Molasses NPK ratio?

Spanishfly said:

Nullis, your initial figures just did not add up - suposed to be a 100 gram sample you say - now you are just adding on more data, much of which is not disputed (yes I understand K and K2O) still with no source credited. Whatever, molasses is derived from cane or beet sugar and still contains WAY more sugar than anything else - as your figures show - not quite sure why you find this blindingly obvious fact so annoying.

If you want to give N, P or K and micronutrients add a fert.

OK, my trial when I gave some plants and not others molasses, did nothing to show me that molasses has any effect.

In what way is that dim-witted????

Same basic technique as testing whether any biological additive is effective - give it to some and not others. I know you don´t like the result - but that doesn´t make an established and logical testing method suddenly ´dim-witted´.

OK, some people want to feed their plants sugar - might feed the ants is about all. Some people piss on their plants - it is their right. I won´t do either.

And I am still waiting for some grow pics to show the wonderful effectiveness of molasses. Funny how that is being so studiously ignored.

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Did you use a control group? Variables? Doesn't sound very scientific to me.

doc111 said:

Did you use a control group? Variables? Doesn't sound very scientific to me.

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Doc, when you look at the minerals (that are beneficial to a plant) in the amounts that they are present for a standard dose, it's not a stretch by any means to say 'molasses didn't do anything for me'.

doc111 said:

Did you use a control group?

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The group that did NOT get given molasses was obviously the control group.

I was not preparing a paper for scientific publication - although I AM an academically published scientist - but just to briefly ascertain for my own satisfaction whether it was worth using molasses any more.

Didn´t do anything for me is all I say - but still waiting for the pro-molasses group to wow me with their grow pics.

homebrewer said:

Doc, when you look at the minerals (that are beneficial to a plant) in the amounts that they are present for a standard dose, it's not a stretch by any means to say 'molasses didn't do anything for me'.

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so your point is that sugars PERIOD? arent benificial to a plant?


i still have to disagree with you... https://www.rollitup.org/subcools-old-school-organics/54028-sucanat-soo-ka-nat.html

Unnk said:

so your point is that sugars PERIOD? arent benificial to a plant?


i still have to disagree with you... https://www.rollitup.org/subcools-old-school-organics/54028-sucanat-soo-ka-nat.html

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No, I never said that at all. I said that molasses, which is mostly sugar, did nothing at all for me - totally useless IMHO. Nothing more. It´s the other folks in this thread trying to put words in my mouth.

So let´s see your pics, Unnk.

Until the molasses fans are prepared to show how wonderfully molasses works for them I see no point in returning to this thread.

I still maintain the way to get a good yield from MJ (or any plant) is plenty of good soil, good ferts, and good light. Nothing more to say.

well if i were to take pics now it would be biased all my girls have 3 sucanat feedings so far so if you want to disagree with sub thats cool i dont expect you to beleive anyone says but ill say this What works for one may not work for another

I know that sugars for my plant in supersoil. Is something VERY important. The first sucanat feeding i did during veg. I seen a 2 day response from the micro colony the first sucanat feeding i did for bloom this past monday i seen a double fold increase in resin production and a distinct smell change OVER night

now i cant provide pics right now because it wouldnt prove anything so again do what you think is good for your plants and i ll do what i want to do. Everyones got a opinion

Because what does this do with out a before pic lol

Spanishfly said:

Nullis, your initial figures just did not add up - suposed to be a 100 gram sample you say - now you are just adding on more data, much of which is not disputed (yes I understand K and K2O) still with no source credited. Whatever, molasses is derived from cane or beet sugar and still contains WAY more sugar than anything else - as your figures show - not quite sure why you find this blindingly obvious fact so annoying.

If you want to give N, P or K and micronutrients add a fert.

OK, my trial when I gave some plants and not others molasses, did nothing to show me that molasses has any effect.

In what way is that dim-witted????

Same basic technique as testing whether any biological additive is effective - give it to some and not others. I know you don´t like the result - but that doesn´t make an established and logical testing method suddenly ´dim-witted´.

