Dyna-Gro vs Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur (AK47 Grow)

Encomium said:

Just out of curiosity do you leach your rockwool periodically? I was leaching with an extremely mild nutrient solution weekly (during rez change) to leach away excess salts in my rockwool. Honestly I'm not even sure I needed to do this but was doing so as a preventative measure more than anything else. If you do leach, do you use products to do so? In Cervantes' bible he says that a very weak nutrient solution (say 2-3 mil/gal of dyna grow) would get rid of more salts than just water but I am now wondering if I should spring for a product like Clearex to leach my RW.

Cheers!

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homebrewer said:

This showdown is going to be in the same manner as my https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/358562-dyna-gro-vs-general-hydroponics.html journal in that it won’t be a simultaneous grow-off, but rather a direct comparison of the base nutrient lines offered by DynaGro and Advanced Nutrients. I’ll be comparing things like pH stability, salt build up, plant performance, plant health, nutrient concentration levels, and of course final yield.

I chose Connoisseur because it’s probably the most expensive, over-hyped base nutrient on the market and as a veteran grower, I’m in a much better position to put out the truth about the actual performance of this product than some beginner who just doesn’t know any better. After 11 years in this hobby, I’ve settled into the no-frills DynaGro brand which offers total and complete plant nutrition and isn’t purposely split up into multiple products. I’m not starting this journal because I’m unhappy with my current nutrient brand, I just want to post some honest and bullshiz free info about AN’s most ‘prestigious’ base nutrient. Welcome to the no-hype zone .

The strain we’ll be working with is Serious Seeds’ AK47, a strain I’ve grown many times before and am very familiar with. Using DynaGro, my yields for the past four grows have all been between 20 and 21.3 ounces (most recent harvest numbers are not in yet) so this shall be the benchmark for AN’s Connoisseur. In regards to the final product, I’ll also be looking for differences or similarities in potency, aroma and flavor, all of which will be 'tested' for in a blind comparison.

Now AN fanboys are probably among the most annoying members in this community and there will probably be a few following along. There will be no arguing, personal attacks, or just plain old newb-grower ignorance in this thread, just the facts as I post them throughout this comparison. Unwanted and unwarranted posts will be reported. Let the competition begin….

My setup is a DIY Ebb & Flow system with 6 inch rockwool cubes and a 600 watt HPS hortilux. I flood two to three times per day for 15 minutes with weekly res changes and a pH in the high 5's. These plants were vegged with DynaGro Grow and were also topped.

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homebrewer said:

I do leach salts every 3 weeks but use plain tap water as mine is 250+ ppm. I feel that this is a very important step as rock will clog up with salts if the medium isn't properly taken care of.

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Encomium said:

Thank you! My tapwater is at @ 100 ppms so for my next grow I won't have to leach on every rez change and won't have to buy a needless product if tapwater will do it sufficiently.

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brianbertz said:

im thinking if thats what conni is doing at 23 days just use sensi grow and sensi bloom 2 part or even micro grow bloom. i use the 2 part with big bud, bud candy, b52, carbo load and overdrive. kind of alot of additives but i see awesome results and its all the cheapest additives. those are worth the money i think

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fallinprince said:

Besides your comparing a company who advertises being THE BEST if you buy the 7-8 bottles priced at 50$ a piece VS. buying 4 bottles and having Dyna-gro's whole line in 70$.(buying quarts)

subbed P.S check my grow

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We all want our plants to get into peak bloom phase faster and to yield a bigger harvest. Now, a team of one dozen plant PhD's and their research assistants believe they have found the answer...

So, when it comes to a premium bloom base fertilizer - a team of 12 PhD's working for Advanced Nutrients in a leading Bulgarian research lab simply found multiple ways to improve upon each stage of the two-part process of growing plants.

In the end, it worked exceptionally well to achieve a bigger, compounded, yield-in at least one documented head-to-head, consumer trial-over 40% bigger!

First, the scientists wanted to improve upon the actual ingredients used in their 2-part formula. The idea was to give you better "Building Blocks" for your plants to use to get bigger yields... more colorful flowers... a stronger aroma... and maximum potency. This was the first stage the team improved upon.

Next, they wanted to enhance your plant's abilities to get the maximum absorption of these nutrients because having the highest quality ingredients without ensuring your plants can fully absorb them is worthless. The scientists discovered that most growers aren't seeing bigger yields with other fertilizers because their plants aren't able to effectively absorb the nutrients being used.

Obviously, improving the absorption abilities of your plant greatly compounds the effectiveness of the high quality ingredients being used!

