How do I use Chitosan Oligosaccharide to replace Bud Factor X?

Elvin

Elvin

Banned Troll
The three main ingredients in Bud Factor X are Axiom Harpin Protein, Salicylic Acid, and Chitosan. I can find a lot of information on how to use the first two but all I can find on how to use Chitosan is someone who shares he uses Chitosan Oligosaccharide (which is what I just ordered) at a 0.5-1 gram per gallon rate on soil. He was using it as a replacement for BFX. Does anyone have any experience using it (especially usage/mixing rates) they want to share?
 
Good question and I have wondered this myself to the point I have found the components but am not sure how to do it. I know I have used Bud Factor X for the last several years and do not want to be without it because it absolutely does work. I would just like to make it myself so it's not $50 per liter.
 
fanleaf said:
Good question and I have wondered this myself to the point I have found the components but am not sure how to do it. I know I have used Bud Factor X for the last several years and do not want to be without it because it absolutely does work. I would just like to make it myself so it's not $50 per liter.
Click to expand...
From the eBay listing:
"To prepare a 1 mg/ml stock solution: Add 100 mg of Chitosan Oligosaccharide into a 100 ml volumetric flask or other glass container. Once completely dissolved, bring to full volume with molecular biology grade water. Stirring the solution while adding water may be required to keep the material in solution. Add 1.0 ml of the stock solution to 1 liter of medium to obtain a final concentration of 1.0 mg/L of the Chitosan Oligosaccharide in the culture medium. Store the stock solution at 2 - 8 °C. "

The posting on another site references using between 0.5 to 1 gram per gallon (supposedly he was replacing $300 of BFX per grow); I'm thinking leaning towards the half a gram per gallon usage rate to start with; it sure seems like a lot of work to prepare a stock solution when preparing the final one would be so easier.

Salicylic Acid is another ingredient that is in it. One can either use an aspirin in a gallon of water or just buy an ounce from eBay for under $5. If I'm going to use it as both root drench and a foliar spray, I'll want to avoid aspirin's added stuff on my plants, so I bought the ounce.

Axiom Harpin Protein is readily available with instructions on the package.

Right now I'm leaning towards applying the Axiom Harpin Protein separately per package instructions and combining the Chitosan and Salicylic Acid together as a root drench and a foliar spray. I plan to apply them at the same frequency as BFX is recommended to be applied, which is weekly (wks. 1-6 of flower). That means the Salicylic Acid rate of 1 aspirin (325mg) per gallon every three weeks needs to be at roughly 0.10 gram per week.

Are you applying it as a foliar spray, root drench or both? Are you using it by itself or added to nute solution? Are you using AN's recommended feeding schedule; or when do you start the application, when do you end and is it still weekly?

As you can tell by my questions I've never used the product (and I'll be darned if I pay AN's prices for what I can make for literally pennies on the dollar) so any direction would be helpful.
 
chitosan oligos has different recommended ppm for different use case and different qualities (e.g molecular weight, aceyltation degree)

remember from old icmag thread that soil drench it is recommended at 2000ppm, even more but probably wasted money. recommended using as foliar, at up to 200ppm. this is because you don't really need chitosan in the plant, just enough to contact with the plant cells to make it illicit response from the receptors to activate plant immunity.
 
lxcpanda said:
chitosan oligos has different recommended ppm for different use case and different qualities (e.g molecular weight, aceyltation degree)

remember from old icmag thread that soil drench it is recommended at 2000ppm, even more but probably wasted money. recommended using as foliar, at up to 200ppm. this is because you don't really need chitosan in the plant, just enough to contact with the plant cells to make it illicit response from the receptors to activate plant immunity.
Click to expand...
How many applications at that rate? Because, as you point out, it is to create a response not provide nutrients, overaccumulation is only a concern because of wasted material, not the concern one has from too much of an accumulation of nutes. This stuff is cheap (especially in quantity) but why waste it needlessly? Right now I'm using it at roughly 3/4 grams/gal every time I water during weeks 1-6 of flower (BFX instructions for use). No folier use; I'd rather get the response to the imaginary attack through the roots instead of spraying stuff on what I smoke.
 
I made an account just for this topic.

Kinda sorta old, but out of interest. I found a review article that can help with more data.


I like to dive into things pretty far. That paper is a really good general idea of oligochitosan and the mechanisms proposed in 2016.

According to them, they proposed that oligochitosan should be used as early as possible and even went as so far to say that rapeseeds could be coated with this. The earlier the plant has an interaction with oligochitosan, the better the chance of creating a resistance to diseases. This is one point to support their "vaccine" idea.

