# How about some vitamins from fruit juices?



## Aen (Jul 24, 2007)

Many of ADA's products have vitamins (don't know which). The best source of vitamins I can think of is fruit juices, minus the pulp. It's really natural but not too much as some can be acidic.

Is this just insane or actually viable?


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## Chuppy (Aug 5, 2007)

I dont know.. but I'll stick with ADA Vitamix or Rio Base for the vit. if i were you =)


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## bencozzy (Jun 2, 2006)

im not sure id want to go pouring fruit juice in my tank, they have alot of sugars in them which im pretty sure bacteria would love. 

not sure if it would do anything good or bad.

really most health food stores will carry a liquid vitamin supplement. but really i always thought B vitamins are what were in most products and you can also find those in liquid forms, heck wal-mart even has that.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Has anyone seen a report of a carefully run experiment to show that any vitamin is helpful for growing plants? Farmers, to the best of my knowledge, don't use vitamins on their crops, and farmers seek maximum yields at all times. So, I doubt that any vitamins have an effect that is measurable. Amano is a great artist, photographer, and businessman, but I haven't yet seen evidence that he is a botanist or other scientist. In my opinion ADA products range from the most elegant, best made in the world to just plain over hyped fakes. I think it pays to use some common sense in evaluating ADA products just as we do the products of any other company.


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## bencozzy (Jun 2, 2006)

ive used vitamins on green water cultures and it helps but as hoppy has stated ive never seen plants benefit from them.


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## Aen (Jul 24, 2007)

Dennerle Products have vitamins too.

By the way... check this out.
http://www.miniscience.com/projects/plantvitamin/index.html

and this:
http://www.biology-online.org/11/10_growth_and_plant_hormones.htm

It says vitamins are vital for the activation of metabolic enzymes.

and these:
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1119
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-05/989983823.Bt.r.html
http://media.www.thevarsity.ca/medi...ence/Cool-Plants.Need.Vitamin.E-2510341.shtml


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## Aen (Jul 24, 2007)

Orange juice is rich in K + Vitamin C and B9. pH 3.5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Aen said:


> Dennerle Products have vitamins too.
> 
> By the way... check this out.
> http://www.miniscience.com/projects/plantvitamin/index.html
> ...


Thank you for the references. All of them except the "Science Fair" type paper, make it clear that plants make their own vitamins. The improvements noted for plants with more of one or another vitamin occured after the plant was stimulated to produce more of that vitamin, not after the plant was dosed with synthetic vitamins. Natural vitamins are mostly produced by plants, as I recall, so they are natural compounds found in various plants.

Before I would accept the desirability of adding any vitamins to our fertilizing routine I would want to see comparative testing done on aquatic plants, in aquariums, where everything was kept the same in groups of tanks, except the presence or absence of an added synthetic vitamin along with routine fertilizing. Then, the test would be continued by switching the group of tanks so the vitaminized tanks stopped getting vitamins and the non-vitaminized tanks started getting vitamins. I would expect to see at least 3 tanks in each group, each with the same 3 or 4 plant types in them. This would need to be done over again for each vitamin being tested. If I had the room and the money I would find doing such a test extremely interesting.

Doesn't it make sense that providing a complex organic molecule, normally produced by the plant itself, as a plant food would not work? It is hard for me to see why it would work - how would the vitamin get into the plant, not being an ion? But, testing would be the way to find out.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

I agree with hoppycalif. All the scientific literature supports the statement that plants do not need an outside source of vitamins. They make all their own. The only way externally supplied vitamins might help a plant would be if one of them acted as a chelating agent (like EDTA) and helped make more available some needed nutrient such as iron or manganese. I have personally grown a number of species of aquatic plants in algae-free culture with only mineral nutrients (including iron EDTA), light and CO2 supplied.


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## Aen (Jul 24, 2007)

All the science tells us this and that but yet we are not really healthy.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

The way science works is you use theory to predict what a change will cause to happen. Then, to be sure, you do careful testing to verify that the theory was correct. That's why I would be very interested in seeing someone try a controlled test with some of the vitamins. Until someone does that and reports the results I think we have to go with what theories tell us.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

> All the science tells us this and that but yet we are not really healthy.


