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Enzymes on Plants. What the heck? · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there, and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and I've come across a number of enzyme products
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  in the last couple of weeks, and I just wanted to talk about them because they're,
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  quite interesting and intriguing.
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  My friend Lewis on Instagram sent me a message about one of them.
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  So let's just get up where are you lewis there
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  you go it was a mention from
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  another podcast actually it was the jug dealers podcast
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  and they were extolling the virtues of a product called green sensation from
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  plagron and it's a pk booster as is very common in hydroponics a pk product in
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  flowering that's nothing unusual lots of people say that you should be adding
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  a pk and there are loads of pk products on the market most of them like this
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  one are made from mono or di potassium phosphate and in fact if you just want
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  a pk product you best just buy some potassium phosphate.
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  The often these are the cheap and cheerful ones but often
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  people try and add extra ingredients to give them a unique selling point and
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  one of the unique selling points according to this of the green sensation product
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  is that it contains well it's yeah contains enzymes so.
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  What but the problem is there's a couple of problems with that one is on the ingredients list.
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  There's nothing there that would be a source of enzymes.
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  So one website declares the ingredients, and if this is different to what Plagron
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  states on their label somewhere else, let me know, because I'm more than happy to change this.
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  But it says contains potassium phosphate, monobase, hydrolyzed milk protein.
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  Enzymes are proteins but this is hydrolyzed which means it's broken down so
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  that can't be a source of the enzymes potassium hydroxide well potassium hydroxide
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  will break down enzymes lactic acid again that won't be too good for enzymes
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  phosphoric acid that won't be too good for enzymes edta,
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  shouldn't have much of an effect phosphorus penta oxide and then just that's
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  not going to have any effect and potassium phosphate again so yeah not sure
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  where the enzymes are coming from on there so if Plagron know, let me know.
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  So that's the interesting one is where are these enzymes coming from?
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  And the really crazy one though is that these guys on this podcast,
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  the Jug Dealers podcast, are saying that it's really good because the enzymes
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  are breaking down the cell wall.
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  And that's the first time I've ever heard of enzyme being used on the plant as it's growing.
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  So additional enzymes being applied to the plant.
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  And they're saying that it helps because it breaks down the secondary cell
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  wall of the plant i have
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  no idea why you would want to do that so if you
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  know or if you know anyone if you
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  know any of the guys there at jug dealers it'd be great to collaborate and let
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  me know what a positive effect that's supposed to be having on the plant and
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  then the other thing is that they're also recommending the application of silicon
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  products and silicon products build up the strength of the cell wall so you
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  would think those two things would be.
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  Counterproductive either you want to degrade the cell wall or you want to build
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  up the strength of the cell wall
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  why would you want i don't understand the rationale of breaking it down,
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  certainly no reports i've ever read have recommended the application of enzymes,
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  to the plant as it's growing there are a few products that add enzymes to the
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  soil or the grow media for a number of reasons, improving nutrient availability,
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  so things like phosphatases.
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  Proteases to break down to make amino acids available
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  they can release amino acids and phosphorus back
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  into the soil you you can um
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  the main use of enzymes is to
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  break down dead roots organic debris and that's where most
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  enzyme based products are aimed at
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  in the hydroponic sector is reusing grow
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  media so you add the enzyme breaks down the
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  roots and that the problem with that is that a lot
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  of grow shops make money from selling new
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  grow media so they don't want to be pushing enzyme-based products a
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  lot of people are lazy and don't want to waste wait weeks
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  for the roots to break down and the third one is if you want to break down dead
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  plant roots the best way is to compost your grow media or use a worm farm um
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  to get rid of the dead roots that's what i would do is just set up a worm farm
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  it's easier than you it's probably easier more reliable than using enzymes, to be honest.
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  The other reason that doesn't work very well is that these enzymes are generally
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  made by companies like Novazyme in Denmark, where they're designed for washing powder.
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  So they're designed to work at 40 degrees Celsius, and they're designed to be
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  in aqueous solutions and short scale, not exposed to UV light or to bacteria and things like that.
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  And that's one of the problems the limitations
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  of enzymes is that they are proteins so they
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  break down quickly in soil unless stabilized and they will break down into under
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  uv light so if you're spraying them onto a plant they'll break down really fast
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  and they probably wouldn't work if there's any uv light there at all so better
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  to actually apply microbes that produce enzymes in situ.
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  Giving longer lasting effects rather than directly applying enzymes themselves.
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  Enzymes are great when they're being produced by microbes like fungi and by plants themselves.
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  Plants will produce their own enzymes, thousands and thousands of enzymes.
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  As we talked about, Rubisco, the most common protein on the planet,
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  that is an enzyme that's crucial to photosynthesis.
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  We talked about that a couple of episodes ago.
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  There are a few enzymes for stress tolerance and
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  for enhancing in microbial activity or for cleaning irrigation
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  systems so drip systems for breaking
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  down organic matter so the same enzymes that you
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  would apply to soil for enhanced microbial activity but certainly the first
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  time i've ever heard of anyone applying enzymes onto a plant and for a really
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  weird reason breaking down the plant cell wall i just don't think you would
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  want to do that in a crop you always want strong cell walls that's why we add
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  silicon and calmag and things like this,
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  weak cell walls will lead to pest and disease issues and lead to crop disintegration
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  and quality issues but maybe i'm missing something completely so i'm not dissing
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  jug dealers in any way i'm not dissing playground just let me know guys.
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  What the enzyme does, why it's beneficial, and where are the enzymes coming from?
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  Because on the list, on the US label, you have to list the ingredients and there's
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  no source, any materials in there that would make me say, oh,
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  that's the source of the enzymes. So really intrigued.
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  So maybe a follow-up on this one tomorrow, perhaps.
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  So a bit of a weird one today and tomorrow
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  probably going to do an episode on arsenic my doctor
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  has asked me about arsenic is right
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  white rice a source of arsenic so i'm gonna my
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  gp has asked that and so i will answer
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  her question tomorrow and i'll do some thorough research on is
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  white rice a source of arsenic should you be worried and where's it
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  coming from and what effects does it have in the plants and on
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  you okay until tomorrow oh that
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  is a good point actually arsenic is one of the elements
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  on our periodic table of plant health
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  and you might see some adverts on meta because i've
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  been promoting that so uh if you would like a copy of the periodic table of
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  plant health it's it's available and i will shall put the link in the show notes
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  and you can download a pdf and you can print it off in whatever size you want
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  a4 a0 whatever you want get it laminated yeah so that'll be available. Link in the show notes.
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  In return, if you find it useful, please leave us an Apple podcast review.
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  It would help tremendously.
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  Until tomorrow, thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.