pine oil does the job; however, some require a certain amount of water to be mixed with it. At LEAF, I used a solution consisting of two tablespoons of bleach and some water! Overall, it’s recommended to keep pruning tools in a disinfectant solution for at least thirty minutes. To end my blog, here’s a joke I thought was funny. Why is bacteria so bad at math?... it multiplies by dividing :)