Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: paul.fr on 25/09/2007 09:08:44
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would watering / feeding plants flavoured water help them to grow? do some plants like one flavour more than others? Has anyone done the experiment?
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We often add sucrose to the media when we grow plants. It actually has a large effect on how they grow, they germinate faster (at normal temperatures) and are more tolerant to osmotic stresses.
Mutants that can't do photosynthesis must be grown on sucrose to get their carbon.
Another example is that plants grown on proline are also more tolerant to osmotic stresses.
Since flavors are composed of sugars, proteins, and other molecules I would say this is growing them on a sweet flavor. My guess is that they would prefer a 'flavor' that they could use readily (like sucrose) over one that they either couldn't take up or would require more effort to process or one that was harmful to them.
An example of a flavor that plants don't like is too much is sugar. If you have too much sucrose the plant will avoid it (most likely because high amounts of sucrose make it difficult to get and keep water). This experiment has been done- if you place plants on a plate and the bottom half of the plate is high levels of sucrose (or salt) the roots will grow to that point then stop. If it is a low level of sucrose the roots will grow into the sucrose media.
Colleen
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Paul, all you want to do is put a stalk of celery into whiskey so you can chew you alcohol. We are all on to you.
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My Mom And I have always used powdered milk made by the gallon and water each of out tomato plants with a gallon of powdered prepared milk one time a week!
The tomato plant thrives and produces a great amount of tomatoes which arehuge the plants we have grown this way , Tomato's only have reached hieght's of +5 feet and are incredibly healthy!
Would you consider milk flavored, it is certainly a product that can turn to sugar right?
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Paul, all you want to do is put a stalk of celery into whiskey so you can chew you alcohol. We are all on to you.
Yuck! Why ruin Whiskey with celery [;)]
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I would consider milk flavored.
I wonder . . .is it the sugar from the milk helping the plants? Or the calcium? Or the phosphorus? Or the proteins? Or the fat? Or one of the many other components in milk? The slight change in pH the milk might cause? or just coincidence?
With all the "stuff" in milk, I guess it's not surprising that it helps the plants- it is probably like burying a dead fish with every seed (which supposedly also helps-but probably smells much worse).