Aspirin and Roses

I've heard of this too but I don't know of any scientific studies on it, sorry.

I am currently trying aspirin therapy on my roses that have shown rose rosette disease and mosaic. So far the results look interesting, but I don't know what it all means yet or even if it is a permanent difference. I'll try almost anything at this point because actual help is better on my back than digging out bushes some of which are quite large and a couple of them are favorites.

I have been trying to use the aspirin for quite awhile now. What I've learned is that you CANNOT get aspirin into solution -- it simply will not dissolve in water.

I've tried hot water, I've blended it in a Vitamix, I've used other things that might dissolve it first before I add it to the water. Nothing works. If you leave the resulting solution alone for awhile, you'll soon see the aspirin settle out to the bottom of whatever you put that solution in. And it will stay that way for a year (yes, I've even tried that).

If you spray with a sprayer and try to keep it in solution by just jostling it regularly, it will spot your leaves with whitish spots, that I presume are the aspirin.

Unless I come up with some new brainstorm, I am considering that experiment a failure (for now).

I do sometimes put a tablet or two in my pots however. Cain't hurt. But I can't say I've seen anything good from it either.

I don't know of any real controlled scientific studies anywhere though -- it just makes sense to me that it would likely work, IF you could get it into solution.

Kathy

Kathy, the listed solubility of aspirin is 1 gram per 100 grams of water, which should be concentrated enough for any studies with plants. The metal salts present in hard water will react with aspirin to produce insoluble salts. Have you tried distilled water? Also, one aspirin tablet should dissolve rapidly, and stay dissolved, in a distilled water solution containing one teaspoon of baking soda.

Well, I haven't tried distilled water, so maybe I should. Our local water IS known to be full of crap. Here's the current local water quality report for details: 2011 water report.

Thanks for the baking soda suggestion -- that's one I had not tried, but will. I did try soap and Indicate 5 and a commercial greenhouse spreader/sticker solution as potential emulsifiers, none of which did a darn thing to help. Since using distilled water would significantly increase the cost of my spray program, do you think the baking soda would take care of the issue with regular water??

Kathy, water hardness is reported as ppm calcium carbonate and water hardness greater than 170 ppm is termed "very hard". According to the water report in your link, the hardness for water in your area is either 270 or 605 ppm. Also, your water is alkaline - the pH is either 7.4 or 7.9. Aspirin is itself a mild acid. If you add aspirin to your alkaline water, the aspirin should form an anion which would then react with the metals which are in your hard water to form insoluble salts of aspirin. If you are treating yourself with aspirin, this is no big deal. The acid in your digestive system will redissolve the aspirin and your body can then deal with it as it chooses. But if you're treating plants, especially by spraying, the formation of insoluble salts of aspirin may present problems. I'm tempted to say that you will only need to spend the additional cash for distilled water for the time it takes to convince yourself that aspirin really does nothing. But, I won't. You might try making your water acidic with a few TBS of vinegar and then try dissolving the aspirin

Thanks for that info. BTW, my understanding of the water sources here is that groundwater supplies most everything that comes through our tap, with LA's municipal water district there to supply the community's needs only during peak consumption periods. I think water usage is 100% groundwater in the winter and something like 75% groundwater in the summer, so our numbers are going to generally be the higher of the two values you mention in the prior post for hardness and alkalinity.

I do use Indicate 5 to bring down the alkalinity, and I put enough in to bring the pH to around the 5.3 pH mark on this Indicate 5 color chart. That has been my general practice for many years, as I have known that our water was alkaline and that spray chemicals tend to be more effective if that is not the case. But it didn't seem to help the aspirin problem.

The reason that aspirin does, or potentially does, have benefits to roses and other plants is that Aspirin literally is a natural plant rooting hormone, produced by plants. The chemical name for Aspirin is Acetyl-salicylic acid.

The genus name for willows, as you may very well know is Salix. Willows happen to contain very very high concentrations of Salicylic acid naturally, which is named for the willow genus. You may know that you can literally cut a branch off of a willow tree, jab it in the ground, ignore it, and it will root and grow another tree. Lucky for us, this plant hormone happened to be a pain killer and an anit-inflammatory.

