So what exactly is Brix?

Well, Brix is ​​often referred to as the “sugar” or sucrose content of a plant or the product of it, but this is a very simplistic and incomplete view of Brix. Brix actually refers to the Total Soluble Solids (TSS) in the produce juice or plant sap. Total soluble solids refers not only to sucrose (sugar) but also to fructose, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, hormones, and other solids found in the plant, fruit, or vegetable.

The higher the TSS or Brix value, the healthier and richer in nutrients/minerals the plant will be. Therefore, when it comes to farming and gardening, high Brix plant products will also be high Brix and offer the greatest nutritional and “energy” value to whoever eats those products. Therefore, animals and humans will receive the greatest health benefit from fruits and vegetables with the highest Brix values ​​(and from meat from animals that have eaten grasses with the highest Brix value).

How does a high Brix help my lawn?

Why should you care about Brix values, other than that this information can be useful in making decisions about your eating habits? Why does this have any relevance to your organic lawn care practices? Well, bear with me for a moment longer, and I think you’ll see how this relates to insect control in your lawn and landscaping.

You see, while God may not be “scoring” the nutritional value of plants and products with a Brix value, He certainly understands that we will receive the greatest health benefit from plants and products that contain the highest concentration of nutrients. After all, that IS the way He designed it. And, as a result, since He has our best interests in mind, He would want us to eat those plants and produce with the highest Brix value and not those of questionable nutritional value (Low Brix). Consequently, he incorporated an interesting mechanism into this whole process: the infestation of insects.

Now, I’m going to digress briefly to talk about the digestive system of an insect, but we’ll get back to our main discussion VERY quickly. You see, to properly digest sugar, one must have a liver. God did not design most insects with a liver, and while there may be other reasons why he chose to leave this little item out of most insects’ anatomy, one that is particularly useful for humans is that a liver is needed. . to digest sugar.

So if an insect, which has no liver, ingests sugar, that sugar will eventually turn into alcohol and kill the insect. Interestingly, insects “know” this, and plants with a high Brix value (and, as a result, high sugar content) will emit different patterns of UV light and electrical charges that tell insects to stay away.

This SHOULD be helpful to us because IF we pay attention, the presence of an insect infestation would be a clear indication that eating that particular plant (or its products) would have minimal nutritional value. So simple self-preservation would make us either fortify that plant with what it lacks (good nutrition) or look elsewhere for plants that are NOT infested with insects (high Brix) and products that meet our nutritional needs.

Unfortunately, it has become the norm to ignore those warning signs and simply kill off all bugs, either with some toxic chemical or some natural alternative. Of course, of those two options, the natural insecticide is certainly the better option, but it still doesn’t address the core problem of this situation. The bugs are there for a reason. The plant is not healthy. Make the plant healthy and the sugar content of the plant will increase, the insects will move on to a more attractive food source and we have a nutritious and tasty little snack to munch on (high Brix fruits and veggies actually DO have much better flavor than those with a lower Brix value).

So, again you might ask (possibly in a somewhat irritated tone at this point), “Why the hell do I care about the eating habits of insects and the nutritional value of produce when I’m reading this article to help me take care of my lawn? “

I’m glad you asked because it’s all about to become clear (assuming you haven’t figured it out yet).

Grass also has a Brix value

As I mentioned earlier, we can measure the Brix value of ANY plant and it gives us the same information regardless of which plant it is. The higher the Brix value, the healthier the plant. The higher the Brix value, the higher the sugar content. Therefore, the higher the Brix value of your lawn, the more likely it is that insects will not feast on your blue ribbon lawn (or, if they do, they will die trying).

In fact, a Brix value of 12 or higher is all it takes to almost completely eliminate insect infestation from any plant, including lawns. The higher, the better. Brix values ​​for many plants can actually reach values ​​well above 20 or 30. Some suggest that REALLY good plant nutrition can actually raise Brix values ​​into the hundreds, although most people would consider this not to be true. realistic.

Either way, most grasses and plants have such a low Brix value (usually no more than 6 or 8 and often much lower) that insects feed on them throughout the day (not to mention, if they are edible plants, their nutritional value for all of us is almost zero). Raising the Brix of a plant is really quite simple. Provide good nutrition, including a balanced diet of macro and micronutrients and trace elements.

How do you do that? Well, organic lawn care and gardening is a great start, as organic fertilizers and truly natural soil amendments will provide much better nutrition to any plant than chemical fertilizers. Some fertilizers will raise Brix values ​​more effectively than others. For example, seaweed fertilizers are probably the most effective means of improving any plant’s overall nutrition (and therefore Brix value) because most seaweed fertilizers are made from seaweed grown in VERY cold water, virtually toxin-free and nutrient-rich, just like the North Atlantic.

Since seaweed is a plant itself, the macro and micronutrients it provides are completely balanced and readily available to a plant. Therefore, the addition of kelp to any fertilization program is probably the easiest way to increase the Brix value of that plant, which includes grass. Therefore, adding regular doses of kelp to your fertilizing program for lawn care and landscaping will increase the Brix of your lawn and plants. The higher the Brix value, the fewer insect problems you will have.

Accordingly, I recommend that if you have any kind of insect problem, it is a FACT that your lawn (or flower or tree or shrub or garden) is receiving very poor nutrition and is therefore very unhealthy, even if does not necessarily LOOK sick at this particular time. Improve the nutrition the plant receives and the insects will move elsewhere. I promise.