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Amino Acids Biostimulants in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to the Hydroponics Daily. Today we're going to talk about another
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  group of biostimulants called amino acids.
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  And you'll have heard of amino acids, they're the basic building blocks of proteins.
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  And the chemical structure is here, a central carbon atom, an amine group,
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  which is basically just nitrogen, two hydrogens, carboxylic acid,
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  a hydrogen here, and then a side chain.
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  And that side chain determines which particular amino acid it is i've forgotten
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  how many essential amino acids there are that are required for human life but
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  it's about 24 is it something like that and plants make their own so they don't
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  need you to apply amino acids whereas humans we do not make our own amino acids so we need to eat them,
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  and but plants can benefit from having them applied and it's not just they don't
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  need to make amino acids they you can get them to do different things the plants
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  if you apply amino acids.
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  The important point to consider here is that you want to apply a blend of amino
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  acids, not one single amino acid.
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  That's not because they need them all. It's because if you apply one.
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  The plants make amino acids in groups and sort of like families.
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  And if you apply one, say, glutamic acid,
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  all the ones that are made in the same pathway, the
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  plant detects the glutamic acid and things oh if i've got
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  plenty of glutamic acid i've also got plenty of the the others
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  in that pathway and so you can actually the plants
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  switch off production of the of that whole pathway and
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  the plant becomes deficient in amino acids and dies so you definitely don't
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  want to put single amino acids in you always want to put a blend in and that's
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  useful because most of the sources of amino acids are blends so the the most
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  readily available source of amino acids is food byproducts
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  and you can get proteins from food byproducts that
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  are not required and you hydrolyze them by
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  putting them in acids or alkali and getting
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  the breaking them down into their amino acid parts breaking the
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  proteins down the opposite of what a plant will do
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  when it builds up proteins so that might be sort of
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  like pea protein can be used as an amino acid it could
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  be yeast extracts that high in amino acids or it could
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  be something like chicken feathers or something from the leather industry you
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  don't want to be taking much from the leather industry because they have other
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  nasty heavy metals and things like that but you could get amino acids from all
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  sorts of different things pig's blood there's a company in the uk that makes
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  amino acid biostimulants from pig's blood for example.
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  Delightful isn't it and here i've
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  highlighted two the particular amino acids to look out for
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  the first one is glutamic acid and that is very important because plants respond
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  to glutamic acid like a hundredfold or a thousandfold more than they would other
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  amino acids so you put put in the soil near to a root they'll stimulate root
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  growth around the amino the glutamic acid,
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  dramatically compared to other amino acids that's shown by
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  research at lancaster university they showed that glutamic
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  acid was the most potent of all the amino acids when
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  it came to root stimulation root growth stimulation another important
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  amino acid is tryptophan which is a precursor to auxin hormone so if you're
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  looking for stimulating rooting or the rooting of cuttings and tryptophan will
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  be something you'll be looking for in the ingredients and then other things
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  that amino acids do is they stimulate beneficial microbes.
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  The growth of them is a good nitrogen source because it's got an amine group.
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  They're important for nitrogen metabolism so you can apply them to plants and
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  they'll use them as an alternative source of nitrogen.
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  That's important in cold weather where plants are struggling to get amino acids
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  in and then they can use the amino acids directly.
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  It used to be thought that they couldn't use them directly and they had to be
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  broken down but that's not true.
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  And then the other thing to look out for is L versus D amino acids.
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  If you're synthesizing amino acids in a lab, it's not a lab,
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  in a factory, with a synthetic process, you'll get a mixture of L and D amino acids.
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  And it's only the L ones that are natural.
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  So this is an L-amino acid. If it's what's called a stereoisomer,
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  that R and that side group, whatever the side group is, that switches round
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  and that's a D-amino acid.
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  And some people think these are poisonous to humans, poisonous to plants.
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  That's debatable. There is research both ways and it depends on what the amino
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  acid is, I suppose, as well.
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  And so you need to make sure you're using L-amino acids. I did hear once that
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  extremely high pHs can cause a flip.
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  Between L and D, amino acid isomers. I'm not sure how that works or whether that's true.
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  If it is, then you should avoid blending amino acids with very alkaline products
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  like alkaline seaweed extracts. We don't make them.
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  And use an acidic or a neutral one instead. Often we get asked for mixes of
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  seaweed extracts and amino acids.
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  People really want it and they have no idea why, but it seems to be a popular
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  blend of those two things together, mainly because there's no amino acids in
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  seaweed extracts and they just want to sort of catch all seaweed,
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  biostimulants and then the other thing to consider is that when we
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  talk about sulfur and sulfur nutrition there are a number of amino acids that
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  have a sulfur compound in this side chain so it can be a good source of sulfur
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  as well if you get the right blend and the right amino acid product so sulfur
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  you you struggle to get too much sulfur in a in a in a plant and they always
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  it always produces good results, sulfur.
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  So yeah, that's amino acids and a very popular source of biostimulants. Thank you very much.