Do Amino Acids have a roll in organics?

[ripman]

Hey guys, you know what I like about the organics forum? One starts with a very simple question and then very knowledgeable people get in, answer the question, and move it to the next level. We started from aminoacids in organics and went to bottled products, humic acid, "you wouldn't talk of kelp and blood meal as hormones and aminoacids", multiplication of wholesale prices through "cutting" and marketing, we even talked about Tea Brewers and Martha Stewart, ha!

Lately I've been reading a lot of stuff on the forum and elsewhere and I'm starting to put in doubt the "Lucas formula" as the holy grail of cannabis growing in hydroponic systems.
The point is, I can really see for instance that when I add humic acid, plants are happy and their leafs shoot to the sky. I see as well that when I add silica, stems get thicker then usual. And when i add kelp extract, the giberrelins and kitin enter into play and I see less vertical growth and more lateral branching. And same thing we can say about mycorrizae in medium-based growing.
And you know to what conclusion I have gotten?
ADVANCE NUTRIENTS IS THE ANSWER, THEY HAVE IT ALL!!!
I do really believe this... I only question the need to spend 700+ USD to start a grow, when probably you can get to the same point just by using molasses, kelp, lactobacilli, etc.
The point though is that AN product line could help us pinpoint the useful elements which help plants grow better than usual and understand how we could get the same stuff at a fraction of that price.

I will make an example. Advanced sells products like Piranha, Carboload, Sensizym, B-52, Barricade, F1 (Fulvic), H2 (Humic), Scorpion Juice, Big Bud, Nirvana. The key elements in these products are:

- Piranha: myco and trichodermas
- Carboload: carbohydrates
- Sensizym: enzymes and bacterias (among which, lacto-b)
- B-52: B-vitamin complex
- Barricade: Silica
- F1: Fulvic
- H2: Humic
- Scorpion Juice: Salycilic acid
- Big Bud: amino acids
- Nirvana: let's say hormones (it is a Liquid Karma equivalent, which means kelp meal, etc)

They of course put a lot of other stuff in the bottles, but I believe most of the rest is water and snake oil which they call "the secret ingredient".

The point is, we should want not to lose any key ingredient of the above by using less-pricy equivalents. I will make an example:

- Myco and Tricho: Mycorrhizal Applications was mentioned, does it sell retail as well or is it just wholesale? What is the cheapest organic and non-organic product which can give us the same good strains of fungi?
- Carbohydrates: Blackstrap molasses
- Enzymes and bacterias: homemade lactobacilli culture, EM-1, Bokashi
- B-vitamin complex: what can we use in this case? Do we find it in kelp? Or if we want B-complex, B-52 or Organic-B could be valid, reasonably-priced additives?
- Silica: is it already sufficient in soil or is it good to supplement it? In this case, is there a natural substitute to Barricade, Pro-Tekt, Silica Blast?
- Fulvic and Humic: Is there enough in soil? Is there a natural substitute or do we have to supplement with Rare Earth, Miner Magic and equivalent products?
- Salycilic acid: We can use aspirin or willow teas... how much aspirin in how many gallons of water?
- Amino acids: we can use Blood Meal, but blood meal is, if I'm not wrong, slow-release N, so for instance we don't want it in medium to late flowering, what can we use instead
- Hormones: is kelp sufficient? Is it better to use cold-pressed or "chemically-extracted"? Or alternate both?

I believe you have more than enough knowledge to expand this list and make it more complete and precise. You add nice descriptions of the effect of the basic element, what product is fairly priced to use in your grow, in what concentration, you put it nicely and in a nice format and we might have a sticky with some best practices to make one's grow better and cost-effective.

What do you think of this? In case you like it, I would be glad to help, but I believe I could work better as a supporter rather than a thread starter, here we have more acknowledged people which, moreover, are in a better position from a legal standpoint to write on this forum (as you know, if you are not a Medical Marijuana Patient, in some states even just talking of growing in a Marijuana-related forum can put you at risk, I'd prefer then to keep a low-profile, even though I'm here more for the knowledge than for the produce itself)

 

[Microbeman]

Many of these points have already been discussed on this forum. Perhaps you could find them through a search.

 

[ripman]

I was hoping a different reply... Anybody willing to help me? I know that if I read any and all posts in the organics forum I could just find everything, I just would like to render this information better aggregated so who wants to shift to organics has a quick reference guide on beneficials... How can I cover for instance need for B-vitamin? What about silica?

 

[Microbeman]

Things written to be stickies have not become stickies and people cannot just keep posting the same things over and over.

