© Copyright, BigBudsMag.com, 2015Why do some marijuana growers give molasses or hydroponics carbohydrates products like Bud Candy to their marijuana plants?
The answer is that added carbohydrates fuel healthier, higher-yielding cannabis plants.
Here’s how it works…
Marijuana plants use photosynthesis to create carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are the primary internal energy source for marijuana plants.
But being an energy source isn’t all that carbs do inside your marijuana plants.
Your plants use carbs to create roots, stems, leaves, and buds, and to maintain genetic integrity.
Marijuana carbohydrate metabolism is part of the process that forms THC and other cannabinoids, as well as terpenoids.
Your marijuana plants store carbohydrates for use during bloom phase.
They do this because bloom phase is when reduced light hours and other factors diminish the amount of carbohydrates they can newly produce.
Almost all marijuana carbohydrate production and storage happens during grow phase and the first 1-3 weeks of bloom phase.
Then it pretty much stops.
This stoppage of carbohydrate production can starve your marijuana plants of carbs.
Your marijuana plants need lots of carbohydrate energy to produce buds and cannabinoids.
This is especially true when you’re pushing your plants using double-ended bulbs, deep water culture, aeroponics, C02, high-PPM feed programs and other intense tactics.
When you feed marijuana carbohydrates to your marijuana plants in bloom phase, your plants get an energy burst that helps them create bigger buds with more THC.
Some cannabis growers make the mistake of foliar spraying marijuana carbohydrates.
This gunks up their plants’ leaves and harms their health.
The only intelligent way to feed marijuana carbohydrates is to do root feeding.
Scientific studies show that marijuana roots efficiently absorb carbohydrates.
But molasses isn’t the best source of marijuana carbohydrates.
One reason is molasses is too thick to be used in hydroponics systems, especially in pure hydroponics such as deep water culture and aeroponics.
It isn’t particularly helpful in soil either. It clogs up your soil, thus depriving roots of oxygen, moisture, and space to grow.
Molasses often contains sulfur and other materials that interfere with your feed program and can harm plant health.
Also, molasses varies in quality and consistency even in the most expensive organic brands.
You never really know what you’re getting.
The other compelling reason not to use molasses is that carbohydrates come in many different forms, and some forms are a lot better for marijuana plants than others.
For example, glucose, fructose, and xylose are all monosaccharides, sucrose is a disaccharide, and cellulose is a polysaccharide.
Glucose is an aldose (it contains an aldehyde group), while fructose is a ketose (it contains a ketone group).
These slight differences in chemical makeup affect how marijuana plants absorb carbs.
Marijuana is a unique species—it has its own “preferences” for what types of carbohydrates it likes to absorb through roots.
For example, tomatoes and sugar beets prefer sucrose to glucose, while melons prefer fructose to glucose or sucrose.
Decades ago, researchers believed that carbohydrates such as galactose and mannose were toxic for most plants.
However, when those two carbs were applied along with other types of carbs, their alleged toxicity disappeared.
Marijuana plants absorb different carbohydrates through their roots at different stages in their development.
Don’t let anybody convince you that marijuana carbohydrates can be absorbed through leaves.
If you foliar spray carbohydrates, what you get are leaves that can’t breathe, that’s all.
These factors tell you that unless you use a carbohydrate formula designed specifically for marijuana, you’re probably wasting your money and losing the benefits of marijuana carbohydrates.
When you use the right marijuana carbohydrates formula, your cannabis plants absorb the extra energy they need at a time when they’re not producing it themselves.
Not only that, but feeding carbohydrates from start to finish of your marijuana growing season feeds beneficial root zone microbes that protect and assist roots.
When I realized that molasses wasn’t working for me in soil or in hydroponics marijuana growing, I researched all the carbohydrates products sold at grow shops.
As usual, the only hydroponics nutrients company that would talk to me about marijuana growing is Advanced Nutrients.
Their grower support rep explained that their Bud Candy carbohydrates product is the only one to contain seven different high-grade sources of carbohydrates in the correct amounts, types, and ratios for marijuana plants.
They’ve also included humic acid and other natural ingredients derived from sources like sugar cane, sugar beet, cranberry, and grape extracts.
They make sure that all these ingredients stay in suspension so they distribute evenly into your root zone no matter if you’re growing in hydroponics, soilless mix, coco coir, rockwool, soil, and other root zone media.
For an added benefit, use beneficial microbes products Voodoo Juice, Tarantula, and Piranha.
These formulas contain engineered strains of root zone microbes specific to marijuana roots that increase the size, function, and health of marijuana roots.
Endurance athletes do carbohydrate boosting because they run out of on-board energy during long workouts and need an external source of carbohydrates to help them keep going strong.
The same tactic works great for your marijuana plants.
When you use Bud Candy marijuana carbohydrates, your marijuana plants are healthier, faster-growing, more resistant to disease, and they produce bigger, sweeter, more potent buds.
