Are You Asking These Questions of Your Nutrients Company?

Yeah, this article really got me thinking....

http://www.rosebudmag.com/nutrients/seven-nutrients-questions

Seven Maximum Yield Hydroponics Nutrients Questions You Deserve the Answer To

Hydroponics nutrients companies owe you maximum yield answers.There’s lots of discussion among hydroponics growers just like you and me about what are the best hydroponics nutrients. As you know, hydroponics growers have a lot of money and time invested in every plant and we insist on maximum yield from our hydroponics nutrients.

But everybody has an opinion about hydroponics nutrients and some of those opinions are stated like facts, but when you really look at what a lot of people say about hydroponics nutrients, you see facts are lacking.

That’s why it’s time for all of us hydroponics growers to contact hydroponics nutrients companies and get answers to seven maximum yield questions that hydroponics companies owe you the answer to:

Question Number One: How did the hydroponics company decide what N-P-K and other nutrients amounts and ratios are present in their formulas?

Question Number Two: What kinds of plants are their hydroponics products designed for and how do they test their hydroponics nutrients?

Question Number Three: Does the company have live technical support from real growers who’ll answer all your hydroponics questions accurately and in a friendly manner?

Question Number Four: Does the company provide free hydroponics gardening information via emails, the Internet, YouTube and other sources that help you get maximum yield from your hydroponics urban garden?

Question Number Five: Who designs, tests, manufactures and quality checks the company’s hydroponics nutrients? Do plant scientists do it? If not, who does it and what are their qualifications

Question Number Six: Does the hydroponics company make any hydroponics equipment or supplies for hydroponics growers other than nutrients? If so, what are those products?

Question Number Seven: What does the company do for the hydroponics community- does it attend hydroponics-specific trade shows, does it publish a hydroponics gardening magazine, does it advocate for the rights of hydroponics growers?

Just asking these questions and paying attention to how easy it is for you to get good answers will give you a starting point for knowing if a hydroponics nutrients company is the right one for you.

For example, you’ll find some companies refuse to answer some or even all of your questions. That’ll tell you something about their nutrients right there.

You’ll also notice if a hydroponics company is forthcoming, comprehensive and for real…just look at this as you would any other situation where you have a lot of money and time invested in a business or hobby.

Let’s face it- you already know how you want to be treated and you can tell who’s being up front with you and on the ball.

There are only a few “big name” hydroponics nutrients companies. Before you give your hard-earned money and the maximum yield potential of your hydroponics crops to them, ask them the seven maximum yield questions you deserve answers to. It’ll give you peace of mind and bigger harvests!

Thanks for posting an Advanced Nutrients ad from a magazine published by Advanced Nutrients.

Heres a good question
Can any Hydroponics nutrient company make up for the fact that the sun isnt shining in our indoor grow rooms? The answer is ofcouse no, which brings another question. If hydroponic nutrient companies cant make up for the fact that our indoor plants are starved of full spectrum growth light, is there a reason to bother using specialty high end nurtients as opposed to regular off the shelf NPK only fertilizers?

I mean I can stick a clone outside in the rain, cold, wind, bugs, etc etc, give it no extra additives whatsoever and as long as I give it Miracle Grow once or twice a month it will out produce, out grow and generally be healthier and more vigorous than anything grown indoor with a million additives, co2 system, aeroponics. hormones, specialty nutrients etc by a country freakin mile.

Coals said:

Thanks for posting an Advanced Nutrients ad from a magazine published by Advanced Nutrients.

Heres a good question
Can any Hydroponics nutrient company make up for the fact that the sun isnt shining in our indoor grow rooms? The answer is ofcouse no, which brings another question. If hydroponic nutrient companies cant make up for the fact that our indoor plants are starved of full spectrum growth light, is there a reason to bother using specialty high end nurtients as opposed to regular off the shelf NPK only fertilizers?

I mean I can stick a clone outside in the rain, cold, wind, bugs, etc etc, give it no extra additives whatsoever and as long as I give it Miracle Grow once or twice a month it will out produce, out grow and generally be healthier and more vigorous than anything grown indoor with a million additives, co2 system, aeroponics. hormones, specialty nutrients etc by a country freakin mile.

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The first paragraph was interesting, but your second paragraph is bordering on hilarious. Sunlight is wonderful, but don't kid yourself into thinking neglect punctuated by a once or twice a month visit with cheap nutrients will outgrow a controlled indoor environment. Get real.