OK, some people want to feed their plants sugar - might feed the ants is about all. Some people piss on their plants - it is their right. I won´t do either.

And I am still waiting for some grow pics to show the wonderful effectiveness of molasses. Funny how that is being so studiously ignored.

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Nullis said:

First of all, I am definitely not a mathematician. While 100 grams of molasses does contain roughly 75 grams of carbohydrates, it has 55.5 grams of sugar and the mineral content by weight is still significant. I chose the 100 gram serving for convenience and because most of the vitamins are present in micrograms (the point is that they are there). Here is the source which I provided on the other occasions I have posted this information, and you can go choose a tablespoon or ounce as you desire to see the content per such a sample.

Still, nutrient content of molasses varies considerably depending on the brand. Plantation Blackstrap molasses contains significantly more calcium (1%), iron (0.018%) and vitamin A than the sample from Nutrition Data. But even assuming those values; the amounts by weight of potassium, magnesium, and iron are quite significant. Especially considering that you can provide the tablespoon (or less) of molasses per gallon just about every watering. Remember, these are trace minerals we're talking about here- they aren't supposed to be there in copious amounts.
Then when you consider the amount of potassium, remember that on fertilizer labels it is expressed as the K20 equivalent and not the actual percentage of potash. So, really 1.77 % K20, which does confuse me as various sources list the NPK of molasses as 1-0-4+. Even so, by weight that is 293 mg of potassium. The Earth Juice products I use only actually contain 165.2 mg of potash. (20 Grams of a 0-3-1 or 2-1-1 = 200mg K20 x .826 = 165.2 mg).

Spanishfly, the sums there don't add up because that isn't the full composition of molasses in terms of chemical components. I see how that could be misleading, but the point is to illustrate that of a 100 gram sample, 55.5 of those grams are actually sugar. Out of a 20 gram sample, 11 grams is 'sugar', 4.4 grams is water, .7 grams ash, and much of what remains is the mineral content, plus a minuscule amount of vitamins (by weight). So really, molasses is mostly sugar and water- but it is actually a by-product of sugar manufacturing; the majority of the sugar has been extracted and the minerals concentrated. While sugar certainly remains, the mineral content is no less significant.

It is just annoying as hell when all you're caught up on is that 'molasses is nearly all sugar' and 'wont make your buds any bigger' (even though nobody here said molasses would make your buds double in size), and 'old wives tale'- because of some dim-witted 'experiment' you did and yet still provide nothing of credence to back yourself up or even elaborate on said 'experiment'. I mean, do you realize that when you make up a fertigation solution it is nearly all water? It's true.

If people want to provide the organisms in their soil with a high energy food source such as sucrose, glucose and/or fructose- what the hell is wrong with that? Molasses is a decent source that just happens to contain significant enough amounts of potassium and trace minerals, is known to influence microbial activity- and really is nothing new.



http://www.tomatocasual.com/2010/07/15/the-tomato-chronicles-diy-fertilizer/
http://www.bfa.com.au/Portals/0/BFAFiles/AUT05-bioactive-materials.pdf

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It just goes to show that you really did no substantial research on molasses yourself, or it's proper use and applications. And interestingly enough, molasses can be/is used as a component of ant repellent- particularly fire ants.

Unnk said:

so your point is that sugars PERIOD? arent benificial to a plant?


i still have to disagree with you... https://www.rollitup.org/subcools-old-school-organics/54028-sucanat-soo-ka-nat.html

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Plants have a limited ability to pull up sugars from the soil. While I respect Sub as a grower, he's not a Professor of Horticulture & Crop Science with 25 years experience and a PhD, that is who I am getting my info from. Again, I'd ask you to site a '.edu' reference saying that plants pull up sugars from the soil. We've already gone over this so I'll wait patiently for your reference.

Unnk said:

http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs300/biochem1.htm

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It's possible I missed it, but where does it say that plants pull up sugars from the soil?

