A fact from Potting soil appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 July 2008, and was viewed approximately 312 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the fungus gnat is often found around houseplants because it lays eggs in moist potting soil?
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While it used to be true that commercial potting soil WAS sterilized in the past, usually with a chemical process that may have become illegal (there's a fact for someone to find here), hyponex, and other commercial potting soils that contain soil and composted leaf mold (which is the "old fashioned" way to make potting mix) is no longer sterilized - and I say that because I've been searching for over a year now to find any and I only found three tiny bags at Price Chopper (Country Farms Potting Soil from Clinton, CT) so far, that says "sterilized." I read in other places on the internet that the methods for sterilizing vary from steam, baking, and chemical treatments and that another method - sun exposure - is a sanitizing but not sterilizing process. I've been doing a lot of online searching for this information, but I haven't had any luck really finding out what happened to sterilized potting mix.
I'd like to ask others to join the research process on this, and post to Wikipedia on it. As for why anyone should care: Sterilized soil does not give rise to fungus gnats - those little gnats that grow in soil and whose larvae eat the roots of your potted plants. That's among other things such as, sterilized soil does not put seedlings at risk for damping off.
