So it's really depressing and frustrating to see so many people comment with such a certain no.
Ethylene or Ethene is a gaseous, flammable hydrocarbon that is
hugely versatile and widely used in the chemical industry. Indeed, its production exceeds that of any other organic compound in the world, and much of this production is destined to making polyethene, one of today's most widely used plastics.
Ethylene occurs naturally through the breakdown of methylene and is produced in all parts of the plant, particularly in cells undergoing senescence and in ripening fruit. Its action counteracts the effect of auxin and is what triggers the ageing process in plants. Its main effects are to
promote senescence and the ripening of fruit. It also increases petiole length and internode distance. Ethylene plays a part in
breaking seed dormancy and
promoting germination.
The balance between auxin and ethylene has an important role to play in
leaf abscission at the end of the growing season when the
cold weather triggers ethylene production at the same time as auxin levels are reducing within the ageing leaf.
Ethylene is key to
sexual expression in many plants, cannabis included, with female flowers requiring much more ethylene to develop than male flowers. By applying
ethylene-inhibiting agents such as STS (Sliver Tiosulphate) we can induce male flowers on female plants to create
feminised seeds.
It is highly valued in commercial agriculture, where it is
employed on a huge scale to ripen fruit that by necessity must be picked early to ensure damage-free transport. In these massive commercial ripening operations, ethanol is converted to ethylene and pumped in to ripen fruit, but man has used the ripening effect of ethylene at least since ancient Egyptian times when they would cut figs to ripen them, as
ethylene production is stimulated by physical damage. This is the reason that we enclose fruit in a paper bag to accelerate ripening, or that fruit will ripen more quickly if we add a mature apple or banana to our fruit bowl.
In this blog post, we take a look at the complex world of plant hormones, talking about the wide range of effects they have, and how they control and regulate almost every aspect of our plants' lives.
www.alchimiaweb.com
I have just placed 6 very ripe bananas under my canopy, as the ethylene produced by the bananas should ripen up buds and induce senescence (natural intentional slow plant death) and leaf abscission (budds sucking up nutrients from the leaves and ripening up faster). I will also be giving a 30 min red and far red light treatment at the end of each light on period.
I really hope this helps and I wish more horticulturists like myself would detail best practice and little tricks like this more often. If you don't know then you don't know. Sharing really is caring.
Happy growing guys!
J
But again I am total newbie and just passin on what I read.