Well I disagree. Plants need the full spectrum of light to grow to their full potential. It is required. Plants do not need food or hormones or additives. Provided with the proper spectrums of GROWTH light they manufacture food and hormones for themselves. Plants use 14,000k, 10,000k, 6,500K, 4000K, 3000K, 2200K and on and on. We provide them with approx 4100k with MH and 2100k-2300K with HPS. Red (HPS) being the lowest GROWTH light producing colour in the spectrum. This is why so many people are changing to SunPulse- multi lamp systems. Your going to get much much better results with a 5 light, 250 watt, multi spectrum setup rather than just 2 600's or something. I know when I move plants outside they change completly. You can look at the plant and visually identify which growth took place outside and which took place inside. Look at a guy like browndirtwarrior. He throws some clones outside in the bush, shows up once and month, maybe more during drought and gets 2-3 foot long 6 inch thick buds

Coals said:

Plants need the full spectrum of light to grow to their full potential. It is required. Plants do not need food or hormones or additives. Provided with the proper spectrums of GROWTH light they manufacture food and hormones for themselves.

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You cannot put a plant outdoors in a neutral medium with no food and expect it to thrive. That being said, show me the best outdoor product you can find and I'll show you an indoor product that puts it to shame. Not size, that's not fair. I'm talking resin.

In my experience resin production has more to do with strain than HID lighting and additives. Also if you read my first post I said you do need to feed the plants monthly. However, even if you didnt the plant wouldnt die, it would just wouldnt be anywhere near its full potential. If it were in a stale medium in a pot it would be a fairly pathetic plant by the end of the year though yes. What I am saying though is that it doesnt need a million additives and hormones and specialty fertilizers and enzymes and vitamins etc to have an ultra healthy plant outside.

I bet if you take the most jacked up hormoned, fertilized thriving plant in your indoor garden, veg it untill its 18-20 inches high and then stick it outside in the middle of May, you would be amazed at the result. What you thought was a healthy plant befor will be blown out of the water by the new growth grown under the sun.

Coals said:

In my experience resin production has more to do with strain than HID lighting and additives. Also if you read my first post I said you do need to feed the plants monthly. However, even if you didnt the plant wouldnt die, it would just wouldnt be anywhere near its full potential. If it were in a stale medium in a pot it would be a fairly pathetic plant by the end of the year though yes. What I am saying though is that it doesnt need a million additives and hormones and specialty fertilizers and enzymes and vitamins etc to have an ultra healthy plant outside.

I bet if you take the most jacked up hormoned, fertilized thriving plant in your indoor garden, veg it untill its 18-20 inches high and then stick it outside in the middle of May, you would be amazed at the result. What you thought was a healthy plant befor will be blown out of the water by the new growth grown under the sun.

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Don't get me wrong, I'd take the best of both worlds; outdoor lighting with indoor feeding. I am of the attitude that the sun (or HID lighting) is part of the equation just like feeding and/or experience. But you sort of touched on my point in that it's all about living up to the potential of the genetics. The outdoors may provide the best lighting but can lack in the area of a 'perfect environment', which both play a role in the end product.

Coals said:

Well I disagree. Plants need the full spectrum of light to grow to their full potential. It is required. Plants do not need food or hormones or additives. Provided with the proper spectrums of GROWTH light they manufacture food and hormones for themselves. Plants use 14,000k, 10,000k, 6,500K, 4000K, 3000K, 2200K and on and on. We provide them with approx 4100k with MH and 2100k-2300K with HPS. Red (HPS) being the lowest GROWTH light producing colour in the spectrum. This is why so many people are changing to SunPulse- multi lamp systems. Your going to get much much better results with a 5 light, 250 watt, multi spectrum setup rather than just 2 600's or something.

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I did a comparison test trial with the Sun Pulse 3K lamps, and they lost hands down to traditional Hortilux Super HPS's. In addition, the Sun Pulse lamps developed bubbles on the top side/middle of the bulbs (the hottest spot), and almost burst. They also suffered from some kind of flaking internally. I haven't done the multi-bulb spinner style grow or anything, but what I do know, is that their hype is much more than their pudding.

Mcgician said:

I did a comparison test trial with the Sun Pulse 3K lamps, and they lost hands down to traditional Hortilux Super HPS's. In addition, the Sun Pulse lamps developed bubbles on the top side/middle of the bulbs (the hottest spot), and almost burst. They also suffered from some kind of flaking internally. I haven't done the multi-bulb spinner style grow or anything, but what I do know, is that their hype is much more than their pudding.

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Thats interesting. I beleive the only way that the sunpulse lamps would be beneficial over regular HPS or MH is to use a multi-lamp, multi spectrum setup. As far as I can tell that is the entire point. A medical grower near me has a 5 light spinner with the whole range of spectrum. He swears by it for both flower and veg, but I dont think there would be any benefit if he only ran one colour bulb in the setup.

