Aspirin

[jeremyinsf]

Originally Posted by Ray

While there are some additives out there that can be helpful, the best way to get optimal performance out of your plants isn't through additives at all, but through giving them the exact cultural parameters they need on a consistent basis.

Viagra makes flowers stand up straight and last longer. But I'm not about to tell my doctor that my plants need a prescription. I think I'll stick with Ray's comment here and just try to treat my plants well in general.

Viagra makes flowers stand up straight

[orchidsarefun]

actually my original question was to request input from anyone who HAD used aspirin. Its really easy to naysay ANY new suggestion but naysaying doesn't hold any objective weight if its based on your own opinion, without any experience or substantiation to back it up.
I apologise if I intimated in any way that using aspirin meant that I didn't have to concern myself with everything else - like watering, fertilising, temperature and lighting, tailored to each species/hybrid.......
Geez people !

[rcb]

While giving your orchids the exact culture they require, is obviously the best, some people seem to not realize that isn't always practical and people's situations can change.

Yes I've used aspirin. One winter a few years ago, after I had just moved from a place where I had a greenhouse to a place where I barely had windows that let in light and as I wasn't working at the time, I couldn't just go out and order lights, I came across an article that discussed the possibility that aspirin can help plants fend off some diseases. Since I knew my plants were not getting the optimal care, I decided to try it.

It's been a few years, so I don't remember the exact dose, it would have probably been around 10-20 mg/gal. Used maybe twice a month? I have no idea if it helped, but I didn't loose any plants that winter. Of course this doesn't mean it actually did anything, but as far as I could tell it didn't hurt anything either.

[Brooke]

Nice to see you back on line Renee!

Brooke

[ALToronto]

I also used it, but at a higher concentration than Renee. It's not a silver bullet, and it doesn't have any immediate obvious effect. It doesn't harm the plants, and it may well protect them. I don't know, the only way to test it out is to do a study against a control group that receives the exact same treatment in every other respect. And such a study would have to last a couple of years to yield any statistically significant results.

[Polarizeme]

My posts were not intended to deter anyone from doing whatever they wish with their plants.

Generally speaking I love to play "devils advocate", especially when I am directed to articles like the ones I was able to read from posts in this thread. I didn't read the first link because the site wanted me to pay for a subscription to read the article.... ummm not so much. I digress...

The articles had no proof or scientific evidence that dosing your plants with aspirin actually did anything for them, well except for the anecdotal comments.

I realize that there are Naturally Occurring hormones in plants that produce resistance to that which attacks it. I don't know that it's necessarily healthy to evoke that response when the grower feels the need to do it regularly.

As Ray stated in a previous post, I think we go a long way to helping our plants stay healthy when we provide the proper environment for them.

---------- Post added at 09:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Optimist

I don't know how many plant barks contain salycetic acid, but it is contained in the bark of trees like willows. Hm. Seems to me there is a certain kind of plant that likes to cling to tree bark for some reason? Can't think of the name...

Willows only grow in the Northern Hemisphere. I don't know if orchids actually grow on them. Willow trees are in the genus, Salix. These are the trees that the Bayer co. used to make their aspirin.

---------- Post added at 09:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:41 PM ----------

Originally Posted by orchidsarefun

actually my original question was to request input from anyone who HAD used aspirin. Its really easy to naysay ANY new suggestion but naysaying doesn't hold any objective weight if its based on your own opinion, without any experience or substantiation to back it up.
I apologise if I intimated in any way that using aspirin meant that I didn't have to concern myself with everything else - like watering, fertilising, temperature and lighting, tailored to each species/hybrid.......
Geez people !

Yes, true. Just because someone has an opinion or a perception, doesn't mean that it's factual or scientific. This is anecdotal.
It is also true that because you say something works without proof or scientific evidence to back it up, this is also anecdotal.

[naoki]

This one is accessible for non-academic sites, I believe:
http://biology.duke.edu/donglab/imag...spoel_2012.pdf

Liana, you do know about google scholar search engine, right? It is helpful to find out the scientific knowledge.

I don't want to get into details, but SA can help infected plants. It is not just preventing the future infection. When some cells get infected, they release SA as the SOS signal. I think they get transmitted through phloem. Then it induces the programmed cell death for the infected cells, and neighboring cells raise SAR to localize the infection. Researchers are still studying the details, but this is the rough idea.

When I see a minor infection (pretty rare in my place), I usually spray & drench with aspirin. Also, when I'm acclimating deflasking plants, I do preventative spray/drench. With the last flask of Masdevalia last summer, I didn't lose a single plant without any fungicides/bacteiocides.

I'm not sure if Optimist was serious, but the outside layers of trees (phellems of peridermis) are dead cells with lots of suberin (water proofing chemical), so it is unlikely that epiphytes can absorb some chemicals. Also SA is produced by all plants (not limited to willows).

[orchidsarefun]

Naoki - thanks for the input. Your experience is invaluable, especially with seedlings.

I've started using ( first time yesterday ) an aspirin spray on all my seedlings as an experiment. A couple of them have been afflicted by a leaf-wasting "disease" where each leaf gradually dries up and dies, eventually killing the whole plant. This is happening despite me spraying with conventional fungicides/bacteriocides. I had read up that this affliction ( or something similar ) sometimes occurs on plants grown under lights too. I also don't know if this happens because of "natural attrition" in a seedling population, sort of like natural selection as in survival of the fittest. I feel I have to try something .....

I am going to continue watering my adult plants with an aspirin mixture for the rest of Winter. I wish I had taken some before and after photos ( as proof ! ) as the plant leaves definitely are generally a darker green.

---------- Post added at 07:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:45 AM ----------

BTW Liana - your comment "Willows only grow in the Northern Hemisphere" is just not true. Other than using a basic internet search to verify, I can tell you that I had a couple growing in my garden - when I lived in Zimbabwe and in a neighbour's garden in South Africa. In fact I have also seen photos of them in the background of family photos in Perth, Australia too.
I realise this is anecdotal - but you can do research on the internet as well !

[Polarizeme]

I should have said that they are NATIVE to the Northern Hemisphere. I read this on several credible sites. I'm fairly certain trees are introduced into areas where they aren't native plants, this happens all the time.... Dude, Google is my friend. I spend copious amounts of time with it!

It is also know that Willows have a higher concentration of SA than most plants. This is why the Bayer co. used them. I didn't mean to imply that they were the only plants that had this chemical.

Naoki, thanks for the suggestion and link.

[catherinecarney]

There are many, many different phytochemicals in various plants that have antibacterial/antifungal/antiviral properties. The salicylic acid in willow is just the best known (though it's mostly known as an NSAID and rooting stimulent).

For example, Quercus velutina bark contains a compound called quercetin (a lovely yellow dye for wool and silk, BTW) which has antibacterial/antiviral properties (onions contain the same compound).

We have documentation that some species of orchids prefer very specific trees as hosts--who is to say that part of that preference isn't due to the phytochemicals produced by the tree in question that may be available on the bark?

Just something to think about...And gotta go make up a batch of onion soup (onions also have plenty of quercetin and taste a lot better than tree bark) to ward off the flu.

Catherine