For instance I've written several post explaining why your statement as follows is fundamentally incorrect in natural growing (IMO of course) "but blood meal is, if I'm not wrong, slow-release N, so for instance we don't want it in medium to late flowering, what can we use instead"

Perhaps it is a good job for you to track down all the relevent information and create a compilation.

 

[habeeb]

I was hoping a different reply... Anybody willing to help me? I know that if I read any and all posts in the organics forum I could just find everything, I just would like to render this information better aggregated so who wants to shift to organics has a quick reference guide on beneficials... How can I cover for instance need for B-vitamin? What about silica?

B vitamins can be had in dandelion leaves. some others but can't remember them off the top of my head

silica

-can be had in pyrophyllite clays( rare earth is very good in my opinion, and I could one day get an x-ray diffraction test done, and see what there using and find it for alot cheaper.. )
-sand ( quartz ) , isnt the earths crust 1/3 silica ???
-rice hulls are said to have mass amounts of silica

 

[Chief]

Some species have been found to absorb amino acids, with or without mycorrhiza. in a deciduous shrub l-glycine up take was as high or higher than ammonium. it was mentioned that the plants nitrogen may be 10%-82% from free amino acids. this was a study on tundra plants in Alaska so the relavance could be none to marijuana as barley plants adapted to grow in mineralized soils had very low uptake of amino acids.

amino acids are abundant in most if not all organic soils. not to mention plants make all the ones they need, 20 of them. amino acids are the building blocks of protein and proteins are some what important in life =) Amino acids are essential in many aspects. photosynthesis and nitrogen are used in part to synthesize amino acids.

Ive never found too much information most seems to be from producers of a product. Amino acids are in many fertilizers but im not sure how they work. i do not see the plant taking them whole and turning them into protein especially in foliar feeds.

Theres no doubt amino acids are amazing in the role in life and i verry supprised at what little information there is on this forum and in general. i believe if we could provide amino acids aditionaly the result could be substantial. I also know that a plant can synthesize all of its needed amino acids unlike us, but it requires a lot of energy. i think they should be above discusion and higher priority of adding molasses.

Im interested in a foliar with aminos glucose and phytonutrients. the question is intake and im leery. A lot of high end nutrients have them but id like to see more documented affects and intake, but i think they are definitely worth checking out

 

[Chief]

This study showed increased levels of amino acids with added selenium.

Effect of selenium fertilizer on free amino acid composition of broccoli (Brassica oleracea Cv. Majestic) determined by gas chromatography with flame ionization and mass selective detection.
Lee J, Finley JW, Harnly JM.

Horticultural Crops Research Laboratory Worksite, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Parma, Idaho 83660, USA.
Selenium-enriched broccoli florets, harvested from plants grown on soil fertilized with four levels of sodium selenate, were evaluated for their free amino acid composition using alkylchlorformate derivatization, solid-phase extraction, and GC-FID or GC-MS. The selenium-enriched florets contained 0.4 (control), 5.7 (treatment A), 98.6 (treatment B), and 879.2 (treatment C) microg/g Se (dry weight). Twenty-one free amino acids were identified in the control and all three treatments. The total free amino acid content of the broccoli florets ranged from 178 mmol/kg (dry weight), for the control, to 479 mmol/kg (dry weight), for treatment C. Broccoli from treatment C contained the highest level of Se, had the most total free amino acids, and had an extremely high level of glutamine (Gln) when compared to the control and the other two treatments. In general, the smallest addition of Se to the soil (treatment A) induced increased levels of all detectable amino acids when compared to the control, whereas increased additions of Se (treatments B and C) produced mixed responses. Florets from treatment A contained the highest essential amino acid content.

selenium- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium

Selenium salts are toxic in large amounts, but trace amounts of the element are necessary for cellular function in most, if not all, animals, forming the active center of the enzymes glutathione peroxidase and thioredoxin reductase (which indirectly reduce certain oxidized molecules in animals and some plants) and three known deiodinase enzymes (which convert one thyroid hormone to another). Selenium requirements in plants differ by species, with some plants apparently requiring none.[3]

 

[*Journeyman*]

Had to come check out this thread...lol.

I believe the more organic the approach the better and trying to circumvent things by using certain products or materials is not the way to go. One thing I did not see discussed here regarding the topic of amino acids is Brix. I too believe a plant will produce all the enzymes it needs if provided all the base materials and proper environment/care. There's no need to overdose it with something.

Brix is critical because aminos are built from sugars, also N and S. Brix is easy to monitor and don't see anyone using a refractometer to monitor plant health. At the least monitoring brix helps a grower understand if what they are doing is helpful or not instead of 'The plant looks better'.

