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Brix Book - Farmer Testing |
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Page 19 of 35
THE STAGES OF TESTING AS A GARDENER OR FARMER
1. IN THE FIELD
Start by testing your finished produce when it is ready for harvest. Recognize that HIGH QUALITY produce comes from HIGH QUALITY plants. Test the leaves of your plants that are not ready for harvest. If they continually test high as the days go by, the harvest will ultimately test high.
Start your testing earlier next season. You are no longer operating blindly. Adjust your fertilization to increase leaf brix. The QUALITY of your produce will be far higher. An excellent step-by-step program using pH & electrical conductivity to adjust leaf brix upwards has been developed by Bob Pike. This method removes much of the traditional guesswork that formerly dominated the "try this---try that" school of how to increase brix.
2. OBSERVE THAT INSECTS, VIRUS, BACTERIA, AND FUNGUS ONLY ATTACK LOW BRIX PLANTS
Chemical control of plant pests is a multi-billion dollar industry. Each year, the chemical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars advertising their products purportedly to control insects, viruses, bacteria, and fungus. The chemical companies spend more millions conducting and sponsoring field tests that attempt to prove the special worth of their particular products.
However, their tests assume that all pests voraciously attack all green plants. That premise brings forth the following questions:
What kept the pests from multiplying, and then devouring, everything green millions of years ago? Why is the Earth not a bare rock now?
Understandably, the chemical companies shy away from these questions. Most are well aware that pest problems occur in fields fertilized with NPK.
The true answer is that pests are extremely selective in what they eat. Selectivity is well known. For instance, a cabbageworm dropped in a cornfield starves to death in the midst of plenty. Similarly, corn-smut fungus spores landing in a cabbage patch quietly die.
HIGH-QUALITY organic growers have, for generations, calmly stated that pests leave their produce alone. They are telling the truth. However, the truth of their observations is often clouded by the pests that LOW-QUALITY organic growers battle with garlic sprays and other concoctions.
Simply stated, unhealthy plants attract pests. Parallels are well known in nature. Predators are drawn to the weakest, most unhealthy, animals in a herd.
Another thought is that the syrupy nature of high brix plant juices is simply too difficult for sucking insects, such as aphids, to ingest. In all likelihood they depart in frustration to seek out the watery chemical grown produce of the neighbor’s field.
Finally, some students of BRIX=QUALITY theorize that alcohol plays a major part in plant/pest interaction. Apparently, insects, unlike warm-blooded creatures have no mechanism in their blood to prevent sugar from rapidly fermenting to alcohol. Therefore, they reason an insect feeding on a HIGH BRIX plant would suffer toxic effects from sugar fermentation in their blood. They reason, further, that predators easily catch toxic (or tipsy) insects¾ removing them from the gene pool.
Some alcohol theorists add yet another concept: namely that formed alcohol tends to dissolve the waxy seal exo-skeleton creatures employ to prevent fatal dehydration in hot fields.
Whatever---the reasoning goes on to suggest that insects feeding indiscriminately on HIGH BRIX plants fail to survive evolutionary pressures.
Although there is scant official research to validate any of these theories, there is wide agreement among non-toxic farmers the world around that healthy plants are immune to insect attack and disease.
2. OBSERVE THAT HIGH LEAF BRIX READINGS PROTECT AGAINST FROST
Pure water freezes at 32 degrees Farenheit. However, a 5 brix water-sugar mixture freezes at 26 degrees; a 10 brix mixture at 22 degrees; and a 15 brix mixture won’t freeze until it reaches 17 degrees. Plant frost damage (killing) occurs when ice crystals rupture plant cells. Many HIGH BRIX growers find their production season extended because the first few light frosts no longer harm their crop.
While a sugar-water mixture is not exactly the same as brix, consumers would be wise to recognize that the last local field-grown produce is almost assuredly the highest brix and therefore the highest quality. Such growers are worth seeking out.
Note: Some refractometer models are calibrated to directly show the temperatures needed to freeze certain liquids.
3. Price your output accordingly
Once you understand that your produce is sweeter and more nutritious than average, you should be prepared to show your customers why it is worth more.
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