A Gardening Secret from the Desert
Plants are good at making chemicals, and plants that have adapted to harsh conditions produce numerous bio-chemicals to deal with stress. That’s why yucca extracts are so beneficial.
Yucca is a desert plant that has to deal with excessive heat stress, drought stress, UV stress, and salt stress, sometimes on a daily basis. When extracts are taken from plants adapted to such harsh conditions, many of the stress-reducing chemicals are harvested with them.
So, when yucca extracts are applied to your favorite garden plants, your plants will get an extra boost of plant protection to help them deal with adverse conditions, especially in the heat of summer.
Yucca Benefits
- Yucca plants are great at sequestering and using water, Yucca is high in natural wetting agents called saponins.
- Saponins are steroidal-based natural chemicals that actually make water wetter, breaking the polarity of the water molecule.
- So, if you add yucca extracts to your irrigation water, the water and nutrients can better penetrate the soil surface and effectively spread to all the roots in the root zone.
Since water is dispersed more evenly in the root zone, Plants will be able to use water more efficiently and should be able to go longer between irrigation cycles without adverse effects.
Dealing with Salt Buildup and Other Soil Problems
Since root growth follows the flow of water, it is possible for pockets of harsh mineral salts to begin to form and damage tender root hairs.
- Water finds the path of least resistance, so when you water plants in soil or soilless mix, micro-channels begin to form in the growing media.
- The water tends to follow the same path every time, and when the soil dries between waterings, mineral salts begin to build up in the root zone.
Yucca extracts solve the problem by allowing the water to spread more evenly, washing away concentrated salts, and preventing dry pockets from forming.
This helps ensure that you are wetting the entire growing media and keeping everything hydrated and helps prevent issues that arise when coco-coir or peat-based growing media become hydrophobic due to drying out.
