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Reversing Plant Aging


Keeping Your Flowers and Trees Growing and Blooming Longer

When plants age, they stop growing and flowering, and their leaves stop making protein and 
chlorophyll. Eventually the leaves turn yellow and fall off, and the plants become susceptible to 
fungal (rust) infections and insect attack. Plant aging or senescence is a biochemical process that is 
highly susceptible to environmental conditions.  It can easily be stopped by plant hormones, either 
made by the plants themselves or by soil microorganisms. If your roses stop flowering after two 
months, your plants are either aging prematurely, or they are not receiving enough light. The aging 
process of plants can be slowed dramatically by gardeners who understand why plants "shut down" 
biochemically. Plants can grow in a bucket of rocks if they are fed chemical fertilizers that contain 
water-soluble minerals. Unfortunately for plants, most minerals in the soil are not water-soluble. This 
means that most plant growth is controlled by soil microorganisms that break down organic matter 
into simple molecules that the plants can use. Although plants can make their own vitamins and 
amino acids, they can also take them up from the soil if microorganisms "pre-process" them first. 
Becoming a successful gardener does not require a degree in botany or horticulture, but it does 
require some knowledge of plant nutrition and how plants grow in response to their natural 
environment. This knowledge is freely available, but it is generally "locked up" in the scientific 
literature in a form that is not readily understandable to the average person. I know all about 
"science speak". My name is Dr. Stephen Martin and I am Chief Scientist of Wyoming DnaVaccine, 
LLC. I am responsible for the design and development of vaccines against the HIV, and hepatitis 
B/C viruses, animal and human herpes viruses, and the TB bacterium 
(http://www.wyomdnavaccine.com). In an effort to keep sane, I adopted organic gardening as my 
passion about 6 years ago. Since that time, I have become very knowledgeable about plant 
nutrition and the physiology of plant cell growth regulation. I intend to share that knowledge, 
translated into understandable English, with others. I am starting a WEB site in about two months 
called Milly's Gourmet Organics. Milly is my 76 year-old mother, an avid gardener, and my business 
partner in this enterprise. The site will include useful information about all commercial and non-
commercial fertilizers and how they can or cannot affect plant growth. Of particular interest will be a 
discussion of "Potting Soil" and why most commercial brands, in and of themselves, provide very 
few nutrients for plants. The site will also include recipes that I developed for making "bug juice", a 
non-odorous concoction of soil bacteria and easily obtained household items such as cornstarch, 
fruit and yeast that will make your plants grow and flower beyond your wildest expectations. If you 
want to be put on the mailing list, please send your request to milly@ap.net. In the interim, please 
bear with me. I have an interesting story to tell.

In my mother's garden, the soil is 50% clay. When she moved to her present house, the lawn was 
sparse, and obviously dying. We ripped it up. It wasn't worth saving. We planted roses and 
numerous other plants, but they never did well. The soil conditions are barely suitable for the growth 
of even the hardiest of plants. About five years ago, a friend gave me a few pounds of high-grade 
fish meal for making soups and stocks. On a whim, I put one tablespoon of the meal in one gallon of 
water and fed it to my mother's sickly rose bushes. The results were apparent within weeks. Milly's 
roses started growing and budding to an extent that is difficult to believe. The roses now bloom 8 
months of the year, the leaves are lush green, and there is very little rust even though my mother 
lives on the edge of a fog belt. Surprisingly, there have been no aphid infestations since the fish 
meal was first fed to the roses. I treated her sick apple and pear trees in the same manner. Both 
trees were sparsely foliated with little fruit, the leaves were yellow and covered with rust, and the fruit 
was small, spotted with fungus and worm-ridden. My mother was going to have both trees removed. 
One year later, after applying 4 gallons of the fish meal slurry to the base of the trees, both trees are 
lush green with foliage and have more fruit that any ten families could possibly use. There is no rust, 
and the fruit is completely worm-free. A plumb tree that was planted 5 years ago as a small bare root 
sapling is now over 12 feet tall, and has so many plumbs that the limbs of the tree sag under the 
weight. The lower limbs touch the ground. It took me awhile to find out why fish meal, per se, is such 
a good fertilizer at such low concentrations. The answer turned out to be more complicated than I 
originally thought.