We've been using aspirin for thousands of years, the ancient greeks and earlier civilizations used to chew on willow or make extracts. I'm guessing the main benefit of aspirin used on plants is strengthening of the root system (as it literally tells the plant to grow roots) thus increasing vigor, but may help the plant fight off diseases as well.

If you're interested in using a natural source of salicylic acid, and possibly more effective than aspirin, consider making some "willow water". Just cut off a number of young branches from a willow, chop em up, boil them with water. People even use this to root cuttings. It's a fun and easy project too. Just google willow water, you can find detailed instructions.

Well that's your history lesson for the day! lol.

-Mike

Based upon my memories of my undergraduate studies decades ago I would conjecture, and mind you it is only conjecture, that aspirin per se does nothing, but rather any benefit is from "salicylic acid" a breakdown product of aspirin. I believe @JetBonsai above has a good discussion.

ed-[Salicylic acid - Wikipedia - See 'plant hormone' second item under contents at this time]

This post was edited by albert_135 on Mon, Jan 27, 14 at 16:04

Albert is on the right idea. I guess I forgot to make it completely clear that aspirin is a derivitave of salicylic acid. In that aspirin was developed in the early 1900s basically by bonding an acetyl group to a molecule of salicylic acid. Hence the full name for aspirin is Acetylsalicylic acid!

Has anyone tried a liquid Asa solution? Or a mortar and pestle.

You can buy Salicylic Acid in liquid form.

Plants have an immune system. The external application of Salicylic Acid (and its equivalent (in plants) aspirin) stimulates the immune system to become active.

The following quote is from the full review cited below. (The full review is not availble free.)
"Aspirin undergoes spontaneous hydrolysis to SA even in aqueous solutions (108). In blood plasma the hydrolysis of aspirin is catalyzed by nonspecific arylesterases (58, 109). Since arylesterases are found in most living tissues, it is reasonable to assume that in plants, as in animals, exogenously applied aspirin is rapidly converted to salicylic acid. This assumption is supported by the observation that in all studied cases the effect of aspirin in plants was similar to that of SA (see below). Many plant scientists have used aspirin and SA interchangeably in their experiments, despite the fact that aspirin has not been identified as a natural plant product."

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

Also see:

http://biologie.univ-mrs.fr/upload/p189/salicylicreview.pdf

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

See:

Title: "Effect of salicylic acid treatment on tomato plant physiology and tolerance to potato virus X infection"

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10658-013-0333-1?wt_mc=alerts.TOCjournals

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

As for grinding the aspirin pills for making it part of my spray cocktail or even watering into the ground, I put them in a blender with some water and grind them into a solution. I then filter the inert insolubles out with a coffee maker filter paper and then make my dilutions to the concentration levels that I need. That helps prevent the insolubles from clogging my sprayer that I fight with on a regular basis.

I tried to use just plain aspirin and water on a rose cutting today. Aspirin is helping, as my cutting lost contact with water for a short time and wilted a bit. I added proper water level and was right as rain. In plain water I may have lost the cutting. Will it drop roots? Not sure, this was the scope of this experiment. To verifie aspirin as a rooting compound. I chouse a rose as they are really hard to propagate.by the way, I'm getting used to swiper so I may have typos lol.I choose a young branch with new growth and it has the brightest green color. I'm hopeing this cutting will have higher hormones because of this. Almost 24 hours and cutting still looks good. I expect 2-4 weeks to see roots. I'll mist it twice daily, its in a room that's bright and humid,and its warm but not hot.sponge cubes are supporting the cutting in the cup until roots drop.I'm hopeing this set up will help with the rooting process.I'll update with progress.I specifically wanted to test asprin,so here gos nothing lol.this is the new leaf starting,ill try to use it as a guide.if it continues to grow tben clearly the plants not dead...yet.

Fascinating! I am hoping you will keep us informed as to how your experiments go.

On day two and the cutting still looks good.I will post a pic later tonight..a daily pic to track progress

I'm noticing I may need more light on the rose.I have an elm tree that is robbing me of all my sun light. My flower bed is suffering big time from it. I'm looking for an emergency grow lamp now.

Not to sure on this one.new leaf that started looks fine but main leaves are browning slightly. No nutes were used so its not nitro burn.maby bad lighting is giving me the issues.not sure.
you can see the weird color in the leaves yet the new leaf looks good still.I can't call it,so I wait and watch to see what happens.