While I found out this was an article from Rosebud magazine, yes from Advanced Nutrients, but the questions are good to ask of ANY brand of nutes. I mean, if you're not asking questions about your nutrients, then you're just being an idiot in terms of growing.

Personally, I didn't get the vibe from this article that it was pushing AN at all, just pushing growers to think. And personally, I think this is pretty cool of them.

Getting a discussion going is how growers get better at growing. Look at all of the things that are being shared on forums and other message boards. If people weren't asking questions and trying to seek out answers, I think growing would never improve.

Kudos to AN for publishing some honest questions that everyone should be thinking about. Granted, it does make me like them more, but even if I wasn't already using them, I would still give them a second look because this article seems responsible and helpful to anyone reading it.

hookahma said:

While I found out this was an article from Rosebud magazine, yes from Advanced Nutrients, but the questions are good to ask of ANY brand of nutes. I mean, if you're not asking questions about your nutrients, then you're just being an idiot in terms of growing.

Personally, I didn't get the vibe from this article that it was pushing AN at all, just pushing growers to think. And personally, I think this is pretty cool of them.

Getting a discussion going is how growers get better at growing. Look at all of the things that are being shared on forums and other message boards. If people weren't asking questions and trying to seek out answers, I think growing would never improve.

Kudos to AN for publishing some honest questions that everyone should be thinking about. Granted, it does make me like them more, but even if I wasn't already using them, I would still give them a second look because this article seems responsible and helpful to anyone reading it.

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The questions are rhetorical and promoting the AN company. If you can't see that, then you've got some learning to do.

homebrewer said:

The questions are rhetorical and promoting the AN company. If you can't see that, then you've got some learning to do.

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Some people are just sheeple....

I prefer the more organic approach, as opposed to hydro... but I also use free sunlight and mild So. Cal. summer days to cut down the costs of lighting, and also because the sunlight gets wonderful light penetration which helps give you fuller under growth.

As for the person saying natural sunlight is better, and all that, light source variety will truly only effect yield/growth, and not so much quality. If you baby an outdoor plant like an indoor plant, you can easily yield 1/2 pound plus a plant, of some good potent stuff... but that is also gonna take a lot of nutrients, and not cheap shit like miracle grow that will alter soil pH after a while.

Most indoor setups are geared towards quicker production in a confined area, and can produce optimal quality bud when treated right. The goal in this method is regular harvests, granted most indoor growers are lucky to get 1/2-1 oz of good dried bud a plant, but you make up for this by having many plants growing in a smaller footprint than you would outdoors.

Hydroponics, aeroponics, and other indoor methods are shown to be capable of growing much bigger plants in less time, than in soil, as the roots grow quicker/easier, and do not bind up as easily thus absorbing a maximum amount of nutrients. Many medical marijuana growers are utilizing greenhouses using natural sunlight (supplemented with various artificial lighting) in a hydro setup and are pulling a pound a plant, 2-3 times a year depending on strain, thus combining the best of both worlds.

There is no one way which is truly better than another when it comes to growing. Yeah growing outdoors it is not uncommon to get 1/2 pounder plants, and still not uncommon on some strains to get pounder + plants. However most outdoor bud is not as cared for as indoor bud, thus quality tends to suffer. Also, traditional outdoors grows are a once a year thing for the most part (tropics are a bit different) though as mentioned, one can pull in a serious harvest.

Most indoor growers are growing for personal use/consumption, and also prefer to have a steady supply. Also, it is not a difficult task to build a very low maintenance indoor setup. I can run my indoor setup (without dragging plants to balcony for natural sunlight) for up to 2 weeks fully automated, everything on 1+ hour battery backup. I am working on integrating more automated systems under a single controller, and developing an application for my Palm smartphone in order to essentially fully automate the process. This would allow me to grow more plants, and also allow me to check in on things remotely.... hey i am a natural engineer... and a true MJ fan (read pothead lol) and thus want to make the process of growing as low maintenance as possible.

But the light spectrum issue, sunlight has everything yes, and tons of it (take any of the various light intensity meters there are and measure bright sunlight compared to 5 ft below a 1000w HPS... the sunlight has more)even though it is more than what the plant could use at optimal rates, it still penetrates into under layers. I have built a couple racks using 23W CFLs (8 bulbs on each rack) to hang at a right angle off the canopy, to induce more under growth. I don't quite to a traditional SOG, but I can produce more quality bud indoors in the same square footage, than you would ever be able to outdoors, any fucking day, and fucking place... and that is just the science behind the facts speaking.