Your other link is quite long, could you point me to the passage of interest (page number?)

first one is the general understanding of carbs for plant use thenn the second has the info let me get the spot again i have the pdf downloaded

okay what i was getting at was teh first diagram and the fact that it states that mollases is a nsc and in presence of amino and citric acids will form diff carbohydrates these carbs ARE used by the plant if you choose to beleive diff and show me a .edu that supports a opposite claim that it does nothing or is harmfull then ill totally be ears but since im the only one throwing up links lol

Spanishfly said:

Molasses is nearly all sugar.

And no, it makes no difference to size of your buds - might attract a few bugs is all.

Another Old Wives´ Tale.

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Why does this seem slightly contradictory?
Now, setting aside that nobody here has claimed or even insinuated that molasses in and of itself will cause your buds to swell to any extent: If your typical 100 gram sample of molasses contained a maximum of 55.5 grams of sugar (sucrose, glucose, fructose)- then how is molasses 'nearly all sugar'? A more accurate statement would be "molasses is roughly half sugar and less than a quarter water, by weight". But either way; so what? How does that sole fact automatically suggest that the actual quantity of minerals isn't of any significance?.. and what does it matter anyways?! Just like your experiment, and your opinion; it doesn't!
It is an inanely simple thing to incorporate to an indoor organic grow. It is ridiculously inexpensive, can be provided every watering throughout the life of the plant from early veg to a couple weeks before harvest, there is quite obviously a significant potassium content (while some brands contain substantially more calcium, magnesium, iron) and additional minerals- and finally the high energy food source which we know at the very least is utilized by the various micro-organisms in the soil. Obviously achieving a bounty of potent buds is a culmination which occurs through the realization of a bigger picture, of which molasses is just a small part.

I am still trying to figure out what this old wives tale of which you speak is, specifically. What good is an experiment when the performer has narrowed the expectations and turned a blind eye to objectivity? At any rate I'll have to demonstrate by example the manner in which I feel home cannabis experiments should be performed, and documented. Until those clones are fully rooted, the space/equipment available and the outcome acknowledged, I am not going to omit the simple addition of molasses to plant water and despite what happens I doubt I'll regret using it.

I am definitely not a huge fan of saving a pictorial which details my cultivation of illicit flowers to my hard drive- let alone of posting one on the internet. And of course, posting a picture really doesn't prove anything about molasses either way but because the baby refuses to post otherwise- here ya go!

Nice nuggets nullis.

Unnk said:

okay what i was getting at was teh first diagram and the fact that it states that mollases is a nsc and in presence of amino and citric acids will form diff carbohydrates these carbs ARE used by the plant if you choose to beleive diff and show me a .edu that supports a opposite claim that it does nothing or is harmfull then ill totally be ears but since im the only one throwing up links lol

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The first diagram is titled Plant Carbohydrates and I'm not arguing that plants don't produce their own sugars, nor am I saying that microbes don't process carbs (which is repeatedly stated in your link about Production Cows). If there is a specific passage in your link that says 'plants pull up sugars from the soil', feel free to paste that here.

I don't believe a great deal of the sugar in molasses would be absorbed by plants simply due to the competition amongst soil microbes, but I have found studies that suggest glucose may possibly be assimilated by plant roots.

Excised 20‐d‐old sunflower roots (Helianthus annuus L. cv. Sun‐Gro 393) were used to study the effect of different sugars on rubidium and water fluxes. The roots sensed and absorbed glucose from the external medium inducing the activation of rubidium accumulated in the root (Rb+ root), the flux of exuded rubidium (JRb) and, to a lesser degree, the exudation rate (Jv). These effects were also triggered by fructose, but not by 6‐deoxyglucose (6‐dG), a glucose analogue which is not a substrate for hexokinase (HXK). The effect of 2‐deoxyglucose (2‐dG), an analogue that is phosphorylated but not further metabolized, was complex, suggesting an inhibitory effect on solute transport to the xylem. The amounts of glucose required to activate rubidium and water fluxes were similar to those previously reported to regulate different processes in other plants (0.5–10 mM). When sorbitol was used instead of glucose, neither rubidium uptake (Rb+ root plus JRb) nor Jv was activated. It is proposed that glucose present in the root plays an important signalling role in the regulation of Rb+ (K+) and water transport in plant roots.

