Chemicals

[qdavid]

I guess I'm just a paranoid sumbitch but one of the dumbass theories I've always held onto was that plants will "filter out" as they grow resulting in a pure form except for chemicals that have been put on their leaves, like insecticides, etc. But really I'm not so sure. The only way to really tell that filtering thing is if some chemical, alien to the plants natural environment, is introduced while it's growing, then found in the harvested product. Does anyone know if any experiment like that has ever been done? I just watched the noon news about people gettin Alzheimers and Parkinsons from some environmental crap they were exposed to years ago. I'm wondering about the nutes we use, especially in veg. Everybody wants a healthy yield but I'm sure most would take less if they were assured they wouldn't be ingesting chemicals from nutes.

[stinkyattic]

Plants are widely used to filter environmental toxins.
For example, certain bog plants are planted in stormwater settling basins to treat runoff.
Commercial fertilizers are different from what you're thinking of, although plants ARE used to filter out fertilizer and manure runoff from agricultural land before it gets to a water supply so there is no algae bloom, and the need for flitration is reduced.
If you are still worried, the 2 big things to do are:
Go organic
FLUSH before harvest.

[stinkyattic]

No, plants will filter out plenty of other chemicals.
But indoor plants aren't going to be exposed to the ones you have to worry about, and if they are, you need to move out of your house anyway because you have a bigger problem than contaminated houseplants! :D

[qdavid]

Yes, understand about filtering outor leeching like you describe, but I would imagine any chemicals like added nutes mostly or even those used by the plant that were already in the soil would till reside in the plant even after flushing. And since you would be ingesting that plant those chemicals would be ingested by you. Therefore to have a truly organic grow a person would have to start with a totally chemical free soil, and only fertilize organically, yet still flush.

[stinkyattic]

I think you're missing the point of fertilizer.
Chemical or not, fertilizer contains nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium.
The plant takes those in and combines them in different ways into organic molecules and salts that are part of the plant. For example, P is a MAJOR part of DNA and RNA. All living cells contain genetic material, and there's where your P goes when you fertilize.
The only difference between chemical and organic ferts is the form the N, P, and K take. For example, fertilize with manure, and the DNA from the plant the cow ate, ruminated, and shat out is partially broken down but still present, and needs soil bacteria to break it down further into a form of P that the plant can absorb through its roots.
Now unless your fetilizer contains like PCBs or something, stop stressin.