- Dec 13, 2015
- 4
- 11
Hi! New to the board, have a quick question... I searched for a few minutes before posting and didn't find a post that addressed pesticide/herbicide that may have been absorbed by roots. I saw posts talking about removing bark, but I'm not referring to surface contaminants, as the branch in question was a good 20' up.
We had an ice storm a few weeks back that took down a few decent sized oak limbs. I cut them up and was going to use them for smoking. Then I got to thinking and making myself worry about any slight pesticide that may have been in the wood itself, pulled up from the roots. Obviously, it would be extremely low concentration, as whatever got down to the roots would have been very heavily diluted by that point, after having soaked down into the ground with irrigation and rain, and then have to be drawn up into the tree.
I'm thinking it would probably be fine, but has the topic of "internal" toxins ever been brought up? I believe many pesticides and herbicides lose their activity when exposed to sun and air, but still curious, as losing activity doesn't necessarily mean I want smoke from it on my food. I don't exactly have my own gas chromatography equipment to test the wood :)
On a related note, do I need to scrape any of the green "flakey looking" moss off the bark prior to using?
Thanks for the help!
We had an ice storm a few weeks back that took down a few decent sized oak limbs. I cut them up and was going to use them for smoking. Then I got to thinking and making myself worry about any slight pesticide that may have been in the wood itself, pulled up from the roots. Obviously, it would be extremely low concentration, as whatever got down to the roots would have been very heavily diluted by that point, after having soaked down into the ground with irrigation and rain, and then have to be drawn up into the tree.
I'm thinking it would probably be fine, but has the topic of "internal" toxins ever been brought up? I believe many pesticides and herbicides lose their activity when exposed to sun and air, but still curious, as losing activity doesn't necessarily mean I want smoke from it on my food. I don't exactly have my own gas chromatography equipment to test the wood :)
On a related note, do I need to scrape any of the green "flakey looking" moss off the bark prior to using?
Thanks for the help!