Pakistan Gardening Forum

Fungus/damping off has irked me to limits this summer trying to grow seeds. Compost purchased from market, low watering/misting,cinnamon nothing has worked for me. Came across this solution of making soil sterile in home through microwave. Hopefully it should work. Any views?

http://www.ehow.com/info_8042584_can-so ... ungus.html

It will work.. theoretically..

farhan137 wrote:Fungus/damping off has irked me to limits this summer trying to grow seeds. Compost purchased from market, low watering/misting,cinnamon nothing has worked for me. Came across this solution of making soil sterile in home through microwave. Hopefully it should work. Any views?

http://www.ehow.com/info_8042584_can-so ... ungus.html

You can try but it is going create bad odour in the microwave. Volatile organic matter would not smell nice. My concern with microwave is the radiation wouldn't heat uniformly as the absorption of microwaves is dependent on water content of the material being heat. As a rule of thumb, I typically trust (but with a critical eye) websites that have *.edu in the address because come from US universities for scientific content.

http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/4dmg/Soil/sterile.htm

First try, oven method rather than microwave with recommended temperatures.

Regards,

Farooq

I used to use pressure cooker.