Ruud Kleinpaste: The trials of dealing with Nostoc Fungi
About this episode
Ruud Kleinpaste discusses the challenges of dealing with Nostoc Fungi and its impact on gardening in New Zealand.
Have you heard of Nostoc? It's scientific name, Nostoc commune, sounds like a chat between Trump and Putin but it’s actually a living organism that troubles more than a few Kiwis on their quarter acre paradise. Brown-green “gorilla snot” is another name, star jelly, witch’s butter, and mare’s eggs... But most folk call it brown, slimy scum. It’s a colony of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that form dense gelatinous mats of slimy and leathery bits and pieces on driveways, gravel, and bare soil. It is usually terrestrial but can also be aquatic (such as in wet paddy fields). The trouble with this stuff is its persistence and difficulty to control. It reproduces by binary fission, meaning each cell simply splits in two when conditions are suitable. Gardeners often complain that it thrives on Roundup weedkiller, and most other weedkillers for that matter (I doubt that, by the way!!). Chlorine and salt don’t work, and bleach simply runs off the rubbery squishy invader. Copper sulphate and sodium hypochloride are also ineffective. On the various online “help me” websites (hilarious to read, by the way) people state that some Benzalkonium…
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