OK to use ammonia on edible plants.

 We use ammonia solution to kill slugs on plants but have been avoiding
vegatables because we don't know if it is safe on edible plants.

Is it?

 

Why don't you just use "Draino"? Both will give you hydroxide which is
easy enough to wash off, if your plant should happen to survive.

A better choice would be a snail and slug bait whose active ingredient is
iron phosphate (technically that should be ferric phosphate). It is sold
as Sluggo, and Home Despot has a in house brand that is a little cheaper.
Iron phosphate will kill snails and slugs, but is safe for humans and
pets (unless your pet is a snail or slug ;O)
--
- Billy
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of
its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953
<http://wn.com/black_panther_party>

 Billy wrote:

I think you will find that Draino contains sodium hydroxide which is a very
strong alkali that will harm you, your plants and your soil, as will the
sodium ions in it.  Ammonia solution is much less toxic and less permanent
as the ammonia gas will fairly soon disperse leaving water.  Ammonia gas is
actually used as a fertiliser applied directly to the soil.  I am not
recommending it for that in this case but saying that to point out it is
relatively harmless.


Agreed.

David

 

NH3 + H2O <---> NH4(+) + OH(-)[also called the hydroxide ion]
as in sodium hydroxide (NaOH) + H2O ---> Na(+) + OH(-) + H2O
Strength is only a matter of concentration.

Most ammonia gas escapes into the atmosphere, otherwise it easily runs
off in aqueous solution. Very little os mineralized into the soil for
use by the plants, which here is mostly GMO dent corn plants.

Got that chook confined yet?


"The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow." - Anon

2nd best may be a politician. Most seem to come full of manure.
--
- Billy
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of
its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953
<http://wn.com/black_panther_party>

 Billy wrote:

Not entirely, it also depends on the degree of dissociation of the ions,
this is the technical difference between strong bases and weak bases, not
the concentration of solute.   Sodium hydroxide is a strong base and
ammonium hydroxide is a weak one.  But why are we going on about this when
nobody is thinking of using draino?



True but I was not recommending it for that purpose was I (or at all).


Other work has dragged me away from completing chook yards.  Like so many
things - it's on the list.

David