Stuff like this is so interesting and fun! Can't wait to see how this turns out!

grace e

This just makes me so sad.
I wish my friend Jim were here, to read this.

The seeds of citrus have high levels of salicylic acid. If you put citrus in a blender to make a smoothie without removing the seeds, it will taste like aspirin, and basically ruin the flavor. There is probably a reason the seeds have all that salicylic acid.

To get aspirin to dissolve in water, you need to finely crush into a powder, and then use boiling water. Salicylic acid has a very low solubility at room temperate, but at boiling temperatures the solubility is much higher. It is also soluble in 50-60% alcohol solution.

Well,I had to trim almost all the leaves except the newest ones on the tip.they are still good but the older leaves turned.it is still alive so far.

If this failed I will repeat this process with my morning glory and see if there are difrant results

By the way,I been diging around and it seems asprin can work here.as I was explained,even though asprin is synthetic,chemicals in the plant tissue will break it down into salicylic acid.which is weird but I'm not advanced enough to argue.I personally feel willow tea will be the best way to get a natral rooting hormone and asprin can still be used to help keep the water sterile. Add a tad of honny and we got a good shot at rooting our cuttings.

I also saw online that if you split the tip of the cutting and insert a wheat seed,its germanating will encourage roots to develop.has anyone tryed this?it seems alot more like grafting a cutting to a root stock than getting a cutting to develop its own roots.a bit off topic I realise but its interesting and it left me with more questions than answers

Still alive but seems wilty.I'll keep watching

Rose finally died,will repeat this experiment useing morning glory this time.will note all results and compare these two experiments.though two cuttings is not enough to fully quantify just how effective or ineffective asprin is,I should have a good idea.the rose was known to be problematic and I expected the results I got.now I am shooting for a more indestructible plant.will start this tomarow.I'm airing out the asprin water overnight. Crushed tabs with my morter then added 90% isoprop alchahol, then added to boiled water.my assumption is I have just fully disolved the asprin and sterilised the water.I'm trying to dissipate any chemicals that are similar to chlorine. Tomorrow I cut my morning glory and give it a go.

I learned a weird thing makeing a fly trap.dead flys ferment.and flys love this beer of flys. I got several different flys including fruit flys.this thing realy works. I'll post how it did it if anyone is interested. We all hate flys

well my last post didn't post.I'll make it shorter this time I guess.I am planing to build a ebb and flow indoor planter.I'd like ideas on what materials I can use.I'm shooting for no to low cost build,as diy as possible.also,how will cuttings respond to this?I'm looking to build my own growth medium, all ideas here will help.I'm wondering if I made gypsum pellets if that would do the trick?I'm thinking 2 liter bottles for the Dutch buckets. Timer is the key part,id like to here my options on this.

ladyf888

The picture you posted on the cutting shows extreme nutrients deficiencies, mainly nitrogen and iron, but when it's that bad probably everything. Any fertilzier at all? For cuttings peat moss or well composted shredded branches and bark of what ever you have in your garden works well for me. It's not very fancy, but I can make it my self. I add a bit of sea shell sand or lime stone powder, a pH of 5,5 - 6,5 is usually fine, water and turn the compost a few times the next days; ready for use! As soon as the plants are hardened off for open air, or have white roots sticking out under the pot, I water them with half strength fertilizer solution. For DIY I swear by adding a bit of seaweed to the compost and let it compost about 3 months before I use it, or even a year or two.

If the picture is of a fresh cutting from the garden, something is very wrong with nutrition uptake. What type of soil do you have?

Soil is not the best,I rent this lot so I don't have much controle over that I didn't add nutreants mainly because I was told it would be best to refrain when starting a cutting.I can redo this and add my nutriant solution and see if it does beter.I got a morning glory cutting started now,with a refined process in disolveing the asprin compleatly.I'll add a tad of nutes to the water culture. I'm just barely getting into cloneing,and I'm wanting to learn everything I can,as its going to be vital to my ability to continue growing all my food long term in an off grid setting.so if you wouldn't mind,any help is most welcome.I'm also experimenting with well over a dozen difrant hydroponic and aeroponic set ups and I'll never stop needing ideas for that lol.lot to take in.I value the knowledge and experience on this forum

And if it's helpful,any information can be sent to my email, creeper0629@gmail.com.

