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Re: Anthocyanidins
>From: "James Purchase" <jpurch at interlog_com>
>Subject: Anthocyanidins
>
>While picking up a plant order at my favorite LFS this afternoon, the
>manager gave me a bottle of AZOO RED PLANT NUTRIENTS to try out. Since part
>of my order was some beautiful Althernanthera reineckii, I agreed. The label
>reads, in part:
>
>"Anthocyanidins is the main pigment that turns water plants red. AZOO RED
>PLANT NUTRIENTS contains unique formulas that activate and transform the
>Anthocyanidins enzyme in water into anthocyanidins [???] Meanwhile, AZOO RED
>PLANT NUTRIENTS contains critical trace elements that are essential to turn
>water plants red. It turns the leaves of all red water plants and some green
>water plants reddish under the illumination of light with the 300-400 nm
>wave length. It is the best activator of reddish enhancement for water
>plants."
>
>Anything in square brackets [], is editorial comment. The label gives no
>specific nutrient breakdown or list of ingredients.
>
>Question for the botanists and/or chemists: Are these claims reasonable (the
>one about the Anthocyanidins "enzyme")?
>
This is complete balony, designed by unscrupulous people to separate people
without a good education in biology from their money. In fact, the
designers don't appear to have much scientific background and are just
throwing out some mumbo jumbo that they think sounds scientific. There is
no such enzyme, especially not in water. There are no trace elements that
play a role in making the plant more red. Actually, in plants that do make
anthocyanins, (no such thing as anthocyanidins) phosphorous DEFICIENCY can
increase the anthocyanin content, making a normally green plant purplish or
reddish.
Several years back, George Booth did a great classic hoax on
"electro-Stimulation With Substrate Heating Coils". I think you can find
it in the APD archives back around August, 1996. He "found" that in an
electric field that the pigments in plants distributed themselves so that
the bottom leaves were red and the top leaves green. Some species even had
several bands of colors from bottom to top. Hair algae started to stand
straight up, and then detatched and rose to the top, finally vanishing in a
cloud of small bubbles. Ick spots on fish migrated to the top of the fish
and then came loose and wound up being zapped on the upper coil. The tank
cycled very quickly, with excess nitrate being destroyed by electrolysis.
A bluegreen algae-covered plant was introduced, and, in a day's time the
BGA disappeared, leaving a thin film of gold foil. "It looks like this
hobby may finally pay off!", reported George.
George's science was much better than the hokey stuff about AZOO RED PLANT
NUTRIENTS, and much more fun to read.
Paul Krombholz, in damp central Mississippi.