People feed their plants sugars all the time without knowing it and not always understanding why. You give your sweetheart a bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day and before they are put into the vase sugar is added to the water to extend their bloom. Some “old school” will add molasses to their nutrient solution during the flowering period. Actually, just by adding fulvic acid, usually labeled “gold”, and humic acid, usually labeled “black”, to your nutrient mix you are giving your plants the building blocks for sugars.
Most growers do not even know that there is a meter called a Brix meter which is used to measure the level of sugars in the leaves of plants. It is generally understood that the higher the level of sugars within the plant’s tissue, the healthier the plant is and the better the yield will be.
Knowing this, the question should not be, “Why add a carbohydrate supplement to my nutrient solution?” but simply, “Why haven’t I added one already?”
To understand why you should give your plants one of the sugary supplements on the market, you should become a little more familiar with the way plants produce and use sugars. Almost all plants use sugars as their main source of fuel. They transport these sugars along with water and other elements throughout their systems either for food or to create amino acids for biosynthesis to fuel cellular respiration. Maple trees are a great example of how plants use sugars. Sugary sap is famous at breakfast tables world wide but that sap is really the food the maple tree has begun to store to survive for the winter to come.
Most plants are photoautotrophs, which means that they can synthesize their own food directly from inorganic compounds using photons, the energy from light. They do this using a process called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis comes from the Greek word “photo”, meaning light, and “synthesis”, meaning to put together. The inorganic compounds are carbon dioxide CO2 and water H2O, and the energy source is sunlight. The end products include glucose, a simple sugar, and oxygen O2. The actual equation looks like this:
6CO2 + 12H2O + photons -> C6H2O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O
(gas) (liquid) (aqueous) (gas) (liquid)
Then through a process called carbon fixation, ATP (adenosine tri phosphate), a high-energy molecule CO2 (carbon dioxide) are used to create sugars. Some sugars produced, such as glucose, are simple sugars or monosaccharides. They are easily broken down by the plant and are generally used for energy. Some other sugars produced such as cellulose, are complex sugars or polysaccharides. Polysaccharides consist of a chain of two or more sugars and are usually used for lipid and amino acid biosynthesis. Polysaccharides are also used as a fuel in cellular respiration. Cellulose specifically is used as the building material for all green plants. It is the main component of all green plant cell walls.
Through the examination of the process of photosynthesis, knowledge is gained as to how important the sugars produced through this process are. The sugars and starches are vital to the plant. They are essential for cellular preparation, to maintain the plants metabolism and vigor. The sugars are even the building blocks that keep the very cells of the plant together. Now it is understood that plants have a great big sweet-tooth and are specialist at making the sugars they need. So why then should we be feeding them more on top of all this? Simply put, flowering plants are burning these carbs trying to make large fruit or vegetables or big beautiful blooms faster than a marathon runner trying to win a race. Not to mention that the while process of photosynthesis, which produces the sugars, takes a lot of energy. By adding one of the organic carbohydrate supplements to your nutrient solution the carbohydrates that have been allocated to the flowering process will be replenished more easily. This will save your plant the energy it would need to create those sugars itself and your plant can focus more of its energy towards the flowering process.
Also many beneficial bacteria and fungi (aka. carbon fixing bacterial fungi) will live off of the sugars and will break down the sugars for the plant. This again allows the plant to use energy usually spent breaking down sugars towards other processes. The more beneficial bacteria and fungi the easier nutrients are absorbed by the roots. All this leads to improved flowering and overall health of the plants.
When choosing which supplement to go with, remember the old saying, “you are what you eat.” The same goes for your plants. Look for something organic since organic sugars will improve flavour and smell better than anything that is inorganic.
There are also some sugars that are more important to your plants than others. xylose and arabinose are two of those sugars. Both, arabinose and xylose, are sugars naturally produced by plants. They are both also monosaccharides which means they are simple sugars therefore they are used more easily by the plant.
Glucose should be the main ingredient of the product since it is the main product of photosynthesis. Glucose is a monosaccharide which is used for energy and for starting cellular respiration in the plant. The name glucose comes from the Greek word “glykys,” which means sweet, plus the suffix “ose,” which denotes that it is a carbohydrate. Glucose is critical in the production of proteins and in lipid metabolism. Glucose is also used as a precursor for the synthesis of several important substances such as starch and cellulose. Starch is a way in which plants store energy and cellulose makes up most of the structural parts of plants.
Fructose is a monosaccharide and is a main component of most tree fruit, berries, and melons. It is the sweetest naturally occurring sugar and is twice as sweet as the disaccharide sucrose which consists of glucose and fructose bonded together.
Also the disaccharide maltose is an important sugar since it can be broken down by enzymes into 2 glucose molecules.
These are all sugars that occur and are produced naturally by plants. By adding a supplement containing these simple and complex sugars along with a well balanced nutrient, a plant will increase the levels of sugars in the leaves and throughout the plant. This will let the plant to use its energy more efficiently, allowing more energy to be focused on producing large fruit and bigger blooms. These sugars will also improve the taste of the end product while giving fuel to beneficial bacteria and fungi. The benefits of using these supplements along with carbon based fulvic acid (often referred to as “Gold”) and humic acid (often referred to “Black”) are great with no down side. Knowing this and how the plants produce and use these sugars makes feeding these simply “Carbo-Logic”.
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