I'm also struggling with grow light options.I'm low on cash for a few months until I finish paying off my house,and I got alot of project ground to cover.I know incandecent bulbs are not so good at growing plants,and my skylight doesn't let enough sun through.what are some low cost bulbs that will do plants some good over winter as I grow indoors?

And I may post my plans for my pinto beans experiment if I can get all the parts together.I'm planting beans strieght from the bag I bought from the store.the plan is to have a controle plant in a pot of soil,grown normally. Then have beans grow in different styles of hydroponics,to see which method produces the best beans.systems I want to test are drip system,ebb and flow system, wick system,floating platform water culture system,and a bubbleing system.in each system will be four plants.one set will be germanated in plain water,the other in asprin water.each set will have a bean that was soaked in water overnight, then placed in growing medium,the other will be placed in a moist paper towel and sealed in a ziplock bag for 7-14 days until they start sprouting,then placed in growing medium.all plants will be grown under the same conditions,and results compared to the controle plant.I'm gathering all my supplies now to begin.I'm wanting this started befor winter,so I have some plants to care for whe I wait for the next growing season.these beans may well provide my family with a solid food stapel when I get my land in Montana. We want to be as self reliant as possible,going to town only to get the items we can't produce our selves. So this experiment will be important to determining the main foods we grow in the greenhouse.

I'm betting I'm not getting enough dissolved oxigen in my water culture.not sure if it's as big of an issue when getting a cutting to develop roots,but an air pump and air stone would be a massive improvement.at this moment I have no access to one,but I'm trying to get one for a variety of hydroponics systems. Cash is the big roadblock here.I wonder if hydrogen peroxide would help here? It's been used to sanitise rooting solutions befor,so its proven not to be harmful to plants if it's diluted. Food for thought

With roses you don't really need very high tech equipment unless you want to grow plants from bits of leaves or something like that,cellular culture. Regular hard to semihard wood don't need sterile environment, but it helps a lot to have them taken from a healthy vigourous plant. Its' easiest to grow outdoors, but with a bit of care plants grow well in windows and green houses. The best results are suppose to come with sodium lamps of rather high effect, often 250 to 500 Watts, they are like small heaters. If you can benefit from the heat in the green house they have an advantage, but the cost a bit to have on 24 hours a day. There are different types of red and blue LED lights, they have proven worth the effort at least. Fluoresant light tubes works quite well too, but they have to be rather close to the plants, like a feet or two above the plant to work optimally. That said, if you can grow in a green house you will get help from daylight and combining with artificial light it will help.

I have very low tech watering systems, by water can or a simple system set up in my green house. When frost comes I usually take out all plants and leave it dormant until spring. I'm not much help with the hydrophonics.

I can remind you to improve the soil around the plants in your garden. Good compost is very underrated (organic material like off cuts, leaves, grass, grinded up canes and what not). Use a type of organic fertilizer equally high in Potassium and Nitrogen or close. Meassure pH, if it's too alcaline use some sulfur and if it's very acid (if you have bluberries, rododendrons and peat moss growing naturally) a bit of sea shell sand. It can be the reason for the extreme chlorosis. Either way, real compost and organic nutrients are the best in the ground out doors, you will get much more earth worms working on your team.

Food production indoors have been very limited for me, I have a few sprouts going now and then, and the odd herb in the window sill. I have potato, leeks and carrots in the ground. If I should be self sufficient I would need a large field. My green house depend on the sun and natural heating, so it's dormant in winter. I get a lot of tomatoes, squash and cucumbers in the growing season though :- )

The cheapest option i rigged up For grow lights was one of those metal, half dome looking shields that they use for keeping chicks warm with I just replaced the warming bulb with a large grow lightbulb that Home Depot or lowes sells. The whole set up was less that 15$ and the shield had a clamp that I used to attach it with. It worked really well for me

Grace

Thanks.I just observed a reaction between the asprin solution and my miriclegro nutreant solution.my asprin solution is clear with only the slightest cloudiness to it.nutreant solution is like a light blue green color when mixed I added only a splash to my water culture and its now a light lavander. Can anyone explane this?

