What is your opinion on Molasses?

Do you use molasses? If so how much and do you need to flush it with the other nutes? Any side by side comparisons?

Molasses.

A small amount of the trace minerals contained within molasses is uptaken by the plant.

The rest helps to feed the microherd contained within the plants rhizosphere.

Some key terms for you to google.

Trichoderma
Mycorhizae
Plant symbiotic relationships
Microherd
Rhizosphere


Personally I do not use molasses.

I have used it and now I don't see the benefit of it unless you grow organically and have a thriving microherd population.



J

I used to use it and used to argue a mean argument in favore of using it but I did do a side by side test. I used Female Seeds Bubblegummer 3 wit and 3 without and I found that it did not do anything that I could notice for or against the plants. I would say if you use bacteria like the ones Jondamon list I would use it because it is certainly beneficial for feeding them.

my soil recipe is fine without the carbs and sugars

Thanks for the input, it's so weird to me how some people swear by it, but I am hearing a lot of what you guys are saying too.

It cant hurt to use it so use it and form your own opinion.

I tried it a few times. Never really saw any benefit. Could be because of my short cycles. I veg for about 2 months indoor and flower outside for about 2 months. If I were growing trees all year I might notice a difference.

bigv1976 said:

It cant hurt to use it so use it and form your own opinion.

Click to expand...

Good advice.

People should always try things themselves and form their own opinion.



J

I never used it and my reasoning for not using it is " something sweet around my plants will be a beacon for bugs" small bugs, medium bugs, large bugs and even bigger bugs to eat the smaller bugs so why bother.... No molasses, no bugs IMHO

Yeah I was wondering about bugs, you never hear anyone talk about sugar and bugs but I would think you would be inviting them in.

Walter9999 said:

I never used it and my reasoning for not using it is " something sweet around my plants will be a beacon for bugs" small bugs, medium bugs, large bugs and even bigger bugs to eat the smaller bugs so why bother.... No molasses, no bugs IMHO

Click to expand...

I use Molasses along with my nutes/water...
Mix only what you will use that day. I have found if left out, mixed with Nutes, it gets odd/bad smell after a day...

I have never had a bug issue with Molasses... None, not one...
[of course I have just used it for 6-7 months... and most bugs been frozen around here for awhile]
I have found Knats like temps over 84-86 degrees F.... I always keep it under that...

Try it for yourself... My Jury is still undecided if it helps...
So far, it doesn't hurt...

It's good on waffles.

Yeah i'm interested. I may do the experiment as well, i'm only one week into flowering.

Yeah I think I'll try it on one of my plants just to find out for myself, but the more I look into it the more I lean towrds it being a myth

IMHO it is good in the right setting, i use it for the basis of teas
it's a good nute in its own right, and very cheap, a good, cheap way for organic teas

I've used it and noticed no benefits from it. I'll side with growone and say it is good to mix in with teas. It helps to foam things up.

I used it on my last grow that I just finished and IMO it really does not do much of anything. Look at your nutes I bet there is at least one that has molasses in it already, my CalMg does I know that as do most sweets. So I really feel no need to feed additional molasses at this point.

T.H.Cammo said:

What a bunch of great responces - really! Starting with #'s 3 and 4 there were some qualified "Not so great" opinions.

Let me see if I can make some sense out of what seems to be a "major difference of opinion", or at least what seems to be a bad reflection on molasses.

1. Adding molasses to a "mediocre" performing soil can have the appearence of tuning it up to a "good" performer, primarily by feeding the "micro-herd".
2. Adding molasses to an already "good" performing soil may improve the soil's performence to some degree - but any improvement would be less drastic (and therefore, less noticable).
3. Adding molasses to a truely excellent soil may not have any readily noticeable effect at all (at least, not for a while, perhaps not at all!). But like bigv already said "It can't hurt!".

So, I say this, "People who use really good soil probably wont appreciate molasses as much as people who use crappy soil". That's about all there is to it!

Click to expand...

I know someone will argue with this cuz thats what people do here but from what I have seen it makes perfect sense.

potpimp said:

It's good on waffles.

Click to expand...

.....And you can leave it at that IMO. I tried it once, and never again. It left an unnatural smell and taste, and you could still smell it in the empty curing jars. I'll never touch it again mainly because its not at all needed for anything.