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...otherwise known as insecticidal soap.
The backstory
I was gifted a plant last year that turned out to be carrying some kind of plant sickness. Most of my plants survived; but, it hit a few of them hard.
Hoping to head off a resurgence with the new growing season I popped into a little hardware store and picked up some anti-insect/mite/fungus spray.
I'm not sure how well it's working on any of these but I'm here to talk about surfactants.
What is insecticidal soap?
The short and sweet version is that it's a soap (like traditional lye soap) made by treating oils (animal fats or plant oils) with potassium hydroxide.
What does it do?
It dries things out.
Specifically, it allows water out of the cells of softer bodied critters and fungus.
Amusingly using soap to pop bubbles, if you will.
Just yesterday one of the co-ops was talking about the phospholipid bilayer. (We're a bunch of nerds, not sorry.)
So it spoils the nonpolar protection on the surface of the cell since soap has both polar and nonpolar ends.
So it lets water (polar) out by giving it a polar window or ladder through the membrane (nonpolar).
This is the same reason doing dishes dries out your hands.
Finishing thoughts
If you do any gardening, what kind of chemicals (other than water) do you use?
I was amused a few years ago when I learned about pyrethroid insecticides. They're made from chrysanthemums!
I've had chrysanthemum tea a bunch of times, it has a bit of the taste of pepper without the picante element. And yet it could kill a cockroach.
Clearly, I have superpowers.
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