Will Sucralose Affect the Growth of a Plant

Sucralose vs. Sucrose

• Sucrose is common table sugar. Sucralose is approximately 600 times sweeter than standard table sugar without many of sugar's detrimental health effects. This makes it a common staple in many sugar substitutes.

Affect on Plants

• There have been no detrimental affects on plants by the introduction of sucralose observed as of August 2011. A study by the Yale University School of Forestry performed a study with the aquatic plant fat duckweed (Lemna gibba). They concluded that sucralose did not inhibit its growth rate, frond number or net weight.

Warnings

• Although sucralose did not appear to curtail duckweed growth, Yale University researchers warn that the long-term effects of sucralose in the environment remain to be seen. The chemical is virtually harmless to plants, but chronic potential effects on human health and other organisms in the environment are still open to debate.

Sucrose Effects

• Pure sucrose is detrimental to floral development. Researchers at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan did studies using Arabidopsis plants. They discovered that flowering time was significantly delayed in plants given high concentrations of sucrose.