Treated wood issues

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Permalink Reply by John Walker on March 4, 2008 at 12:04pm

Dear Kalyanil,
You have to eat your peck of dirt before you die. We are constantly bombarded with chemicals, all of which including water will kill you. As paracelsus said the toxicity is in the dose.
I depends on what the wood was treated with. Newer treated woods without arsenic may be better that the old stuff.
Unfortunately the world is made up of either industry apologists or conspiracy theorists (we all are made up of both, the percentage depends on the issue....)
There is little good scientific reserach done on the toxicity of treated wood. Research is increasingly paid for by industry, who call the tune. Its not always clear whether publications are extensively peer-reviewed. Then there is the question of how good the science is...
Which is a long winded way of saying, that though you can find academic resources that will say that treated wood is not much of a problem, you will also find resources that say its the devil's spawn.
My personal view is that avoid it if you can, but be aware that there are other things known, and things we don't know that we may not know we don't know but should know that will get you too.
You can drive yourself crazy worrying about details.
HTH
John

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Permalink Reply by Annie on March 4, 2008 at 8:15pm

Kalyanii,
My husband and I are in the remodeling business and have had many issues with treated wood. We have been told by various professionals that as treated wood ages, it loses toxicity. Don't know if that's true...but it makes sense. Hope this helps.
---Ann

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Permalink Reply by Maya on March 20, 2008 at 6:23pm

My understanding is that the wood loses toxicity because it leaches into the soil. That's one of the reasons why, in the US, pressure treated footers (for decks and such) are sunken into cement inside sonotubes. I think you were right to replace the arbor.

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Permalink Reply by Maryellen on March 20, 2008 at 8:03pm

This is my understanding too that the chemicals leach into the soil. I believe there is evidence of toxicity to pets and humans due to this phenomena. Don't want to sound like an alarmist but I would stay clear of this area. Maryellen

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Permalink Reply by Ian on March 21, 2008 at 4:22am

Hi Kalyanii
The problem with the taste of the grapes might be that the soil is too good. People growing grapes around here (wine region of South West France) say that you have to make the grapes struggle. Another thing is that grapes grown for wine tend to be much more bland than table grapes. In wine varieties we are interested in juice rather than pure taste. So, maybe, you have a great wine growing in your garden.
Ian

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Permalink Reply by Kalyanii Kennedy on March 21, 2008 at 11:41am

The owner before us did say he made wine from the grapes! Maybe we should try it. I dunno-I'm not big on alcohol and don't really know much about wine. I've tried it a couple of times, but all the wine I tried just tasted horrible (maybe not the right kind??)! I do really hate to see the grapes go to waste-it's depressing to see them rot on the vines and then get tossed in the compost....
There are 2 types of grapes that I have-dark puple ones that grow along a fence and light yellow/green grapes that grow on the treated wood trellis that we replaced.
The dark purple ones take a long time to ripen. Even when they darken, they have a very strong tartness to them that is so overpowering. What's weird is that I've found that the purple grapes are amazingly good when they are close to going bad. Last fall I tried some of the purple grapes after all the leaves had fallen from the vine and some of the grapes were visibly bad. The ones that were still good were sweet with a hint of the tartness and some warmth (maybe the alcohol forming??). They were amazing. The skin is very thick on these.
The green ones ripen very early in the season before the leaves fall and go bad quickly as well. They taste watery when ripe with not much taste-some sour and some sweetish. The skin is thick but not as thick as the purple ones. Do these sound like they're wine grapes? I'm willing to give it a shot....Any recommendations?

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Permalink Reply by Ian on March 21, 2008 at 12:32pm

The dark purple grapes sound a lot like the wine grape cabernet sauvignon. I have included a link to an image for you.

http://www.bluemontana-wine.co.uk/acatalog/grape_varieties.html

Here they are often harvested after rot has set in. Botyritus cinerea is a fungus which attacks the ripe grapes. After the attack the juice of the grape becomes much more sweet and syrupy

This grape is very common in the wines of SW France and in particular is harvested after "noble rot", as it is called here, for Monbazillac a prestigious sweet white desert wine

Most French wines are blends of two or three grapes, so if you can, try and blend the two together. The only problem is that winemaking is a long slow process and you won't know whether it was any good for maybe a year or so.
Ian

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