Fermented plant extracts

[RanchoDeluxe]

Quick question for you guys.

I've been making a Burdock FPE, or let's say I forgot that I was making it. It's been sitting in a 5gal bucket for over 2 months now. Throw it out or keep it???

 

[Dkgrower]

@C-ray, how would u go about doing just that, i know in agri culture they are really hooked on that brix number.

@Why throw it out, check the pH and other visual signs to see if it has gorn bad.

Most off my fermentations sit fore 2 months or more before they are filtered, if u have dont it correct u should have a low pH around 3.4 to 4 giving u FPE a long slef time.

 

[SeaMaiden]

or one could just raise the brix of their plants' sap to 12+ and make them unpalatable for bugs

Easy peasy, eh? Care to tell me how to do that with my cole crops? Even the deer won't eat the cabbage aphid-infested plants.

 

[bajangreen]

It is a di-sesquiterpene and it is not water solvent. There are only a few terpenoids, that are water soluble. Linalool is not isolated by water extraction. Secoiridoid monoterpenes found in the plant and not in Essential oils are water soluble. Monoterpenes have a basic shell strucure of 10 carbon atoms and 10 Hydrogen Atoms. Linalool has 18 hydrogen atoms.

This is why I have ventured over to FPE, organic acids are excreted thru the process, but ammonia is also released in higher than ideal quantities.

Most likely what is causing the change is tannins. Tannins are water soluble, bugs hate them and so do we. Water extraction produces: anthocyanis, starches, tannins, saponins, polypeptides and lectins.
You would need ethanol, methanol, chloroform or ether, to produce the extraction you want to form linalool.

Oregonism so you're saying instead of throwing away the plant matter and keeping the water i should use the plant matter and throw away the water?

 

[c-ray]

@C-ray, how would u go about doing just that, i know in agri culture they are really hooked on that brix number.

for starters acquire a refractometer..

if the brix is below 12 then for every feeding, watering or foliar spraying take note of the brix before and after... if the brix goes up that means the plants got what they needed; if the brix doesn't change or goes down then the previous action was not appropriate..

take leaf samples from the same height in the plant, top of the plant will have the highest brix, roots will have the lowest.. the healthier the plant the lower the difference in brix between the top and bottom of the plant,. a plant that is feeding hard will have a big difference between top and bottom leaves

here's something else to think about:
around 5 brix encourages the maximum growth of many fungi
12+ brix hinders the growth of most fungi

 

[Oregonism]

Oregonism so you're saying instead of throwing away the plant matter and keeping the water i should use the plant matter and throw away the water?

No ......What is in the water is just not terpenoids or terpenes [that aren't usually water soluble]. There is something in the water, doing something.

Lot of conclusions over 60 pages, some of them directly argue against basic chemistry. Let's tear the layers back a little bit more.

However with so many substances possible, it is laughable to single out one set of substances, especially one's that aren't actually doing anything chemically in that specific set of circumstances.

Secoiridoid terpenoids may be present, glycoside's [amygdalin], tannins, esters of monoterpenoids that are oil bearing structures, other phenolic substances, etc. etc. etc. The chemistry of this is beyond a pH check.

I will try to add more, I have already put up several links a few pages back on extracting and types of results, some of those could clear up some of this complicated confusion, that is confounding, lol.

 

[Oregonism]

Quick question for you guys.

I've been making a Burdock FPE, or let's say I forgot that I was making it. It's been sitting in a 5gal bucket for over 2 months now. Throw it out or keep it???

I wouldn't....It probably just started to ferment. I have several brews that are easily over 12 months and some going on 24. I have nettle FPE, i still use. 15 months old. Some pics are probably lying around somewheres.

Burdock is the shit, its weedy, so controlling [i.e. cutting it down and putting it to use] is good too, it's loaded with nutrients because it can actually tap the subsoil and retains [chelates] a ton of healthy chemicals in its cell structure.

Does Dr. Duke have a page for Burdock? Guess I should go look. It grows around me and I mulch it infrequently.
Burdock is just as rich in minerals as nettle in my opinion. I should use it more, like the dock and the pigweed and the clovers, lol. Too many good weeds out there. ;]
[and the plantains, the mustards, and the epilobiums]
[..the purslanes and amaranth's, the buckwheats]

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

^^^^^^^
Thanks dude. FPE's are fairly new for me, I started using them on my tomatoes this summer. Burdock is by far the most plentiful "weed" in my area...good to hear how much you like it.

 

[bajangreen]

some of those could clear up some of this complicated confusion, that is confounding, lol.

You can say that again.

However i love to learn how to grow good organic weed. (organic for me is anything not store bought) So all info regarding this is good for me my head is a little hard so i may take a while to take it all in, thanks for the help though.

Is there a general particular type/family of plant i should look out for when doing FPE's? Whats the best way to apply? drench of foliar? and how often in living soil? my indoor pots got lots of small critters in there i am a little scared but the plants ent dead so i think they are doing fine. What about Tannins in particular? i have a aquaponic system with soil. it has in lots of tannins tainting the water i was wondering if this is good or bad. The parsley i got planted in there ent doing to bad either.

 

[Amber Trich]

Is there a general particular type/family of plant i should look out for when doing FPE's?

Dynamic Accumulators

 

[c-ray]

imho FPE's should be made in non-plastic containers if at all possible, like glass jars or crock pots

 

[Oregonism]

You can say that again.
However i love to learn how to grow good organic weed. (organic for me is anything not store bought) So all info regarding this is good for me my head is a little hard so i may take a while to take it all in, thanks for the help though.