Botrytis cinerea

Cucumbers were treated with oligochitosan 1, 4, and 24 hours before introducing grey mould. The decrease of grey mould went down 65%, 82%, and 87%, respectively, with usage rates at 50μg/mL. I believe this to be a spray.

lxcpanda said:
chitosan oligos has different recommended ppm for different use case and different qualities (e.g molecular weight, aceyltation degree)

remember from old icmag thread that soil drench it is recommended at 2000ppm, even more but probably wasted money. recommended using as foliar, at up to 200ppm. this is because you don't really need chitosan in the plant, just enough to contact with the plant cells to make it illicit response from the receptors to activate plant immunity.
Click to expand...

I need to read more, but a ladder study of concentrations, molecular weight, and deacetylation degree would need to be done. I bet sourcing that would be expensive. Instead of doing all that maybe something has been written about for X diseases in hops or hackberries due to them being so closely related to cannabis. Or you know... hemp.


Elvin said:
How many applications at that rate? Because, as you point out, it is to create a response not provide nutrients, overaccumulation is only a concern because of wasted material, not the concern one has from too much of an accumulation of nutes. This stuff is cheap (especially in quantity) but why waste it needlessly? Right now I'm using it at roughly 3/4 grams/gal every time I water during weeks 1-6 of flower (BFX instructions for use). No folier use; I'd rather get the response to the imaginary attack through the roots instead of spraying stuff on what I smoke.
Click to expand...


One thing I wonder about is would it be effective to spot treat leaves in flower and a result being worth the effort versus the possible amount needed for a root drench. Kind of similar to how someone might polish a plants leaves, but with oligochitosan. Usually theres a "wet effective time" on somethings. Ex. Disinfecting agents are only as good as the length of time the surface was treated wet. Perhaps there would be a time needed for the plant to intake an effective amount. I wouldn't be smoking it because its on a shade leaf. Searching for Py-GC/MS data on oligochitosan would give a good idea on what is being made after burning to see how bad it can get. Damn shame I didn't think of this while I had access to that instrumentation.
 
ScienceGuy said:
I made an account just for this topic.

Kinda sorta old, but out of interest. I found a review article that can help with more data.


I like to dive into things pretty far. That paper is a really good general idea of oligochitosan and the mechanisms proposed in 2016.

According to them, they proposed that oligochitosan should be used as early as possible and even went as so far to say that rapeseeds could be coated with this. The earlier the plant has an interaction with oligochitosan, the better the chance of creating a resistance to diseases. This is one point to support their "vaccine" idea.

Botrytis cinerea

Cucumbers were treated with oligochitosan 1, 4, and 24 hours before introducing grey mould. The decrease of grey mould went down 65%, 82%, and 87%, respectively, with usage rates at 50μg/mL. I believe this to be a spray.



I need to read more, but a ladder study of concentrations, molecular weight, and deacetylation degree would need to be done. I bet sourcing that would be expensive. Instead of doing all that maybe something has been written about for X diseases in hops or hackberries due to them being so closely related to cannabis. Or you know... hemp.





One thing I wonder about is would it be effective to spot treat leaves in flower and a result being worth the effort versus the possible amount needed for a root drench. Kind of similar to how someone might polish a plants leaves, but with oligochitosan. Usually theres a "wet effective time" on somethings. Ex. Disinfecting agents are only as good as the length of time the surface was treated wet. Perhaps there would be a time needed for the plant to intake an effective amount. I wouldn't be smoking it because its on a shade leaf. Searching for Py-GC/MS data on oligochitosan would give a good idea on what is being made after burning to see how bad it can get. Damn shame I didn't think of this while I had access to that instrumentation.
Click to expand...
The only thing I've found, by someone who grows, was on another site. The poster was not a newbie (not a "drive-by" boast that might not be true) and he grew commercially.
He was going with 1/2 gram per gallon of water for a root drench; I'm not spraying the chitin shells of shrimp and other crustaceans that have been treated with an alkaline substance, such as sodium hydroxide onto my weed and hope it somehow disappears before I smoke it. A root drench works just like painting it onto fan leaves as you postulate.
That's roughly 1/2 teaspoon but it's really cheap on eBay so I just do a rough scant teaspoon each time I water. I'm sure it's a waste but it's just pennies.
There is plenty of research out there but seriously who cares?
The folks that make Bud Factor X (and their competitors who make similar products) already have done the research. The use of the active ingredient instead of buying BFX is just a simple decision based on economics. BFX is chitosan, water, and some stray nutrients so they have some other than "secret ingredient and water" on the label. They did get caught with everyone else not putting ASA on their labels and likely they followed suit like everyone and removed it.
I'm not trying to "vaccinate"; the use of it on weed is to increase oils/resins in the trichomes of which you increase with Triacontanol (Humbolt County's own Snow Storm). I can add "B" vitamins with my normal course of nutes.
Treating seeds is silly; that seems to be a theme of all these papers but is there even one seed broker who does that?
I'm pretty sure there'd be a few who would if it made even a slight difference in something.
 
