Plants Are Like People!
We have lost the relationship with plants as living creatures. Modern agriculture often views plants as machines that produce food. This point of view has had devastating effects – our crops are weak, lacking nutrition and quality, and our soils are dead.
Plants are amazing biological systems as complex as human beings. And like us, our plants have goals! And guess what? In most cases, the plant’s goals actually align with our goals:
- Plants want larger fruits to carry more seeds and pass on their genetics.
- Plants want larger and more vibrant, aromatic flowers to attract pollinators.
- Plants want higher quality factors like oils, resins and flavors to attract good bugs and repel bad bugs.
- Plants want firm, sturdy stems to support great growth to support heavier yields.
- Plants want more minerals and stimulants to resist pests and disease.
- Plants want ease and speed of growth; less energy spent means more can be accomplished.
Looking at this list, these are all goals focused on living strong, high production, and furthering the healthy genetics of the plant. This is nature at work. And more importantly, all these goals align with what we seek to achieve in our gardens.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR PLANT’S LIFE CYCLE
Let’s look at food producing types of plants, more specifically: annual crops. These are crops that grow, flower, mature, and then die within one growing season. The principle, however, is the same for all plants. Most plants of this type have a definitive vegetative and a flowering season.
For the sake of this example, let’s look at an annual that blooms for about 2 months.
This plant has a very short life compared to us humans. One week in the plant’s life equals about 10 years in a human life. That means that causing unwanted stress in your plant for as little as one week is the same as stressing your body for a decade! This is exactly what happens when you feed unnatural stimulants (like hormones/PGRs) and synthetic fertilizers to your plant.
Imagine taking steroids for an entire decade. Sure you’ll be strong and bulky, but at what cost? Later in life, problems will start to arise; Muscle failure, infertility, heart disease, and other health issues. The same thing happens with your plants when you feed them PGRs or other chemical stimulants (like paclobutrazol) even for a short time. In the end, they will suffer from it in some way.
To maximize a plant’s genetic potential, the laws of nature must be followed. If we don’t follow the laws of nature, we may improve one aspect of our grow (like yield for example), but we pay the price with another aspect of our grow (like quality).
The Aptus range has been designed to work with the laws of nature. We exclusively use natural bio-stimulants and nutrients of the cleanest possible origin.