What about Tannins in particular? i have a aquaponic system with soil. it has in lots of tannins tainting the water i was wondering if this is good or bad. The parsley i got planted in there ent doing to bad either.

Attached some pics, something I saw earlier this week, prompted a response. The first pic is a tannin mudpuddle, its in the flood plain. The leaves are from cottonwood[birch] trees and knotweed [3rd pic] I put some in a cup that was trash, its Dark! . The puddle has been here for about a week. I would say that tannins are fully water soluble but don't have to be fermented, as the puddle probably is somewhat oxygenated.

Three kinds of water soluble phytochemicals pique my interest right now:

hemiterpenes hermiterpenoids and the secoiridoids[remember hydrocarbons and hc's w/ oxygen] [C5H8]

glycosides: these are sugars attached to non-polar moiety [not a sugar] I am digesting organic chem and glycosides recently. Glycosides are able to partly chelate certain molecules and are water-soluble. Terpenoids can attach apparently.

tannins
bajan, being around the equator or tropics, have you ran across a "black river"? Ever been around the Amazon? tannins are interesting but they are a loose assocation and not a strict set of compounds. Tannins are heavily associated and are a constituent of soil humus, usually found in the moll layer. We do know that humus is usually highest in CAC ability and usually has the most desirable soil density readings. As far as tannins relationship here,
we really don't know much about their individual functions.

 

[Oregonism]

^^^^^^^
Thanks dude. FPE's are fairly new for me, I started using them on my tomatoes this summer. Burdock is by far the most plentiful "weed" in my area...good to hear how much you like it.

Don't forget its a close relative of thistles and the French go batshit for nettles and thistles.

There is a listing on Dr Duke for Arctium lappa. Have you used Duke?
I usually use the last Plant Search tab

List chemicals and activities for a plant

and just type in Arctium as the genus. Lots of good things, lot of oil and bitters in the roots, surprising!

 

[Oregonism]

for starters acquire a refractometer..

if the brix is below 12 then for every feeding, watering or foliar spraying take note of the brix before and after... if the brix goes up that means the plants got what they needed; if the brix doesn't change or goes down then the previous action was not appropriate..

take leaf samples from the same height in the plant, top of the plant will have the highest brix, roots will have the lowest.. the healthier the plant the lower the difference in brix between the top and bottom of the plant,. a plant that is feeding hard will have a big difference between top and bottom leaves

here's something else to think about:
around 5 brix encourages the maximum growth of many fungi
12+ brix hinders the growth of most fungi

Any ideas on a baseline, I can look for, for a aqueous solution? I put up some numbers I while back. I don't have a brix meter, but I do use the hydrometer, so I can just switch all of my numbers over to a brix scale.

Really, just looking any [more] info on this subject! Thanks

 

[c-ray]

a refractometer only requires a couple drops of plant sap (1 leaf) to get a reading, that is why we use them.. they are only 30 bucks for a 0-32 degree ATC model, well worth the investment

cannabis sap brix will range between 3 to 24 degrees brix / brix being the total sugars + dissolved solids in the sap.. the general rule is higher the brix, the better the quality, the healthier the plant, the better the yield, the higher the efficiency of nutrient usage (*although there are ways to raise brix that are not very sustainable)..

 

[c-ray]

this seems like a useful method to extract plant goodies, at home on a small scale:

http://www.plantfoods.org/demos/leafu/index.html

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

Don't forget its a close relative of thistles and the French go batshit for nettles and thistles.

There is a listing on Dr Duke for Arctium lappa. Have you used Duke?
I usually use the last Plant Search tab and just type in Arctium as the genus. Lots of good things, lot of oil and bitters in the roots, surprising!

Pretty much everything I know about FPE's is from this thread. Canadian thistle is considered a noxious weed in my area. Very, very, easy to find and in much abundance. Don't think I would put it in my compost, but from reading your post it sounds like a good candidate for an FPE. It's too bad spring is like 6 months away.

 

[floral]

Having read the reports on camellia FPE in this thread, I am aiming to try an experiment with FPEs from other flower blossoms. I know jaykush and others have very sensibly warned against making extracts w/o knowing the full biochemical profile of what's in the plants, but since I have these piles of blossoms and plenty of room for garden experiments, I am putting some flowers in a container with some water and will see whether the resulting liquid seems to help various blooming plants in the garden.

The question I have is whether it's likely to be safer or more effective to use blossoms from edible plants, or edible blossoms (something like nasturtium)? I.e., is there any connection between a plant being nontoxic for humans and its likely effect as an extract when applied to plants?

Trying to decide whether to keep blossoms in separate containers based on whether they are edible or not, or just throw them all in one container and let the fermentation process sort it out. If there is any likely benefit to segregating the edible flowers, or flowers from nontoxic plants, it's easy enough to do it, but if there's no benefit, obviously it'd be even easier to throw everything in one bucket.

 

[SeaMaiden]

That's a very good question. I can only say that I got my very best blossoms yet from a favored rhododendron when I began giving it teas made from a nearby Camellia. I'll be doing the same and more next spring.

 

[singingcrow]

Going through all 90+ pages, but if you will indulge me, 2 questions:
1) I have extended em-1 into a gallon jug, using the formula given here in IC and on Dr. Higas webpage. Can I re-extend over and over? Have about 1/2 gallon left, outside in cold weather with a hole in the lid to prevent explosion. It is about a month old.

2) mine doesn't smell rotten, or poopy, just smells like extremely strong yeast bread, or fermenting beer. To be honest, smells fermentingly good. What would be considered the turning point? I have no microscope and am relaying on my wit and senses.

Thanks in advance, Lisa
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