Parasitological Assessment of the Soil of Indoor Plants
In modern conditions, interior planting has great importance and distribution. For growing indoor plants, along with ready-made soil, growers often use home-made mixtures. The article presents the results of parasitological studies of the soil from flower pots and the soil used for growing house plants, as well as the soil from forest park zones, and courtyard territories, and sand from playgrounds used in floriculture for composing soil mixtures in urban conditions. The results of the conducted sanitary and parasitological studies found that 4.7% of the home-made soil samples were positive. Eggs of geohelminths Toxocara spp. and Ascaris suum were found in the samples. Eggs of Toxocara spp., Trichocephalus vulpis and Dipylidium caninum were found in soil samples from forest park zones; eggs of Toxocara spp. and Taenia spp. were found in samples from courtyards. The main sources of invasive material in forest-park areas are dogs, while cats along with dogs take part in the contamination of the soil from the adjacent territories. The detection of geohelminth eggs in the soil from flower pots indicates that it is unsafe to use self-prepared soil mixtures without preliminary disinfection.