One of the keys to amino creation is an enzyme and the key to enzyme formation and function are minerals, particularly trace minerals. My research indicates that one of the best products for supporting higher brix levels and better enzyme activity is Sea-Crop. I've heard that brix levels can go up about 2 points within 24 hours. It contains a nice selection of trace and what some call ultra trace minerals in a VERY concentrated form compared to any other seawater product.

Another thing to look at for enzyme function would be adequate levels of rare earth elements (RRE's). Here's a KILLER paper on RRE's and probably the best you'll find. I just went straight to chapter 11.

http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=98212497x&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=98212497x.pdf

The best they can figure RRE's are kind of enzyme supportors/cofactors especially when it comes to supporting calcium utilization.

It's not just protein creation but proper protein creation. If you have a lot of free floating aminos or incomplete proteins floating around the plant your chances for pest and disease attack go up. That's one of the reasons I do not like the idea of applying free amino acids especially by foliar. The further you get away from natural activity the greater the likelihood you'll run into problems IMO. The plant knows what to do. Also, supposedly, when brix levels are below 12 you can almost guarantee you'll have pest issues.

Another thing I learned recently is testing sap pH. It should be 6.4 and if high there's an anion problem and shortage of N, P and/or S. If low, which it usually is, then a cation problem and shortage of Ca, Mg, K, and/or Na. A shortage in the plant does not mean a shortage in the soil and you may just have availability issues. You need an expensive Horiba pH meter if you wanna start messing with sap pH issues but another nice metric to monitor to see how what you are doing affects the plant.

I have not grown in awhile but for sure when I get going again will start monitoring brix and sap pH levels to see what I see. I wanna know once and for all if what I'm doing is doing any good or not . I have an ag lab that can do plant tissue analysis but gotta wait for legalization.

 

[mad librettist]

Let's not assess weed based on experiments done with specialized tundra plants, orchids, riparian plants, wetlands plants, or carnivorous plants, or any other out of the ordinary plants. Even perennials are a stretch.

Amino acids - I add a shitload every time I use compost slurry or tea. EM is full of them. Anything with a protein.

Rare earth - RRE's are a scary topic outside gardening. Google China rare earth military. OUr society runs on them now.

 

[*Journeyman*]

Amino acids - I add a shitload every time I use compost slurry or tea. EM is full of them. Anything with a protein.

Rare earth - RRE's are a scary topic outside gardening. Google China rare earth military. OUr society runs on them now.

Just so people are clear I'm talking about adding isolated aminos.

As for RRE's...they're a natural part of healthy soil. If you do take a close look at China and their use of RRE's in agriculture you'll see some problems created from their abuse but think they're mainly using something like lanthanum chloride...once again an isolate and a salt. I'm pretty sure something like pyrophyllite clay may contain all the RRE's you'll need.

 

[mad librettist]

RRE's

nah, I was referring to concentrated pockets, mined in disastrous fashion to make "green" technologies like the hybrid cars. China has 90% of the world's known supply. NYtimes ran an article a ways back. It's a tangent but I thought it was worth mentioning. Totally unrelated to plants and growing.

 

[Bongstar420]

If you water Tryptophan into the media, you get auxins.

The plants don't absorb the Tryptophan, but the bacteria do and realease auxins.

I've torched plants with 1g/gal Tryptophan. They respond identically as they would with IAA overdose. The effect lasts for weeks


Reserves are based on economics..not the actual existence of the elements.

If you worry about digging rock up for tech, maybe consider KREEP on the moon instead of straw huts and insect/virus infested kale.

China has 50% of current reserves which are likely to expand with extraction technology the same way Gold did. Most current Gold now comes from ground which would be considered free of Gold 100 years ago.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/277268/rare-earth-reserves-by-country/

RRE's

nah, I was referring to concentrated pockets, mined in disastrous fashion to make "green" technologies like the hybrid cars. China has 90% of the world's known supply. NYtimes ran an article a ways back. It's a tangent but I thought it was worth mentioning. Totally unrelated to plants and growing.

 

[stoned-trout]

Things written to be stickies have not become stickies and people cannot just keep posting the same things over and over.

For instance I've written several post explaining why your statement as follows is fundamentally incorrect in natural growing (IMO of course) "but blood meal is, if I'm not wrong, slow-release N, so for instance we don't want it in medium to late flowering, what can we use instead"

Perhaps it is a good job for you to track down all the relevent information and create a compilation.

blood meal is fast release n... you can make an instant tea and kill off your crop quick if your a dummy/newbee...yup I did it once and only once long ago...yeehaw