And I know exactly what your describing, have no clue why I didn't think of that lol

Taoseeker,very very good info.I'm limited on ph checking,and its my neighbors rose,he just lets me take cuttings,so its a bit out of my hand on its condition.I'll post a pic of the bush tomarow.I'm just getting settled in here,we moved four months ago so it will be a bit til I get the soil in my garden in check.cats are my problem here.they use my box and my lawn as a community litter box.right now its just a fly factory. Good info on the hard and simi hard woody stems,and as I said I am new in this field and I'm learning as I go.I don't think that rose likes me to much though lol.I got to invest in growing lights.sun is blocked by a giant elm tree all day and my garden gets partial sun at best.so far only the morning glory did well.lots of work to be done.and as allways I'm am ever grateful for your help and feed back.

Also I have been adding lots of used coffy grounds to my garden,worms and rolly pollies seem to like haveing it around.yes I'm from the south and called them rolly pollies.I think the worms devour the stuff.I know they eat their weight in food daily but I think they realy tear up the coffy.who don't like coffy though? lol.it keeps the composters happy but what about the plants?that was the main reason I started doing it,only later I found it kept rolly pollies from eating my plants and created ADHD worms

Morning glory cutting looks good this morning, dispite the purple water thing.I'm hopeing to see roots this time.it seems I got to get to know roses beter before trying to propagate them,might have bit off more than I could chew there.tough plant to master.even growing from seed seems hard at best.from what I saw they need to be shocked by cold befor they germinate.I respect rose gardeners

Made a second batch of the solution. I want to see if it goes purple to.this is bugging me to no end.

this was the rose I got the cuttings from.as you can see it's basicly wild.

By the way can anybody ID this rose?when in bloom it produces small red roses in fairly dense clusters and does produce alot of blooms.I noticed almost all of them produced rose hips.

I'm getting tired of correcting the spell correct on this phone.so much for a "smart" phone

Your red rose might be Red Cascade. It's a mini (bloom size) and used to be readily available. People who planted it were shocked when their mannerly little bushes grew six feet tall. The ARS center near Shreveport used Red Cascade as a humongous ground cover for a sloped part of the garden than was about four steps high and fifty feet long. Their Red Cascades covered it totally.

Seems accurate.new development, my cutting got upgraded to a recirculating drip hydroponic set up.I don't notice the lavander situation, maby if was freak science, cutting looks ok,on day 3 now.I'll post pics of my divice in a moment,and I'm in the process of building a beter one,a 6 plant ebb and flow system,I'll post pics as that progresses as well.I'm throwing my best tools at this cutting,in hopes of successfully rooting it.still useing asprin as rooting compound. A very Small amount of nutreant in the water as well.in hopeing this will over come my lack of oxygen in the water culture, and as I have no air pump I had to get creative.

basicly a simple drip hydroponic unit.coffee can serves as a base as well as a resivoir, and houses the pump and excess tubeing. A vitawater bottle serves as a planter pot,took the lid off,sliped the bottle neck in a hole cut into the coffy can lid, then used the cap as a lock nut.its also the fill and the drain for this system.the hose teminates just below the cotton,is fitted with a difuser to spread the water in all directions. Drain holes in the cap return the solution back to the resivoir. Low tech,but should be effective.

That top pic shows the bubbles formed from the solution draining back in the resivoir. This should help provide some disolved oxygen in the solution. Growing media is bits of sponge,airy and moist,and inert as well,should work well.iv seen this used befor in net pots,and it was all I had so I gave it a go.nessesity is the mother of all invention. Cotton just helped keep droplets from flying out and seems to also distribute moisture evenly.

This unit was operating in all photos, so you can see it's relatively low pressure and low volume. Keeping the medium moist and that's about it.I didn't want to deal with soggy roots and the issues it causes.idealy i should have blacked out the pot but I had no way to do it.i have seen water culture cuttings of marble Queens do well in Mason jars,with every cutting droping roots,so I'm hopeing its not to big of an issue.algie is my concern but I think I should be ok

computer let me do this without a bitter fight to the bloody end for once.this is my new set up I'm building.those are supposed to be 2 litter bottles,base is 3/4 inch pvc,serves as the flood and drain plumbing as well