Lastly, in an effort to maximize every part of your plant's deepest core levels of plant bloom metabolism and floral production, the scientists developed a proprietary blend of floral growth co-factors to activate and control these core issues.

These co-factors include amino acids and amino acid precursors essential to protein formation which promote cellular metabolism, replication and other bloom processes. In addition, other proprietary co-factors create enhanced changes in how plants carry out bloom phase functions.

Let's examine how the scientists improved these phases in developing the ultra-premium, 2-part bloom base nutrient for grand master growers - CONNOISSEUR!

Instead of using low-quality, questionable ingredients-the team at Advanced Nutrients invested heavily in putting to use only the most potent, most effective, most proven ingredients possible (ingredients no other company uses because of the high cost to both source and manufacture these ingredients into bloom fertilizers!)

To start with, every single one of the micro-nutrients used in CONNOISSEUR are chelated so you get maximum absorption and uptake of these amino chelates into your plants. With a theoretical absorption range of ph 1-10 … this in effect means … you get the highest absorption rate possible of these life-giving micronutrients for as long as your plant is alive!
What's more, Advanced Nutrients has also invested heavily into chelating a high percentage of the macro-nutrients used in CONNOISSEUR to get your plants to bloom faster and keep them in that bloom phase longer!

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bunz420 said:

Great job on the dyna-gro hb, it's gonna be interesting seeing final weights seeing as how you're adding a pk booster to AN, I bet dyna-gro still out yields AN and all their hype. What are your thoughts on humboldt nutes?? I run humboldt in dirt bout ima bout make the switch to ebb & flow, would you recommend dyna-gro for beginners with hydro??

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bunz420 said:

What are your thoughts on humboldt nutes?? I run humboldt in dirt bout ima bout make the switch to ebb & flow, would you recommend dyna-gro for beginners with hydro??

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cornchi said:

I will use protekt the whole time. I will fertilize everytime with 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of fertilizer mix and 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of protekt. During veg and the first week of 12/12 will use foliage pro (9-3-6), week 2 with half and half bloom/foliage pro (6-7.5-6) and then the rest of the run with 1/2 tsp foliage pro and two tsp bloom (4-10.5-6). I have RO water, but quit using it because my plants did better with tap water. My tap runs at 180 on my ppm meter and online water quality report puts TA at 60. This puts my total ppm to just unnder 500 ppm when I was testing it out.
I want to thank you for posting your work as I find it to be a great source of information to make an informed decision. Keep up the great work! [/INDENT]

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MasterS said:

Homebrewer, as a fun grow comparison that would benefit you more than the community as a whole. Have you thought of doing a comparison with your 1-3-2 ratio to a slightly varied one to hone in on a strains preference or do you grow too many to care about that and use 1-3-2 because it is the best overall?

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homebrewer said:

I don’t like them for the simple fact that when I called them to ask a specific question about one of their products, they literally told me to ‘google it’. I’ve called GH, Botanicare and DynaGro many, many times with questions and have found their reps to at least be very well informed about their own products.

Another issue that I have with Humboldt is that their fertilizer lines are just ripoffs of products already being offered by other companies. Their 3part is a GH ripoff, their Master A&B has the same NPK ratio as Sensi, Connoisser and several others I’m sure. Their boosters are nothing new and just another attempt to slice into the Liquid Karma, Calmag, rootzyme, and carb additive market. Cool labels but that’s about it.

I’d highly recommend DynaGro for beginners. Just make sure you have a pH pen and a TDS meter then hit me up for a suggested feeding schedule for dirt or hydro. DG’s nutes will fry plants at ‘normal doses’ because their highly concentrated so that’s the only thing I’d tell growers to watch out for.

In regards to your feeding rates, don't use more than a tsp per gallon of DG's base nutes. I'd feed at half that with 1 tsp of protekt to balance the pH per gallon.




I’ve used other ratios throughout the years because that’s what the brands gave me that I used to use. I’ve seen the best yields across all strains from DynaGro’s roughly 1-3-2 ratio (which is what results when I mix grow and bloom). It just seems to be a nice balance that offers enough N to keep them green while not overloading the plants with too much P and K. Feed at modest levels and you’ll be putting your plants in a position to pull up what they want, when they need it. It works for me and I’d recommend it for others, but I’m not saying ‘use this ratio or GTFO’.

In regards to the different nutritional needs of the different strains, I really don't think it varies that much. I've found that training, pruning and shaping to be much more strain dependent than even feeding levels.

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