So what exactly is Brix?
Well, Brix is often referred to as the “sugar” or sucrose content of a plant or its product, but this is a very simplistic and incomplete view of Brix. Actually, Brix refers to the total soluble solids (TSS) in the product juice or plant sap. Total soluble solids refer 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 agriculture and gardening, high Brix plant products will also be high Brix and offer the highest nutritional and “energy” value to whoever ingests that product. Therefore, animals and humans will receive the greatest health benefit from fruits and vegetables that have the highest Brix values (and meat from animals that have eaten pastures with the highest Brix value).
How does a high Brix help me with my lawn?
Why should you be concerned about Brix values, other than the fact that this information could be helpful 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 more, and I think you’ll see how this relates to controlling insects in your lawn and gardening.
You see, although God may not be “writing down” 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 products with the highest Brix value and not those of questionable nutritional value (low Brix). Consequently, he incorporated into this whole process an interesting mechanism: the infestation of insects.
Now, I’m going to digress for a brief moment to talk about an insect’s digestive system, 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 livers and while there may be other reasons why He chose to leave this little element out of the anatomy of most insects, one that is particularly helpful to humans is that a liver is necessary. . to digest sugar.
So if an insect, which does not have a liver, ingests sugar, that sugar will eventually turn into alcohol and kill the insect. Interestingly, insects “know” this, and plants with high Brix value (and, as a result, high sugar content) will emit different patterns of UV light and electrical charges that tell the insects to stay away.
This SHOULD be helpful to us because if we were paying attention, the presence of an insect infestation would be a clear indication that eating of that particular plant (or product from it) would have minimal nutritional value. Therefore, simple self-preservation would lead us to fortify that plant with what it lacks (good nutrition) or to look elsewhere for plants and products NOT infested with insects (high Brix) and products that satisfy our nutritional needs.
Unfortunately, it has become the norm to ignore those warning signs and simply kill all the bugs, either with some toxic chemical or with some natural alternative. Of course, of those two options, the natural insecticide is certainly the best option, but it does not yet address the core problem of this situation. The errors 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 to a more attractive food source and we will have a nutritious and tasty little snack to nibble on (high Brix fruits and vegetables actually TASTE much better than those with a lower Brix value).
So again you might ask (possibly in a somewhat irritated tone at this point), “Why the heck am I concerned about insect eating habits and the nutritional value of products when I read this article to help me take care of my lawn?”
I’m glad you asked because everything is about to become crystal clear (assuming you haven’t figured it out yet).
The herb also has a Brix value
As I mentioned earlier, we can measure the Brix value of ANY plant and it provides us with the same information regardless of the plant. The higher the Brix value, the healthier the plant will be. The higher the Brix value, the higher the sugar content. Therefore, the higher the Brix value of your lawn, the more likely 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 more is all that is needed to nearly eliminate insect infestation from any plant, including lawns. The higher the better. Brix values for many plants can reach values well above 20 or 30. Some suggest that REALLY good plant nutrition can raise Brix values to hundreds, although most people would consider this unrealistic.
Either way, most herbs and plants have such a low Brix value (usually no higher than 6 or 8 and often much lower) that insects feed on them throughout the day (without mention that, if they are edible plants, their nutritional value is all about nothing). Increasing the Brix degrees of a plant is actually 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 truly natural organic fertilizers and 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, algae fertilizers are probably the most effective means of improving the overall nutrition of any plant (and therefore the Brix value) because most algae fertilizers are made from algae grown in VERY cold water, virtually toxin-free and nutrient-dense, just like the North Atlantic.
Since kelp is a plant unto itself, the macro and micronutrients it provides are fully balanced and readily available to a plant. Therefore, adding seaweed 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 seaweed to your gardening and lawn care fertilizer program will increase the Brix of your lawns and plants. The higher the Brix value, the less insect problems you will have.
Consequently, 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 therefore very unhealthy, even if does not necessarily LOOK ill at this particular time. Improve the nutrition the plant receives and the insects will move elsewhere. I promised.