Chemistry refresher! Clorhexidine dilution
I've been researching remedies to keep Oomycota under control during the hot humid summer weather.
I came across an interesting study that showed high efficacy of chlorhexidine at a minimum of 100 mg/l. I have this Cattleya that I punctured while securing it into the pot (basically stabbed it with wire), and since it's a duplicate, I wanted to run a little experiment by using some drops of chlorhexidine on the wound before covering it with either a cinnamon poultice or some petrolatum.
I have a chlorhexidine 0.12% mouth wash. Understanding that 100 mg/L should be an approximate 0.01% solution I would like to dilute my mouth wash by about half to reach an approximate 0.06% concentration and then cross fingers that's low enough to not create toxicity issues.
My completely non-scientific assumption is that I would need to mix equal parts of chlorexidine with a solvent such as water to dilute it in half. However, I'm considering using isopropyl alcohol 70% to reduce the moisture in the area.
My question is, what's your experience using alcohol as a solvent and applying it on most orchids? Is there any potential interaction between Chlorhexidine and Alcohol that I might need to be aware of or should I go with the safe route of distilled water?
Last edited by MateoinLosAngeles; 08-19-2023 at 04:40 PM..
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