Home Garden Resveratrol Experiment

The recent announcement by Sirtris regarding its licensing agreement with Bayer Life Sciences got me thinking about my tomato garden. Every spring, I plant six tomato plants and by July the plants bear fruit. There is nothing like the taste of home grown tomatoes. If you've ever grown tomatoes you've probably observed that, in some years, the leaves on the plant may discolor, from the bottom up, and eventually fall off. If it gets really bad the entire plant can die off. The fruit is typically not effected in mild cases but tomato yields may suffer. This is usually caused by a plant fungus that often hits tomato plants called septoria.

I plan on performing my own personal experiment in this year's crop. When I plant my tomato plants this year, I plan on sprinkling 100mg of resveratrol onto the soil surrounding the eventual root spread of 3 out of the 6 tomato plants. Since, resveratrol is a phytoalexin produced naturally by several plants when under attack by bacteria or fungi, it will be interesting to see whether providing resveratrol directly to the roots will have any effect. I'll be reporting on the results as the plants grow. If any SI readers wish to perform the same experiment we can compare notes.