First, this fish meal works as a fertilizer because it is actually a human food product. It consists of 
fresh whole fish that are either too small to be filleted or the wrong species. The fish are processed 
within 8 hours of harvesting in order to preserve freshness. The rapid cooking process stops the 
ammonification process, and other natural degradation processes that occur when a fish or animal 
dies. The intense steam heat stops the enzymatic breakdown of the fish organs and preserves the 
integrity of the plant growth factors in the meal. These growth factors, and the vitamins that are 
present in high concentrations in fish organs, are heat stable. The enzymes that break down growth 
factors into simpler compounds are not. The potency of the fish meal as a fertilizer has nothing to do 
with its high protein content. If that were true, chicken manure would probably work just as well. It 
doesn't. Manure does not contain these molecules because they are absorbed out of an animal or 
bird's food in their digestive tracts.  In time, I found that the growth factors were actually precursors 
or biochemical building blocks for the group of plant hormones called auxins and cytokinins. Auxins 
control root growth and the elongation (not growth) of individual plant cells. Cytokinins stimulate 
plant cell growth, the synthesis of protein and chlorophyll, and induce budding and flowering. 
Cytokinins also stimulate the synthesis of molecules in plant leaves, stems and roots that protect 
plants from fungal and insect attacks. Auxins and cytokinins work together to stop plant aging or 
senescense. Plants can make these hormones internally, but the hormones can also be made by a 
wide diversity of soil bacteria and fungi. When the hormones are secreted into the root zone by 
microorganisms, the plants will continue to grow and senescence will be postponed until the 
weather becomes harsh. The fish meal does not contain preformed auxins or cytokinins, but it does 
contain very high concentrations of molecules that can be rapidly turned into these hormones by soil 
microorganisms. When I planted Milly's roses, I packed the roots in fresh compost. Fresh compost 
contains a large number of microorganisms that break down organic matter, but not all organic 
matter is equally useful as a fertilizer. When fed the fish meal, the microorganisms produced plant 
growth hormones, and the rest is history.  Plant compost does not contain these molecules because 
growth hormones are unstable and are not stored in plant tissues. They are naturally degraded very 
soon after they are made. High concentrations of auxins and cytokinins also block the activity of the 
plant enzymes that make the hormones in the plant cells. This natural feedback prevents plants from 
growing too vigorously. We can get around this "natural block" by inducing bacteria and fungi to 
make the auxins and cytokinins for the plants in the soil. After much experimentation, I found that 
bakers yeast, fed a diet of sugar and fish meal, also makes cytokinins. A recipe for a simple, yet 
potent "bug juice" fertilizer will be included in the forthcoming Milly's Gourmet Organics WEB site.

Milly's Gourmet Organics is a company that presently sells only MaxGro, a 100% Certified Organic 
Fertilizer, e.g. the fish meal I've been talking about in this message.  It is mixed with freshly cooked 
crab shell waste in order to increase the calcium concentration (very important for plants), and to 
reduce the cost of the fertilizer. Also, the chitin in the crabshell stimulates soil organisms to secrete 
enzymes called chitinases. These enzymes degrade chitin, which is a component of nematode and 
flea egg shells. The presence of chitin in the fertilizer makes it a natural biopesticide that is non-toxic 
to birds, animals, fish, and plants. This fertilizer is 30% protein, 6% nitrogen, 4% phosphorus, 0.6% 
potash, and 14% calcium. One pound will make 25 to 100 gallons of a water-based fertilizer slurry. 
The exact concentration of fish meal needed will depend on the health of your plants. MaxGro is 
sold in one pound bags for $12.95 (plus $.98 cents sales tax for CA residents) plus $3.00 for 
shipping by priority mail. Only US orders containing checks or money orders can be accepted until 
the WEB site is functional in a month or so. MasterCard/Visa and international orders will be 
accepted when ordering through the WEB site. We are discounting MaxGro now in order to more 
accurately guage consumer interest. Fish meal is only available seasonally so we must contract in 
advance with the processing plant.  By ordering now, you are helping us more accurately plan for 
the future. In the future, we will also be selling dried, purified soil bacterial preparations that can be 
used to supplement the bacteria already in the soil. These bacteria are not genetically engineered, 
but they are superior in their ability to break down plant proteins, starches, cellulose and pectin in 
the soil. I've isolated these bugs from some of the finest compost piles on the West Coast. ("You 
design vaccines for a living and crawl around compost piles for a hobby?"). If you don't have a 
compost pile-for example if you live in an apartment or condo-you will need to spike the bug juice I 
described earlier with superior soil bacteria in order to improve the growth of your house or patio 
plants. As soon as we can afford a $250,000 fermentor, we will prepare the bacterial strains for sale 
to the public. 

Orders can be sent to Milly's Organics, 265 Spanish Flag, Sonoma, CA 95476. Email is milly@ap.net. 
Please make checks out to Milly's and allow 2 weeks after the receipt of your order for delivery. 

Thanks for your patience and happy gardening. Oh, one more thing. If you ever meet an arrogant, 
know-it-all person who is totally full of him/hershelf, remind he/she that plants can make all their own 
vitamins, sugars and amino acids and live on CO2, sunshine and soil minerals. Animals can't. So, in 
a very real biochemical sense, plants are superior organisms or "beings" to humans-at least some 
humans. 

Milly and Steve