Boosters: hype or hope?
By Canna
The problem is, only a few are true metabolism boosters, which is what a booster should be. Most are either additional nutrients, organic compounds, or simply an extract of someone’s old socks! One company we know actually markets three different products that contain exactly the same ingredients, only they changed the names to protect the innocent.
A booster acts independently from the nutrients, enabling the plant’s own systems to work at optimal levels while leaving no footprint or excess baggage behind. Boosters work by influencing plant systems, sometimes by triggering desired responses such as an auto-immune response, or by increasing specific essential oil production.
The best booster
There are many routes to get there. You can overdose a particular component and hope that a runaway reaction occurs. You can morph a system to produce more of one thing or another; you can interjecting a component directly through translaminar or transcellular migration, or you can alter the plant genetically. None of these methods are particularly effective, consistent or benign, and some are even dangerous. The problem is we only affect one part of a system while ignoring the rest. The best way to boost yield is to affect all the systems with the one component common to all systems, energy.
By affecting the energy pathways, from production to translocation, from storage to utilization, we can affect all systems equally. Therefore, the best booster would be one that affects all systems and allows them to utilize energy at the most optimal rate possible. And besides this, it should be one that works with the plants existing systems, causes no imbalances, produces no mutations, works within the plants own framework, and leaves nothing behind that is toxic or allergenic.
The booster should also allow energy to be metabolized easily, moved quickly, utilized as needed, and never limited. In enabling this the plant has all the energy it could ever need to produce flowers and to mature; to produce desirable compounds such as oils and alkaloids; to perform rapid and extended photosynthesis; to effectively store and release components when needed, such as starch; to produce stronger, faster dividing cells; and have better respiration processes in the plant cell. The only thing that would improve this magic elixir would be if it were composed in such a way that it only significantly affects particular areas so that overproduction of the desired components would not alter or tax the plants other systems. This is because our energy is now free flowing and available whenever and wherever the plant needs it.
Trigger flower and oil production
By using the right plant components, and combining them with the correct decomposition process it might even be possible to take advantage of other desired results such as triggering the plants natural immune systems, a kind of vaccination. We might even be able to trigger heavier flower and oil production by mimicking specific stressors, or change the ratios of internal compounds to generate more of what the market is after and less of what is ineffective. We might also be able to affect the way structural and chemical compounds are laid down so that cells become larger or oils and saps become denser. Well, truth is, there are two boosters now that do exactly this.
CANNABOOST and BioBOOST
CANNA Research, CANNA’s research and development wing has developed two booster products, “BioBOOST” and “CANNABOOST Accelerator”. These products are almost identical; BioBOOST is organic with nothing inorganic added and CANNABOOST has an added component that is inorganic but pure. The use of this component in the boost kicks it into high gear so that the results are rapid and big. BioBOOST manifests itself in a slower manner, but it is the perfect answer for those wanting to stay 100% organic and compliments BIOCANNA’s BioVega, BioFlores nutrients. BioBOOST will work in all systems in the same way as CANNABOOST. Both products affect the plant's energy systems as described, and the organic component gives the part that would be nice.
A significant part of both products is the oligosaccharines that result from the breakdown of the bio components. These are basically small protein chains and cell wall chains that mimic enzymes, hormones and growth regulators. They stimulate key aspects in a plant such as its immune system (which turns on and acts as a preventer), alkaloid and essential oil production. They also influence protein synthesis allowing the cells to become denser, and strongly trigger the ‘organic’ taste in consumed plant components.
So, instead of trying to find many products to do the same thing (which can’t be done anyway), a grower can invest in CANNABOOST and BioBOOST and get them all in one package. What many growers fail to realize is it's not how many different items you put into the tank, but what you put in the tank. All too often, growers become excited by the hype and advertising promises instead of taking time to do the one thing that would guarantee their success, learn how to grow.
Growing is not buying a machine where you plug in seeds at one end, a growing medium in the middle, and out pops a completed harvest at the other. This process seems similar to the digestive system, and the results are usually the same. Growing is carefully balancing all the needs of the plant, food, water, light, humidity, temperature, and grower temperament. There is no one solution for any plant, location, environment, situation or grower. A grower has to be hands on and on top of the process from the design of the greenhouse/field / room to selecting the plants, growing on, and harvesting.
The only magic in growing is the grower.
Growing knowledge
So if you feel your garden needs help, it just is not the same anymore, the plants are tired, or you are tired, then change. Change the medium, change the cycle, change the container, change the plant, change your knowledge base, or change the grower: but don’t run into that never ending hunt, don't start experimenting to see how many different additives a plant will tolerate before it morphs into the alien from Little Shop of Horrors. Everything you put into the root system adds up. They will interact creating an unknown recipe in your slurry. You will have no more control over the salts, you will overdose the silicates; will it lead to vitamin toxicity.
Look for the solution in how the crop is treated, and get that right first. Then use the simplest, cleanest feed possible that does not require 5, 10 or more additives. After all, it is a poor grower that blames his/her tools; knowledge is the key to success.