Mega Crop vs Dyna-Gro comparison grow

[iShatterBladderz]

The only 'issue' with using FP in a coco and perlite blend is that in terms of watering frequency you're getting close to hydro and higher doses of N than needed tend to grow leafier, branchier plants. IMO, that's what we're seeing here with mega crop. If you know what you're doing you can prune the sh*t out of your plants to avoid the leafy, airy flowers that will inevitably be produced but if you don't do that well then yields can suffer. In this case with mega crop and in your situation where bloom might be added to foliage pro, a higher dose of P and K could knock back the N content to a more reasonable level and improve yields by focusing production on fewer, higher quality flowering sites.



Bloom and foliage pro can be mixed together in their concentrated form. I actually have an 80/20 bloom/FP mix sitting around in a 4 ounce bottle for when I top off my reservoirs and add back some food.



I agree with @Wastei. Plants grown in coco need food from the get-go. In your case with DG's foliage pro, literally 1ml/gal is plenty.

just wanted to check back in with you, your suggestions have been working great for me. I started feeding just 1ml/gal foliage pro, and then they started getting light around day 10 so I bumped it up to 2ml/gal and they’ve been exploding. I’ll probably start adding protekt soon, I was hesitant at first because I’ve got to use more ph down to offset the protekt, but I think they’re getting big enough that I feel comfortable doing that. Here are two shots of them,first one was taken two days ago, the day after I bumped up the feed, second was taken today at day 13 from sprout.



Should I bump it up to 2.5ml/gal in week 3, or do you think I’ll be good at 2ml for a minute?

 

[homebrewer]

Should I bump it up to 2.5ml/gal in week 3, or do you think I’ll be good at 2ml for a minute?

Honestly you could probably do 2mls/gal until you harvest them. Think about it: the bigger they get, the more water they'll need. The more water they get, the more actual food they'll get when watered. Make sense? There is no need to increase watering volume and feeding strength. That's 2 increases at the same time.

 

[homebrewer]

How do you find the density of the buds at this stage comparatively?

The plants have been harvested but if you had asked me this question during the last week of flower I'd say....

The density is OK. The head buds are as dense as you'd expect. It's that second tier of flowers that are on the less-dense side. That could be corrected with a bloom booster. I'm not saying the booster would add weight by increasing the density of the buds I grew, it would most likely just grow fewer flowers in the same space (because of less branching) which would result in better overall density, if that makes sense.

Any difference in smell or terpenes?

Yes but that's not due to the plant foods. I normally use floralicious plus which will increase the aroma of your flowers. I'm not using that in this grow but overall the strength and character of the aroma is as expected for a grow where I didn't use FL+. If I added FL+ I would expect identical aromas between MegaCrop and DynaGro grows.

 

[homebrewer]

nice grow, dude.

whats the tipping from? ive had this on the last two MC grows at 0.9 ec. ive switched nutes

The tipping plants in the hydro tray? I let them get a little bigger than normal during veg and the weight of the flowers during flowering is why some of the upper branches were laying on their side. That's one reason why I have that homemade trellis.

 

[lukio]

The tipping plants in the hydro tray? I let them get a little bigger than normal during veg and the weight of the flowers during flowering is why some of the upper branches were laying on their side. That's one reason why I have that homemade trellis.

yo, nah the burnt looking tips, here -



too much food or something else?

 

[homebrewer]

yo, nah the burnt looking tips, here -

View attachment 4424041

too much food or something else?

Definitely a cal/mag deficiency .

 

[iShatterBladderz]

Definitely a cal/mag deficiency .

youre being facetious right? Lol

 

[FlakeyFoont]

Awesome thread Homebrewer, 2 thumbs up.

I use powder nutes (GH Maxi-Bloom) and had similar issues with mixing, stirring, shaking, settling, then do it again and again to get it 100% dissolved.

My solution is to use a food blender...I have an old Kenmore blender that is dedicated to mixing my nutes and it works extremely efficient.

I would suggest considering picking up an old blender if you ever decided to use MC again

cheers
ISK

I'm using the latest iteration of MC. In a 5 Gallon bucket of room temp RO, it takes about 30 seconds of stirring for it to completely dissolve, and I do mean completely... ok,maybe 35 seconds, lol!

The previous version did take a bit longer, maybe a minute and 30, I do stir pretty softly.

I used Dyna Grow a while ago for quite a while, and stopped when I noticed that something was precipitating out, and making glass-like shards at the bottom of the jug. I probably should have shaken the shit out of the jug when I used it, but didn't realize that was needed. It also made it really hard for me to get a stable pH with my well water.

