Does Charcoal Remove Grazon – and How?

Dieter asks about charcoal removing Grazon:

Once charcoal has absorbed the Grazon, what happens then? Does it stay there? Do I have to collect the contaminated Charcoal? How? Charcoal is also recommended as moisture buffer, absorbing and releasing moisture. Together with Grazon?

This is a good question – I’ve had some of the same thoughts myself. Some years ago I wrote a post on spotting Grazon contamination in the garden and fixing it.

Charcoal was a part of that plan. It does really seem to soak up the Grazon. And, in regards to Dieter’s questions:

1. The Grazon no longer effects your plants
2. My theory is that the bacteria and fungi in the soil break down the captured toxin
3. No – it just stays in the beds
4. It seems to take up more Grazon than it releases, if it’s releasing anything

This is not exact science here, either. We don’t know exactly what the charcoal is doing in the soil, other than seeing that a friend’s tomato plants with charcoal around them didn’t get hit by Grazon as badly as those without the charcoal. There seems to be an absorption going on, if not a complete destruction of the toxin. We’ve also read that charcoal provides many millions of minute pores which function as habitat for fungi, bacteria and other microlife – and one of the ways Grazon breaks down is through the action of microbes in the soil.

The best thing to do is to never add anything to your garden which might possibly be contaminated with Grazon or any of its kin. This means avoiding purchased hay, compost, mushroom compost, manures and possibly straw. It’s a terrible inconvenience, but the supply line is almost irredeemably corrupted at this point.

Make your own compost or play Russian Roulette.