Cutting somehow got contaminated and died.I forgot how the wife can get overboard with perfume spray.tells me how sensitive hydroponics systems can be.I needed a beter resivoir any way,as the coffy can is rust prone.I'll redue this experiment very soon,this time with a beter grow system and I'll move it to my work room so I can be sure it won't be contaminated.I as of yet have been unable to see if asprin is viable as a rooting compound to propagate cuttings,by first hand experiance,and not by an article found online.I want to incorporate another system into this experiment as well. As I do brew wine and beer,and co2 is a byproduct of this,I want to use an external air lock I developed and put the air lock in the humidity dome.co2 is vital to photosynthesis, and this will be way cheaper than investing in a co2 deispening system.the above 6 plant ebb and flow system is what I'll be useing,as my system is half way built as of now.I'm needing t's and elboes,as well as a good resivoir, which I'll most likely use a 5 gallon bucket for.

Hi ladyf888. Sounds like you're into some fairly technical, indoor gardening techniques for general plant growing. I'm thinking you might find more people with a particular interest and expertise in this sort of thing in one of the other GardenWeb forums - are you aware there are different forums for Hydroponics and Growing under Lights? If you click on 'Garden Forums' (in green print at the top of the page) you'll see the complete list of topics. Click on 'Indoor Gardening' and you'll see a variety of sub-topics, including the Hydroponics and Growing under Lights ones.

Most of the people on this particular forum would be used to growing roses out of doors, in the normal way, so wouldn't have specific experience in the sorts of techniques you're talking about. If you're interested in growing roses, you really need a place for them that gets a minimum of around 6 hours of full sun per day (depending on your climate), out of doors, either in large pots or well-amended garden beds. Growing roses indoors is not generally recommended, since they need fresh air and sunlight to do well. Having said that, people have occasionally had success, in windows with full natural light and good air circulation. Re: rose propagation - there are many ways of striking rose cuttings, you can get further advice on this here, and/or on the web. Ditto for growing from seed. There's also a specific forum for Rose Propagation - go to Garden Forums and check the sub-topics under Roses.

I hope this helps, and good luck with your experiments!

I am walking down an unbeaten path here and realise to a few it may seem more trouble than it's worth but there are reasons.I will soon have my own land and plan to have a greenhouse capible of growing all the food we will need all year round.propagation will play a key role if I can master it.if I can clone viable plants before I harvest then I won't have to constantly replenish seeds and the cloned plants will reach maturity alot faster than a plan grown from seed.as for why I'm on this thread,it was regarding asprin being used as a rooting agent for cuttings,and dispite my methods my goal here is relevant to the thread.I'm well aware of how to navigate this forum and I am all over the place here.I will admit my approach to validating or debunking the asprin theory is a bit off topic but the goals of these experiences and experiments are right on point.I'm simply useing a rose due to its difficulty in propagating in this fashion. In the end I want solid proof in my hands that asprin makes a good improvised rooting compound.and I'm sure many people can benifeit from this research as we all are trying to find more ways to save money.that being said,I am hopeing for success,and as a bonus,maby some people will expand in hydroponics and find it can be a valid way to grow plants in less than favorible conditions,or simply use this form of gardening to make there plants grow to the best possible conditions.or you can just buy a rose pop it in the dirt and deal with a plant like the red cascade posted above.I won't judge.that out of the way,I did upgrade the coffee can system with a beter resivoir and soon will be ready to proceed.will do so under more sterile conditions and I plan to upgrade to a grow lamp on a timer,a humidity dome,and a co2 generator,as well as a ventilation system or air pump to keep oxygen level optimal.complete swap of air will be done daily, temperature will be more closely monitored,as well as humidity.in the six plant rig I'll conduct another experiment to see how effective asprin is at rooting,but I won't post details till its under way.

Have been on in a bit,been buisy designing a vertical garden with self watering planters.working out the kinks.still on top of this asprin mystery,its just in the back seat for a sec

Self watering planter is online and operational,if its successfull I will proceed with the asprin and rose cutting experiment. After some trial and error I got the growing medium disign right and its performing as it should.gypsom prooved successful in substituting hydroton and shreaded egg carton added wicking action without impacting drainage.this seems a good system to root a cutting with the dirt method,where rooting compound is applied and cutting is placed in dirt to root.will update as it progresses