The plants that I grew in (almost) sterile culture were healthy, and they were not given any vitamins.

Yes, but how many of us listen to what the scientists* are telling us? How many of us get plenty of exercise and eat the kind of diet that nutritionists recommend?

* I mean real scientists, not false scientists paid by corporations to create an artificial controversy.


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## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

HeyPK said:


> The plants that I grew in (almost) sterile culture were healthy, and they were not given any vitamins.
> 
> Yes, but how many of us listen to what the scientists* are telling us? How many of us get plenty of exercise and eat the kind of diet that nutritionists recommend?
> 
> * I mean real scientists, not false scientists paid by corporations to create an artificial controversy.


What you say is true, but keep in mind that many of us listen to Doctors and they are not really trained in nutritional science. While some doctors focus more on prevention than treatment. Many will prescribe meds instead of treating root causes. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on whether alternative practitioners or mainstream medical professionals is that regular exercise and healthy eating are keys to good health and disease prevention.

Having said that, many people eat store bought fruits and vegetables thinking that they are eating healthy, but based on the mass production of fruits and vegetables and the poor quality soils they are grown in, you are not nearly getting the benefits than if you were to grow your own fruits and vegetables and controlled the type of soil they are grown in. Lol, not a realistic option for many of us.

Before I got into this hobby, I did a lot of research on alternative disease prevention measures, like acid/alkaline balancing: 
http://www.naturalhealthschool.com/acid-alkaline.html
http://www.askmoreless.com/home
and liver flushes(yeah call me a quack)
http://www.curezone.com/cleanse/liver/huldas_recipe.asp

And after self experimenting with these, my health improved 100%. When I slacked, I could feel the difference and energy drain. And it wasn't a placebo effect either because I was very skeptical of these things and was testing them just for the hell of it.

Anyway to make a long story short, when I got into this hobby, it made me realize that although we are not plants, like plants we are carbon based life forms and physiological and chemical imbalances(not to mention poor genetics) may be the root cause of most disease and illness and so improving body chemistry and physiology through a combination of such things as certain supplements, acid/alkaline balancing, liver flushes, eating healthier and exercising regularly, may help fend off and prevent disease and illness.

Sorry to get off topic.

Regards.


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## SugarLEVI (Aug 15, 2004)

Ah come on bunch of scepticals that you are. Science isn't trustable, come on isn't called science for nothing.

How science works extreme simplified example.
We take a plant, put in a cup of water with all kinds of stuff in it. Plant grows.
We take a plant, put it in a cup of water with all kinds of stuff in it- minus one. Plant doesn't grow well. element that wasn't there, is probably essential for the plant.

Doing this it was found out that plants need the currently known macro and microelements, water, light and co2. All anorganic materials, that is why plants are autotrophes. They grow perfectly fine when alle their necessary elements are available.

They do not need vitamins, they make vitamins themselves. 

And here I take a step away from science and biology because I don't know enough about this subject and take a step closer to philosophy.

Plants don't need vitamins, but maybe they can use them. It costs energy to make vitamins, so when they don't need to make those vitamins, this saves them energy which they can use for other things.

Just like easy carbo works, they don't need it, but it saves them some energy, and gives them extra co2. 

Most growth of plant is inhibited by the amount of co2, light, water, macro and micro elements there is. So they will only increase in growth when we do something about the thing inhibiting the plant at that moment. 
So when a plant doesn't grow well because it lacks cobalt and as such it isn't able to produce enough B12. When we give the plant B12, therefor compensating for the lack of cobalt, it could grow some more. 

But are plants even able to use vitamins from a source other than themselves?


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## carpguy (Feb 3, 2006)

SugarLEVI said:


> But are plants even able to use vitamins from a source other than themselves?


No. They have no uptake mechanism.

(Another edition of short answers to simple questions).


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## Aen (Jul 24, 2007)

carpguy said:


> No. They have no uptake mechanism.
> 
> (Another edition of short answers to simple questions).


Just like how the Earth was flat.

Interesting find
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m34328h82716261u/fulltext.pdf


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