jonathanfrost
Member
I've been cultivating for some time now. I've met a lot of people with a lot of different ideas about what works and what doesn't. I've noticed over time that articles, grow journals and testimonies are often conflicting. I've brought into question a lot of additives that people use. It seems there is a whole market of people committed to using products based on myth, promises and hunches. When I started out I was using the complete Canna line plus some other additives. I've since eliminated all additives except the Canna PK booster and Great Whtie beneficials from my feed schedule and i've noted no decrease in yield or quality. I've done this because I cannot find many useful scholarly research articles that support the claims made by Canna, Advanced, General Hydroponics, etc. Interestingly enough, the only article I can find on carbohydrate supplements is one whose data sustained that carbohydrates did absolutely nothing for alfalfa production.
That article can be found for free here:
http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/crops/az1322/az13221a.pdf
Two Canna items that people make a big fuss over are the Boost and Rhizotonic. If you take a look at Canna's website, you'll find a lot of fluff regarding these two products (especially boost), but no significant and deeply meaningful information, thus I sought independent studies on these products (their contents), but found nothing so I decided to submit questions to Canna through their website regarding these products. Unfortunately, because the message was submitted through their website, I cannot paste it here, but it was something along the lines of:
"I'm interested in more information on your Boost and Rhizotonic. I have sought independent, peer reviewed articles on the topics of carbohydrates and marine algae and plant production, but I cannot find any."
I mentioned the article above and I cannot recall if I asked for data or links to articles, but I meant to and I'm pretty sure that I did. A week later I got this response:
"For Rhizotonic there are over 10,000 separate papers done on the use of marine algae to enhance crop production dating back to the 1700s. It has nothing to do with carbs. It does supply many other things particularly trace minerals, vitamins, and amino acids, as well as a handy amount of silicates.
For Boost is not about the carbs it contains. The active ingredient are the oligosaccharides present in it. These are broken chains of cell walls (glucose chain molecules) of a particular number of glucose molecules that cause the plant to think it is under stress without being under stress. When stressed, a plant starts to react for survival by beefing up its protections which are the products most growers are interested in. These are the results of exposure to what the plant thinks is organisms destroying it. There is no relationship between carb addition to alfalfa because it is a C-4 plant. Carbs applied to plants works by feeding the microbes with it which release CO2 to the plant. C-3 plants like apples andlettuce use this like adding CO2 to the room. Alfalfa is a C-4 plant which deals with its capture of CO2 a different way and does not benefit from added CO2. (see our CANNA Talk article on CO2 for clarity). Therefore no research will show a benefit of adding carbs t! o alfalfa or other C-4 or CAM plants such as wheat, corn, grasses, cacti, Poinsettias, or others. There is minimum research currently done on oligosaccharides, but more coming every day"
I have a few conflicts with their response. For one, it's incredibly unprofessional. I don't even know who sent it and I cannot reply to it, but is from "@canna.com". More importantly though, If there are 10,000 papers written on the topic of marine algae and crop production, why can't I find a single one? Excluding the silicates, of course trace minerals, vitamins and amino acids are in found in the Rhizotonic. These are found in all organic substances. Regardless, why are they not listed on the bottle? The label says it's derived from marine algae. I've looked at a lot of information and it seems that marine algae only contains minute traces of Nitrogen and that's all that would be useful for plant life. Where do these other components come from? The mail says that Boost is not so much about the carbs, but the primary effective ingredient, oligosaccharides. Oligosaccharides are carbohydrates! So that's a bit conflicting. Also, there's minimum research??? This product sells for $110 per liter in the United States and it has "minimum research" to back it. That is completely unacceptable, in my opinion. It may as well be snake oil. Lastly, I'd like to point out that alfalfa is a C-3 plant, not C-4. How could they get this wrong? Completely incredible!
I highly encourage every one to question every product he/she uses and to write/email the producers. If you dig deep you will find that there is limited research on the above products as well as silicates, CO2 supplements and foliar sprays. The only products that have strong data to support them are the base nutes (obviously) and beneficial microorganisms. Some products are so incredibly questionable. The Rock nutrients out of Australia as well as Humboldt County's Own have labels that bear absolutely no information about some of their products. I've seen others, too. The distributors and garden shops claim, "Well they can't reveal everything that's in the product. People will steal their recipe." I think that's an absolute crap argument. If the products were legit, there'd be several peer reviewed articles on each and it'd be common knowledge within the community, and the only thing worth stealing would be the synthesis/production method. Another thing to take a look at is what "real" farmers are doing. I find it highly suspicious that when googling most big brand nutrient products you only find information for growing cannabis with these brands. It appears to me that these companies target hobby horticulturalists who have no formal training and education and rape their pocketbooks with snake oil products.