Elvin said:
The only thing I've found, by someone who grows, was on another site. The poster was not a newbie (not a "drive-by" boast that might not be true) and he grew commercially.
He was going with 1/2 gram per gallon of water for a root drench; I'm not spraying the chitin shells of shrimp and other crustaceans that have been treated with an alkaline substance, such as sodium hydroxide onto my weed and hope it somehow disappears before I smoke it. A root drench works just like painting it onto fan leaves as you postulate.
That's roughly 1/2 teaspoon but it's really cheap on eBay so I just do a rough scant teaspoon each time I water. I'm sure it's a waste but it's just pennies.
There is plenty of research out there but seriously who cares?
The folks that make Bud Factor X (and their competitors who make similar products) already have done the research. The use of the active ingredient instead of buying BFX is just a simple decision based on economics. BFX is chitosan, water, and some stray nutrients so they have some other than "secret ingredient and water" on the label. They did get caught with everyone else not putting ASA on their labels and likely they followed suit like everyone and removed it.
I'm not trying to "vaccinate"; the use of it on weed is to increase oils/resins in the trichomes of which you increase with Triacontanol (Humbolt County's own Snow Storm). I can add "B" vitamins with my normal course of nutes.
Treating seeds is silly; that seems to be a theme of all these papers but is there even one seed broker who does that?
I'm pretty sure there'd be a few who would if it made even a slight difference in something.
Click to expand...

37.5mg per gallon is the rate of Chitosan to activate S.A.R in marijuana you must use Chitosan Oligosaccharide, High Active Water Soluble Powder, Agriculture Grade Labeled COS Deacetylation (DAC degree): 90.0% min, Foliar spray every 3 day during flowering the finest mist possible foliar spraying is the fastest way to get a response right before the light go off​

 
Foliar spraying buds with Chitosan sounds like a great way to make your weed taste and smell like fermented crab. I'll pass on foliar. But I do use chitosan in the media for all of bloom.

100g of chitosan powder per liter of solution. Mixed up in a blender. Then 3ml / gal for bloom. My current weed is more terpy than older grows without chitosan. Science says it works.
 
greentop farms nwi said:

37.5mg per gallon is the rate of Chitosan to activate S.A.R in marijuana you must use Chitosan Oligosaccharide, High Active Water Soluble Powder, Agriculture Grade Labeled COS Deacetylation (DAC degree): 90.0% min, Foliar spray every 3 day during flowering the finest mist possible foliar spraying is the fastest way to get a response right before the light go off​

Click to expand...
 
I tried Bud Factor X with a free 500ml sample I got about 7-8 years ago but didn't see much difference so never bought any.

I now have a product called Chito-Sal that has 1% Low molecular weight chitosan and 4% Willow bark extract. Didn't use it exactly to direction but the twin plant I used it on had noticeably more resin on it and the buds were a bit fatter so will have to try again following he directions to a T.

The directions on this are to foliar spray 1 week before flipping then again 2 weeks later which shouldn't ruin the still tiny buds. Both at 1.25ml/L. After that a soil drench with it every 2 weeks at 2.5ml/L until 2 weeks before cropping.

Could get expensive if you have a lot of plants as a 250ml bottle cost me $37.50Can at the hydro shop. Bought a 2nd one a while ago so have plenty to experiment with it.

Proudly made in Canaduh too!
canadian.gif


For those that use organics Insect Frass is supposed to elicit a defensive response from the plant so it cranks out more resin and is damn good fertilizer in it's own right so worth looking at. I got a couple pails of it made by Gaia Green and a bunch of their other stuff as well.

:peace:
 
I soil drench coir mix with anywhere from a 1/4 gram per gallon to 1/2 gram per gallon in the res, the difference can be seen there is little written about the amount of Chitosan I think because it's a organic product it's hard to write a base formula because of different manufactures with different concentrations organic scales are often a kind of sort of start small tell u see a difference and so on the US Forestry uses it at 37.5gram per gallon to treat for pine beetle and other insect infestations
 

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