I'm not dissing Dyna Grow or Homebrewer, just sayin' what's happened here.

 

[CoB_nUt]

@homebrewer which version of MC was this comparison run? V2 or V3? I really dug V1 even tho it was dusty as hell and ultra hydrophilic. V2 was Purdy good. V3,well something was definitely different and my plants took less bs from me before they got fussy. I'm thinking about going back to Jack's.

Thank you for running this comparison.

 

[homebrewer]

@homebrewer which version of MC was this comparison run? V2 or V3? I really dug V1 even tho it was dusty as hell and ultra hydrophilic. V2 was Purdy good. V3,well something was definitely different and my plants took less bs from me before they got fussy. I'm thinking about going back to Jack's.

Thank you for running this comparison.

I'm pretty sure I'm using their V2.

 

[iShatterBladderz]

Honestly you could probably do 2mls/gal until you harvest them. Think about it: the bigger they get, the more water they'll need. The more water they get, the more actual food they'll get when watered. Make sense? There is no need to increase watering volume and feeding strength. That's 2 increases at the same time.

Is 2ml a strong dose? I just read on an older post while browsing that you usually feed 1.5ml/gal, is this still the case?
also, question about my water, I plan on getting an RO system but in the meantime, our tap water is only about 60ppm. Do you think this along with FP will have enough calcium, or should I pick up a cal mag supplement just in case? Is there a way I can easily add calcium without mg? I have a friend who was telling me that he wasn’t able to use mag-pro at all because it would cause calcium deficiencies with our tap water. I pulled up the water analysis for our city but I don’t see calcium being tested for, unless I’m missing something. Here’s a link if you feel like giving it a look for me: https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/10288/tmua_2019_annualwaterqualityrpt_single.pdf

my water is fairly high PH out the tap, after adding FP, I have to use 1.25ml/ gallon of PH down to about 6.0 so I’ve been hesitant to start adding in protekt as i don’t want to have to use too much ph down. Is this a valid concern or am I overthinking this and I should just add the protekt if I want to?

thanks again for all the help, I’m sure you get tired of answering questions all day long, but anywhere else I ask about DG I get such varying answers, but I trust your knowledge since you have so much damn experience with the dg line lol.

 

[homebrewer]

Is 2ml a strong dose? I just read on an older post while browsing that you usually feed 1.5ml/gal, is this still the case?
also, question about my water, I plan on getting an RO system but in the meantime, our tap water is only about 60ppm. Do you think this along with FP will have enough calcium, or should I pick up a cal mag supplement just in case? Is there a way I can easily add calcium without mg? I have a friend who was telling me that he wasn’t able to use mag-pro at all because it would cause calcium deficiencies with our tap water. I pulled up the water analysis for our city but I don’t see calcium being tested for, unless I’m missing something. Here’s a link if you feel like giving it a look for me: https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/10288/tmua_2019_annualwaterqualityrpt_single.pdf

The back of the DG bottle recommends 1/2 tsp so 2mls/gal isn't far off from their recommended dose.

You don't need the RO system with 60ppm water.

You wont need additional calcium.

You don't need magpro either. You friend wasn't seeing a 'deficiency' because of magpro, he was seeing what happens when you add a bloom booster when one isn't needed.

my water is fairly high PH out the tap, after adding FP, I have to use 1.25ml/ gallon of PH down to about 6.0 so I’ve been hesitant to start adding in protekt as i don’t want to have to use too much ph down. Is this a valid concern or am I overthinking this and I should just add the protekt if I want to?

You don't need to pH your inputs. Just add protekt if you want to add it. Not too much though.

 

[homebrewer]

yo, nah the burnt looking tips, here -

View attachment 4424041

too much food or something else?

All joking aside, I think it's important to look at the overall health of the plant instead of worrying about the health of every single last leaf. Why does 1% of that leaf by weight look like it got a little more nitrogen than needed? Probably because it did? Or it could be an environmental thing? Maybe that leaf was closer to a light than it wanted? Maybe there was some airflow that was hitting that leaf in a way it didn't like? I've seen it 100 times. Growers who worry about the health of every singe last leaf will inevitably over-correct the 'issue' and subsequently tank an entire grow.

