Do plants really like a bit of extra sugar?

EricsGarden

Yesterday I saw a fascinating video on youtube about growing plants. In the video, a nursery owner is teaching a class on growing plants and a couple of things really got my attention.

He said that in his nursery they regularly spray their plants with a Molasses/Fish/Seaweed solution.

His logical reasoning for adding sugar seems very sound to me. Plants create carbs/sugars via photosynthesis, because they need it. If you give them some, the plant can divert its resources to something else like growth. Or the plant will be able to store the extra sugar for next spring.

This is apparently a vital technique for growing things like enormous prize winning pumkins, and is supposed to be great for improving fruit yields up to 5 times.

I'm a naturally skeptical person and I don't believe everything on the internet. So I need to get the opinions of others with experience and expertise.

I did a quick search on this forum and so far I'm unable to find any mention of using sugar . I'm about to start researching it and may do some experiments to gather some evidence for myself.

So what do you think?

I'm new to this forum so I'm not sure if it's OK to share the youtube video or not.

Fire

It would be interesting to see actual evidence on this rather than conjecture or myths. It seems a really easy thing to test over the course of a year.

Yes, you can add links from the toolbar above or drop the link address right into the editing window.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIojWdJz0RE

josusa47

Years ago I read somewhere that people wanting to compete for the biggest pumpkin or whatever, would thread a large needle with a strand of wool, pass it through the stem of the fruit, and dangle the wool in a jar of sugar solution.

EricsGarden

OK then here is the video. Note that the part about sugars starts 29 mins in. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eer3pgo8w_I&t=1735s

Fairygirl

How can anyone be a*sed with all that?
I'd rather eat my own hair. 

For most people, the usual methods work perfectly well. That's the problem with the internet. It can be very useful, but it can also cause people to worry about everything, and over analyse.
Just my opinion of course.

Dovefromabove

Only give them sugar if you can trust them to brush their teeth properly

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjook1I0V4

otherwise best stick to their normal diet 😉 

PurpleRose

When I put my cut flowers in a vase I always use lemonade (not the diet variety) this was advice from a florest. They do seem to last longer.

Alan Clark2 in Liverpool

I am also sceptical. For one thing, how do we know that plants are able to absorb sugar? And also, it is known that sugar in soil allows bacteria to grow more rapidly and take up nutrients, which reduces plant growth as a result. Much of the sugar that is sprayed will end up in the compost, so you might get the opposite result to what you want!

The idea is merely a hypothesis, unsupported by experimental evidence, so not worth considering.

Papi Jo

How about people with diabetes eating vegs grown with added sugar?

B3

You could grow toffee apples

Fairygirl

PurpleRose said:

When I put my cut flowers in a vase I always use lemonade (not the diet variety) this was advice from a florest. They do seem to last longer.

A combo of bleach and sugar is ideal.
Bleach might be in short supply just now though....