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The activation of JRb and Jv by glucose may suggest that the root could absorb external glucose. In order to confirm this idea, sorbitol was used instead of glucose in some experiments. Sorbitol is usually used as a negative control to study sugar‐induced regulatory phenomena in fungi because is not transported by the cells and does not induce any regulatory effect (Thevelein and Hohmann, 1995). Two different experiments were performed.

• (i) In a first set of experiments, the presence of sorbitol (10 mM) in the external medium did not affect Jv, JRb or Rb+ root (data not shown).
• (ii) In a second set of experiments, labelled sorbitol or glucose (104 cpm μmol−1) was used to obtain information about their possible absorption. Sunflower root systems were immersed for 6 h in the presence of radioactive glucose or sorbitol and radioactivity was determined both inside the root and in the xylem sap (Table 1). In the case of glucose, high amounts of 14C were found inside the root showing that external glucose entered and reached root cells. In addition, in the xylem sap, lower values of radioactivity were present (Table 1). When the concentration of glucose was measured in the xylem sap by using a chemical method, it was found that the concentration was 70 μM. This value is much lower than expected from the radioactivity present in the xylem sap, indicating that most of the glucose was already metabolized by the root. In the case of sorbitol, the amounts of radioactivity measured were significant but much lower, showing that the roots absorbed some amounts of sorbitol although with much lower efficiency than in the case of glucose.

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http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/354/99.full

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Glucose uptake by maize roots and its transformation in the rhizosphere
Y. Kuzyakov and D.L. Jones

Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation, University of Hohenheim, Emil-Wolff-Strasse 27, D-70599 Stuttgart, Germany
School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, Wales, UK

Abstract

The flow of carbon from roots into the rhizosphere represents a significant C loss from plants. However, roots have the capacity to recapture low molecular weight C from soil although this is in direct competition with soil microorganisms. The aim of this study was to investigate the behaviour of glucose in rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil, the plant's potential to recapture sugars from soil and translocation and utilization of the recaptured sugars. In microcosms containing maize plants we injected 14C-glucose into the rhizosphere and followed its uptake into plants, upward and downward transport in the plant and soil, evolution as 14CO2and incorporation into the soil microbial biomass. These fluxes were compared with non-rhizosphere soil. Glucose was rapidly mineralized in soil and the rate of turnover was significantly greater in the rhizosphere in comparison to non-rhizosphere soil. The amount of glucose captured by the maize plants was low (<10% of the total 14C-glucose added) in comparison to that captured by the soil microbial biomass. Only small amounts of the 14C-glucose were transported to the shoot (0.6% of the total). The degree of glucose capture by maize roots whilst in competition with soil microorganisms was similar to similar experiments performed for amino acids. We conclude that while plant roots can recapture low molecular weight C from the rhizosphere, intense competition from soil microorganisms may reduce the efficiency of this process.

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TC7-4H27B0F-1&_user=10&_coverDate=05/31/2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1521204615&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c53e063f8c7a3f8d4f65d113364ef8b9&searchtype=a

The full text of these articles is only available if you pay, which makes seeking out conclusive information a pain.

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great info and nice nugs too Nullis....thanx for all the help...really appreciate it

Nullis, that's some good info. The professor I was in contact with said 'plants have a limited ability to pull up sugars from the soil'. He didn't say they couldn't at all, nor did he say which saccharides plants do pull up when they do. He did, however, go on to say how sugars can be highly beneficial to the microbes which can benefit the plant to a certain point until: '...you put too much carbohydrate into the soil, you will stimulate bacteria and fungal growth so much that the soil becomes anaerobic. This is because many bacteria and all fungi require oxygen. Too much soil microbial respiration and the soil oxygen levels are too low for the roots, which is not good for the plant.'