Foliar spray with alcohol and urea

[svalli]

A small company in Finland makes a foliar sprays with alcohol and urea plus some other stuff. The science behind the product should be that the carbon in alcohol is used by the plant instead of taking carbondioxide from the air, so it should be great for greenhouses or indoor growing. I saw this product at one of the gardening stores here and I am wondering, if I sould try it. I found some positive comments on Finnish gardening forums. Surprising to me is that there seems to be no other similar product around, or at least I could not find anything on the internet.

http://www.carbonkick.fi/eng/index_jacksmagic.html


Edit: This should have gone under 'General Discussions', I accidentally posted it to Seed starting section.

[Flame of Bodensee]

this product sounds like this superthrive product from the US, bigger growing, stronger roots and so on.

[amideutch]

Flame, They are two totally different products. Carbonkick is a foliar whereas Superthrive is used as an additive with your soil fertilizers. I have used Superthrive and if it made a difference it was not apparent to me. Ami

[Flame of Bodensee]

well ami i have read that superthrive can also be used for foliar too, depends perhabs on the mixture dilute. for whole experience i should get both of those products to test.

greetz Matthias

[amideutch]

Matthias, I guess you could use Superthrive as a foliar but I have a bottle of it sitting in front of me and there is no directions for foliar applications. The one thing it does state is to apply when soil is thirsty. Ami

[dice]

Alcohol plus urea sounds like a high-nitrogen foliar feed.
(That is what urea is typically used for in lawn food and
other pelleted synthetic fertilizers, a nitrogen source.)

[svalli]

The maker of the stuff has some patent applications about applying foliar sprays with alcohol as carbon source. http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2004107860

The urea gives extra nitrogen, so it may be difficult to determine, if the carbon thing really works?

[Marko]

Urea is very good foliar fertilizer. BUT if somone says ALCOHOL can be CO2 source I expect a scientific explanation. Sorry, but I don't buy this.

[Blueaussi]

Ok, I totally suck at organic chemistry, but isn't there only one oxygen molecule in an alcohol molecule? Wouldn't it be very difficult to try and make CO2 out of alcohol?

[amideutch]

Alcohols Aliphatic


The aliphatic alcohols are a series of homologous series organic compounds containing one or more hydroxyl groups [-OH] attached to an Alkyl Radical.
The aliphatic alcohols can be regarded as derivatives of alkanes in which one or more hydrogen atoms have been replaced by hydroxyl groups [-OH]. The general formula of saturated aliphatic alcohols is CnH2n+1OH, where n=1,2,3, etc. The saturated carbon chain is often designated by the symbol R, so that ROH can represent any alcohol in the homologous series. Methanol and ethanol are the first two members of the series. Compounds of this type with one hydroxyl group per molecule are known as monohydric alcohols. Ami

[b54red]

Me I like my alcohol with a little tonic water and a twist.
I like my maters but I think my Bombay will only be used as a gardener additive and enhancer.

[veggie babe]

I'm with you b54, the rest of this is way above my head!!!!!!

neva

[svalli]

The alcohols in this concoction are ethanol, benzyl and triacontanol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triacontanol

Triacontanol seems to also be a growth enhancer.

The science behind spraying the alcohol should be that, it prevents photorespiration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorespiration by adding carbon.
I wonder, if the plants can really use the carbon from alcohol molecules.

[Blueaussi]

It seems they would get more carbon from me standing over them and panting then by spraying them with alcohol.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by veggie babe

I'm with you b54, the rest of this is way above my head!!!!!!

neva

You can tell from some of the threads lately that many of us tomato addicts are getting a little desperate for something 'tomato' to discuss. I've at least planted a good mess of seed; though probably way too early. I couldn't help myself. Oh well, I've got plenty of seed and no fresh tomatoes; so what's a tomato addict to do? Guess I could go out and pull up some more frozen broccoli plants so I'll have room for some new ones as soon as it quits raining so much and warms up a little.