Dr.Dutch
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I have now looked a bit more myself.
The article by Dr. Fernandez is quite interesting.
https://scienceinhydroponics.com/2020/04/sugars-in-hydroponic-nutrient-solutions.html
The point about processing/uptake to the upper parts of the plant there.
Overall, though, there seems to be very little research in the field for hydro, he says.
The last section regarding food for MOs is I think the more important part.
I use glucose myself, which so far is also only for my bacillus spp. as food. Unfortunately I have not found any scientific sources, but on manicbotanix there were several articles about food for MOs in hydroponic systems.
In my case, I have so far only been able to determine that the pH remains significantly more stable in conjunction with citric acid.
Would be interested in any case, how this affects in your case with your MOs. The problem with too little O2 you should not have in your system
The article by Dr. Fernandez is quite interesting.
https://scienceinhydroponics.com/2020/04/sugars-in-hydroponic-nutrient-solutions.html
The point about processing/uptake to the upper parts of the plant there.
Let us start with what we know about the subject. We know that plants exude very significant amount of sugars through their root systems and we also know that they can re-uptake some of these sugars through their roots (see here). From this paper it seems that maize plants could uptake up to 10% of the sugars they exude back into their root systems, which implies that some exogenous sugar application could find its way into plant roots. Even worse, transporting this sugar up to the shoots is extremely inefficient, with only 0.6% of the sugar making it up the plant. This tells us that most of the sugar is wasted in terms of plant usage, a large majority never makes it into the plant and the little amount that makes it actually never goes up the plant. Plants are simply not built to transport sugars in this manner, they evolved to transport sugars down to roots and to fruits.
Overall, though, there seems to be very little research in the field for hydro, he says.
Sadly there aren’t any peer reviewed papers – at least that I could find – investigating the effect of exogenous sugars on the yields of any plant specie in a hydroponic environment. Given our understanding of plant physiology, any positive effects related with anecdotal use of sugars are most likely related with positive effects in the rhizosphere that are linked with improved production of substances that elicit plant growth in the root zone by favorable microbes.
The last section regarding food for MOs is I think the more important part.
If you’re interested in the use of sugars in hydroponics, it is probably more fruitful to focus on microbe inoculations instead. Sugars themselves are bound to provide no benefit if they are not coupled with a proper microbe population and, even then, you might actually have all the benefits without any sugar applications as the microbes can be selected and fed by plant root exudates themselves in mature plants although sugars might provide some benefits in jump starting these populations, particularly in younger plants. Also, bear in mind that there is also a very high risk of stimulating bad microbes with the use of sugars, especially if oxygenation is not very high.
I use glucose myself, which so far is also only for my bacillus spp. as food. Unfortunately I have not found any scientific sources, but on manicbotanix there were several articles about food for MOs in hydroponic systems.
In my case, I have so far only been able to determine that the pH remains significantly more stable in conjunction with citric acid.
Would be interested in any case, how this affects in your case with your MOs. The problem with too little O2 you should not have in your system