 

[lukio]

All joking aside, I think it's important to look at the overall health of the plant instead of worrying about the health of every single last leaf. Why does 1% of that leaf by weight look like it got a little more nitrogen than needed? Probably because it did? Or it could be an environmental thing? Maybe that leaf was closer to a light than it wanted? Maybe there was some airflow that was hitting that leaf in a way it didn't like? I've seen it 100 times. Growers who worry about the health of every singe last leaf will inevitably over-correct the 'issue' and subsequently tank an entire grow.

i asked because ive had the same from V2 not V1. i Dont think its too much N, i think its a Cal problem. I think they changed it rather quickly because of this. Ive grown a lot of weed on Megacrop...but ive just dropped it.

 

[homebrewer]

i asked because ive had the same from V2 not V1. i Dont think its too much N, i think its a Cal problem. I think they changed it rather quickly because of this. Ive grown a lot of weed on Megacrop...but ive just dropped it.

You can be 100% sure that it has nothing to do with calcium, hence my joke above.

 

[hybridway2]

pH

Once the first MegaCrop reservoir was all weighed out, mixed up, and completely dissolved, I was pleasantly surprised to see MegaCrop buffer itself to a pH of 5.77. However, after 4 days the pH has climbed to 6.70 which in my experience is to be expected with foods high in nitrate N (this exact amount of pH rise is what I saw with the General Hydroponics 3-part too). They seem to have an ever-rising pH which tends to require an adjustment every couple/few days. You can actually get away with not adjusting the pH at all and despite what some will say, it won’t result in any deficiencies or ‘lock outs’, but you are likely leaving some yield on the table at the end if you're not more exact about your pH. I like a range of say 5.6 - 6.3 in hydro.

In comparison with DynaGro, I've found the pH of DG's foods to be the best that I've ever tried. More-or-less rock-solid pH stability from start to finish. One thing to note is that DG's base nutrients are acidic (like many other brands) and their Protekt product is alkaline, one can strike a 'base/protekt balance' to balance your reservoir's pH from the get-go. So lets say for example you need 100 mls of DG's bloom in your reservoir, maybe with the pH of your tap water that can be balanced with 50 mls of protekt.? It takes a little trial and error in 1-gallon jugs but once that balanced is achieved you can pretty much throw your pH pen in the trash.

Any nute that requires silica to balance the feed (temporarily) is crap.
The instructions say 4ml/gall.
Ok, you like smoking silicone.
DynaGrow makes NO sense & the only way you can use it is with major modifications to the schedule.
They even say add it after to raise ph. If need be, which it does.
Silica should always be added first. Sure a lil won't hurt but it separates, should not have to be done.
The ph is so low the only way i can see using DynaGrow is just add enough base to not drop past 6.0. If youre short nutes oh well.
Crappola

 

[hybridway2]

Rising pH sucks!
I had that years ago. It drove me crazy.
If this is the case with MegaCrop then it is almost already a no go for me.

@homebrewer Will it be always the case with MegaCrop, or would there be a chance that with my tapwater it would be (more) stable.
I am a total nitwit in all this pH and nutrients business.

Ph drops like crazy with DG even after 1/2 gall. Silica. Just a few days later.
His name is Homebrewer for a reason. Beer? Doubt it. Teas, & anything to make DG work, most likely.
Instructions tell me enough about a clueless company.

 

[dakindgrind]

Definitely a cal/mag deficiency .

Great comparison for a one-part dry vs one-part bottled.

FWIW I've always gauged tipping as a limit to how far strains can be pushed while riding the ec line. Especially helpful when there are many strains on the same feed schedule.

Personally I still like mixing 5-11-26 (thanks a million for that tip) and dry nutes as it soothes the science part of my brain.

 

[hybridway2]

Sometimes your tap water will buffer the pH, usually upward, so using RO water instead may minimize those upward swings. In the defense of MC, every food that I've ever run in hydro drifted upward, except for DG. That upward drift is to be expected. I added hydro tables to the garden about a decade ago and pH isn't as big of a deal as people make it out to be. If you were getting anal with MC then you'd likely want to adjust the pH 2x per week but I bet you could easily get by with an adjustment 1x per week. Seeing that (based on one reservoir) MC buffered itself to 5.77 on day 1, letting it drift upward is not a bad idea. Once it hits 6.4 or so, adjust it back to 5.6 and let it rise again. By the time you need to change your res I'm sure the pH will still be in an acceptable range.

Runnoff in CoCo was mega Dyna Low going in at 6.5. Weeks later even.

 

[lukio]

You can be 100% sure that it has nothing to do with calcium, hence my joke above.

nah. it turned into this twice in a row, these are my plants last round.


you saying thats not cal? interested in what you think that is? starts like your tipping and gets worse around weeks 9-10


heres some random sites diagnosis