Shmuel, In all the reading I've done, bleach (Sodium hypochlorite solution, Clorox is one trade name) is still the gold standard for disinfection. Cheap and common, it kills pretty much everything, with shorter exposure times required than for other agents. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28722950/ I prefer other things because chlorine is so corrosive to skin, nose, lungs, eyes, etc. also to most metals and even many plastics, which become brittle faster if regularly disinfected with bleach. I use quaternary ammonium compounds, e.g. 409 or Physan, to clean hummingbird feeders. The disinfection time is a little longer, but just a few minutes and worth it to me to avoid the bleach. Physan can also be used on cuttings or even as a soil drench to control damping off and other bacteria, fungi, and algae. I do use bleach when cleaning anything I use to prune or divide orchids as a precaution against orchid viruses. Even Physan will not reliably kill those, at least not without soaking longer than I'm willing to wait. Steve On 9/7/2023 11:22 AM, Shmuel Silinsky via pbs wrote: > I wonder. I used to soak aquarium plants in a potassium permanganate > solution to kill unwanted hitchhikers from snails to protistans. I wonder > if this would be effective for cuttings... What is the issue? Does Clorox > help against bacteria, virus, fungi? > Shmuel > Jerusalem Israel > Zone 9b > > On Thu, Aug 24, 2023, 6:10 PM Tim Eck via pbs < > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > >> I am going to take some cuttings for rooting and I would like to know what >> would be a good concentration of clorox to use to sterilize them without >> damaging them. >> Thanks >> Tim >> _______________________________________________ >> pbs mailing list >> pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net >> http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… >> Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> >> PBS Forum latest: >> https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbsforum/index.php/… >> > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > PBS Forum https://… _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> PBS Forum https://…