What does Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) mean?
Vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, has been prescribed and still is used in some circles, as a rooting hormone for everything from traditional vegetable seedlings to hydroponically grown cannabis.
Despite plants producing more than enough of their own thiamine in adequate quantities, vitamin B1 is often still used as an ingredient in many commonly available transplant fertilizers with claims to its efficacy in rebuilding root systems.
With the discovery of auxins, a plant growth hormone, said to have stronger effects on root development, the use of vitamin B1 as a rooting hormone is starting to fall out of practice for cannabis cultivation. However, vitamin B1 does continue to play a role in tissue cultivation of cannabis and other plants.
More Info on Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)
Micro-propagation of cannabis is an alternative to cloning. This is an intensive process where many times more plants can be produced in a small, but sterile environment. A tiny section of the cannabis plant is taken and generally placed in a test tube or petri dish initially. They are then placed in an enriched media designed specifically to feed the tissue and create a clone of the parent plant.
A typical tissue culture media for cannabis will contain Vitamin B1 as a component, but it is to support the development of the plant tissue – not to develop roots.
In fact, there has been no scientific evidence since the middle of the 20thcentury that the addition of Vitamin B1 has any effect on a plant’s ability to establish healthy roots. This claim originated with a rooting hormone that was produced containing thiamine and plant auxins. This formulation worked to help develop roots, but the success turned out to be due to the auxins and not the B1.
The addition of any formulation containing vitamin B1 without other auxins (that actually do the work on their own without B1), claiming to produce roots cannot base that claim on any peer-reviewed research.
This definition was written in the context of Cannabis Cultivation
