View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Old 01-09-2006, 03:24 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
William L. Rose William L. Rose is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 42
Default Do plants absorb toxins from the soil?

Came in late on this but for some reason you think that Nerium oleander
toxins (organic compounds) have migrated to you soil and that it
persists there (like poly-chlorinate biphenyls) long enough to be picked
up by plants and actively transported across cell membranes. The phloem,
as you must know, basically is the water pipe for plants. Other than
water, larger molecules (nutrients) have to be selected.

The real test would be to grow some veggies with oleander and some
without. Gas chromatography would let you see the differences and column
chromatography would separate them out for you to characterize.

Listings that I've read refer to ingestion of oleander for toxic effects
in mammals, birds, reptiles. As long as you don't eat Monarch butterfly
there shouldn't be much of a problem.

Anecdotally, I grow tomatoes and cucumbers around foxglove and I've
never got so much as a buzz :-(

- Bill


In article ,
"Jon ChicKen$ M@ster" wrote:

Powerless Agronomist wrote:

The plants are absorbing toxins - plain sample are pesticides which remain
in plants and finish in our body, and then start gambling with our health,
some win many lose..


Yes I know, but pesticides enter into the plants because of phloem
allows some of them (some active matters) to move through its vessels
(to be selectively translocated through its vessels), others cannot be
translocateed and stop on the plant surface and/or in the parenchymatic
cells beside it.

I need to know if (every, or some) plant phloem allows Nerium oleander
toxin to be translocated through its vessels as easily as some
pesticides, so that this toxin could be stored in its edible tissues and
damage our health.
Thanks, bye,
Jon