A Cleaner Dirt through Sulphur
Adding certain ingredients to the soil that is embracing your cannabis plant can be beneficial, even adding certain products that are not intended for food consumption. A little sulphur in the dirt can actually help a plant grow as well as protect it from the environment. Extremely delicate applications of H2O2 (aka hydrogen peroxide) can sterilize the soil and help a plant’s roots by encouraging oxygen.
If this is going to be attempted, you must err on the side of caution. If different complements are added to the dirt, leaves- and especially flowers- without care by repeatedly fogging an entire crop, prepare for some foul results. Too much oxygen and sulphur can burn the plant’s crucial components and leave behind undesirable toxic residues.
Albeit, in the agriculture world one can find vile synthetic options that are far worse. These harsh, banned sprays can make familiar products seem milder in comparison. Less harmful is great, but what if you want truly safe alternatives?
Influence LC
Active Ingredient: Garlic Powder
This spray is yet another defence for powdery mildew.
If this were to be sprayed directly onto flowered plants right before harvest in a heavy concentration, it mostly creates irritating smoke with an undesirable and unusual aftertaste.
Garlic does contain unique aromatics that are not typically found in cannabis. These are actually organic sulphur compounds, which is not surprising for a part of the plant’s own bulbous feeding system. When you realize garlic is a storage vessel of nutrients and natural pesticides, there is no more wondering why it is effective against mildew.
Unfortunately, the actual effects of inhaling garlic smoke have not been thoroughly studied.
Products formed by combusting organic material are oftentimes oxidative, harmful, and carcinogenic in excessive quantities. Luckily for you, garlic contains good antioxidants which are mostly comprised of organic sulphurs like allicin.
Oxidants, Cannabis, and You
In the natural world, the neutralizing combination of oxidants and antioxidants seems to be common. A benefit to us as we need a perfect balance of both for good health- not too much or too little. Sitting perfectly in the middle is not so easily achieved.
This is Cannabis’ forte. It is brilliant at keeping that balance, which explains a nearly perfect safety record. It is not an anti or pro anything, it’s really just a regulator of everything! Even inflammation. Even Itself!
In your body, certain terpenes, organosulphurs, and cannabinoids that have not yet broken down will scavenge and destroy harmful molecules that been created through decay. Cannabis, and even garlic, may have the ability to prevent any risk they create. Although, the bulbous pods of garlic may be far too rich in those sulphurs to be desirable. Our appreciation goes to delicate plant structures when they can be found in harmony.
This synergy cannot be achieved from a micronized sulphur product. The elemental mineral clearly becomes far safer for humans once it completes its journey from the soil through the plant, and into the leaves. Rather than simply being vaporized and fogged onto a crop.
I suggest mastering the feeding of your cannabis to prevent the need for foliar spraying.
Restricted Use
When using some of the other approved sprays, a grower may not have the option to apply Influence LC. Garlic’s active benefits are as delicate as any other essential oil. They will acutely degrade and oxidize when mixed with reactive compounds. This is likely why the label restricts combing with peroxides, acids, alkali metals, and other oxidizing agents. Lactic acid and citric acid would ultimately fall into this category.
Two approved sprays use these acids as their active ingredients.
Find out where that lactic acid was squeezed out of in the next addition to this series: Cannabis Sprays Explored.
Featured image courtesy of Medical News Today.