Some pondering about acetyl salicylic acid usage on plants.

I have read some reports about subjective conclusions from different people regarding the usage of acetylsalicylic acid ( ASA). First of all let us make it clear to all readers. Acetylsalicylic acid is not to be considered a nutritient in terms of macro/micro nutritients. The second part to this is even though it is subjective conclusions made by some people of the usage on plants and the effects of it. It was not totally clear for me in what purpose it was used. It seems as it was used in some form of preventive purpose to make plants more resistence against "outworldly stress" attacks. Which these three links given by mr. mrarboc in a previous comment shows. The subjective conclusions are not necessarily incorrect. But they certainly can be confusing. Some explanations were just rumours. Though there is a study made about acetylsalicylacid made in the University of Arizona. Which also one of the links mention.
( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980806090010.htm)

"In plants, aspirin blocks the production of jasmonic acid by similarly binding a critical enzyme.

"Jasmonic acid is a hormone that is made when plants are in distress. It signals the production of plant-defense compounds -- it works a little like a shot of pain, warning the plant that it is under attack. It can also volatilize and warn nearby plants, a chain reaction that's like a warning signal to other plants. This seems to particularly apply to insect attack, as the alerted plants then produce specific compounds that produce insect gastro-intestinal distress.

"It turns out that aspirin will suppress the formation of this compound (jasmonic acid), so it suppresses the warning signal, like it suppresses pain in animals," Backhaus said.

While humans may want to tune out the pain "alarm" signaling that their body is under distress, it is hard to see what benefit aspirin's suppression could have in the plant reaction.

Unless you're a hungry insect ransacking a patch of plants, that is, and you want to shut off the neighborhood's burglar alarms... and have lunch. "

What is written above is in sciencedaily ( popular science?, did not bother to check how valuable the source is).I have seen a scientific report about resistance increasing in tobacco plant against tobacco viruse by using (ASA)from 1979. I also read some abstracts from other scientific reports about increased stress tolerance. With a conclusion " Induction of multiple stress tolerance in plants by exogenous
application of SA and its derivatives may have a significant practical application in agriculture, horticulture and
forestry." In which SA is salicylic acid. What that means is that it can perhaps work as a stress reliever for the plant or a stress resilience enhancer of some form. Question is, what concentrations as usual? One report had actually tried to investigate that. It was in the first link mr. Arboc gave me. In it it said too much concentration = plant damage. Good enough concentration = increased enhanced resilience against stress factors ( they did not specify stress factors, but they mention temperature, bacterial attacks as what can be considered stress factors)

" In this experiment, a concentration of 15mM (millimoles) was used. However, little of the salicylic acid (1.4%) moved into new plant tissues after 24 hours."

This is part of the complexity. Some of it was taken up by the plants, but not all. Notice also that this experiment ( even if not mentioned specifically) was probably taken out in hydroponic system. If you use soil then this can be a slippery experiment. How much is 15 mMol in amount of Alvedon? ( 1 alvedonpill/1,85dl) water. If you have a sick plant and you are full of experimental lust. I say go for it. Our chile pepper plants are our hobby. We want to take care of them. This knowledge can be used when the plant is sick or before that. It is your choice actually. You have gained the knowledge how to do it. I personally wont use ASA unless a plant is looking sick. Unfortunately I dont have any really sick plants. Well, now when you mention it. I will try it on my Red Caribbean it has a bit of stunted growth. Thanks mrarboc for the input. I hope parts of this long input helped you a bit on the way of chile pepper growing. The only thing you need to be worried about is to use alvedon in high concentration. Several reports indicated that plant could take damage. I would also question usage if one already have nice healthy plants. It feels like an overkill situation. In the end, one have to ask oneself. What kind of a chile pepper grower are you? Personally I like to keep it as enviromental as possible. My plants should not be bothered with man-kind medicine. But I will not judge others if they use it. Heck I am going to
dissolve one alvedon and add it to to one plant in 5 minutes from now.
If you wanna experiment, do it! You should not inhibit your lust of experimenting. I mean I will do it now just because I am a curious grower. I am not sure though. That one should reconsider using ASA as a weekly routine thing to add ASA to the plants. I did not look into the reports thoroughly to get an idea of how much of a seasonal concentration a plant can handle or not. But if we have a crazy plant owner. Please report to us the
results you obtained!! Once again, thanks for the input mrarboc. It is an interesting subject. But a also a complicated one.