I'd like others thoughts and information on this matter. I must stress that I am not a bio chemist or botanist or anything along these lines. If I have missed something, please provide links to scholarly articles and peer reviewed data. I can't tell you how badly I want to be proven wrong.
That article can be found for free here:
http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/crops/az1322/az13221a.pdf
Two Canna items that people make a big fuss over are the Boost and Rhizotonic. If you take a look at Canna's website, you'll find a lot of fluff regarding these two products (especially boost), but no significant and deeply meaningful information, thus I sought independent studies on these products (their contents), but found nothing so I decided to submit questions to Canna through their website regarding these products. Unfortunately, because the message was submitted through their website, I cannot paste it here, but it was something along the lines of:
"I'm interested in more information on your Boost and Rhizotonic. I have sought independent, peer reviewed articles on the topics of carbohydrates and marine algae and plant production, but I cannot find any."
I mentioned the article above and I cannot recall if I asked for data or links to articles, but I meant to and I'm pretty sure that I did. A week later I got this response:
"For Rhizotonic there are over 10,000 separate papers done on the use of marine algae to enhance crop production dating back to the 1700s. It has nothing to do with carbs. It does supply many other things particularly trace minerals, vitamins, and amino acids, as well as a handy amount of silicates.
For Boost is not about the carbs it contains. The active ingredient are the oligosaccharides present in it. These are broken chains of cell walls (glucose chain molecules) of a particular number of glucose molecules that cause the plant to think it is under stress without being under stress. When stressed, a plant starts to react for survival by beefing up its protections which are the products most growers are interested in. These are the results of exposure to what the plant thinks is organisms destroying it. There is no relationship between carb addition to alfalfa because it is a C-4 plant. Carbs applied to plants works by feeding the microbes with it which release CO2 to the plant. C-3 plants like apples andlettuce use this like adding CO2 to the room. Alfalfa is a C-4 plant which deals with its capture of CO2 a different way and does not benefit from added CO2. (see our CANNA Talk article on CO2 for clarity). Therefore no research will show a benefit of adding carbs t! o alfalfa or other C-4 or CAM plants such as wheat, corn, grasses, cacti, Poinsettias, or others. There is minimum research currently done on oligosaccharides, but more coming every day"
I have a few conflicts with their response. For one, it's incredibly unprofessional. I don't even know who sent it and I cannot reply to it, but is from "@canna.com". More importantly though, If there are 10,000 papers written on the topic of marine algae and crop production, why can't I find a single one? Excluding the silicates, of course trace minerals, vitamins and amino acids are in found in the Rhizotonic. These are found in all organic substances. Regardless, why are they not listed on the bottle? The label says it's derived from marine algae. I've looked at a lot of information and it seems that marine algae only contains minute traces of Nitrogen and that's all that would be useful for plant life. Where do these other components come from? The mail says that Boost is not so much about the carbs, but the primary effective ingredient, oligosaccharides. Oligosaccharides are carbohydrates! So that's a bit conflicting. Also, there's minimum research??? This product sells for $110 per liter in the United States and it has "minimum research" to back it. That is completely unacceptable, in my opinion. It may as well be snake oil. Lastly, I'd like to point out that alfalfa is a C-3 plant, not C-4. How could they get this wrong? Completely incredible!
I highly encourage every one to question every product he/she uses and to write/email the producers. If you dig deep you will find that there is limited research on the above products as well as silicates, CO2 supplements and foliar sprays. The only products that have strong data to support them are the base nutes (obviously) and beneficial microorganisms. Some products are so incredibly questionable. The Rock nutrients out of Australia as well as Humboldt County's Own have labels that bear absolutely no information about some of their products. I've seen others, too. The distributors and garden shops claim, "Well they can't reveal everything that's in the product. People will steal their recipe." I think that's an absolute crap argument. If the products were legit, there'd be several peer reviewed articles on each and it'd be common knowledge within the community, and the only thing worth stealing would be the synthesis/production method. Another thing to take a look at is what "real" farmers are doing. I find it highly suspicious that when googling most big brand nutrient products you only find information for growing cannabis with these brands. It appears to me that these companies target hobby horticulturalists who have no formal training and education and rape their pocketbooks with snake oil products.
I'd like others thoughts and information on this matter. I must stress that I am not a bio chemist or botanist or anything along these lines. If I have missed something, please provide links to scholarly articles and peer reviewed data. I can't tell you how badly I want to be proven wrong.
