Miracle Gro Taste

So I believe that after using MG fertilizer you can taste it in the bud. My first two grows were done with MG and the taste was horrible. I didnt have enough to last me a month so it was smoked before it had time to cure completely but it still tasted bad. Does anyone agree that MG makes bud taste the trash? I read something about it having metal in the fert and those metals get stored in the plant matter? Who here uses Miracle Gro and gets great tasting bud? And if you can accomplish this how do you do it?

If you use it lightly and not in the 3 or 4 weeks before harvest, I don't think there will be a problem. I've used occasional MG products during veg but avoided them later in the grow because of the horror stories. I'm thinking of using MG bloom booster a couple of times in August and maybe early Sept. I expect to harvest mid-Oct.

PaulN'Chuck said:

So I believe that after using MG fertilizer you can taste it in the bud. My first two grows were done with MG and the taste was horrible. I didnt have enough to last me a month so it was smoked before it had time to cure completely but it still tasted bad. Does anyone agree that MG makes bud taste the trash? I read something about it having metal in the fert and those metals get stored in the plant matter? Who here uses Miracle Gro and gets great tasting bud? And if you can accomplish this how do you do it?

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The big problem with Miracle-Gro is that they use urea as the N source. Plants will absorb the urea and hydrolyze it in situ to make ammonia. Both will make for a harhser, poorer-burning weed.

You can fix this by discontinuing any and all urea/ammonia ferts for the last four weeks.
The other thing is, if you water-cure your bud, the urea and ammonium will go bye-bye. cn

cannabineer said:

The big problem with Miracle-Gro is that they use urea as the N source. Plants will absorb the urea and hydrolyze it in situ to make ammonia. Both will make for a harhser, poorer-burning weed.

You can fix this by discontinuing any and all urea/ammonia ferts for the last four weeks.
The other thing is, if you water-cure your bud, the urea and ammonium will go bye-bye. cn

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whats water curing bud??

water cured buds dont have great bag appeal, its good for personal consumption. It makes for a stealth smoke when in public event, not much smell to water cured buds. I tried it last year just to try, will not do it again but it works. just google it there was a thread about it on here. I prefer to grow buds that are organic and taste beautifully.

I dont use Miracle Gro because of the taste the chemical nutes leave. Ive flushed for WEEKS and got nowhere. I dont believe flushing the soil is going to flush the crap the developed in the flowers. No way. Ive worked with over 2000 herbs in a greenhouse and never flushed a thing. Not once. Our product was sold to hundreds of families and no one ever said a thing. I dont think this is a flushing issue, more of a wrong stuff to use issue. I just want to know if anyone agrees with me that Miracle Gro tastes like crap. And Im more than familiar with urea N... Stay away from that stuff

You can't really flush MG soil because the soil contains slow release nutrients, so when you pump water through it, its designed to break down to release more nutes.

That said, not all MG products are equal, my base medium is the 'expand n' gro' range which contains slow release nutes. I've been paranoid about this issue too, currently fast-drying a small sample cutting (near harvest time) and hope it will give me an idea. I know many use their potting soil, or supplement with the MG diluted feeds when watering etc. Whereas a mainly organic based medium (which the expand n' gro is mainly made up of), my hope is it won't be an issue. Will offer feedback on that, as I don't know anyone else who is using the expand n' gro (peat free) as a base.

yeah i am curious of this as well... i am a first time grower myself and being so have done a lot of reading on these forums and you see so many people bashing MG then on the other side you see peeps with beautiful healthy lookin plants saying they used it... i actually had a local hydro store owner recommend using it bi weekly for veg ONLY and have gave it to mine a total of maybe 3 times... now that mine are beginning to pre flower i wont be using anymore and will be completely organic using a homemaid tea but i will tell you how they taste when they done in a couple months!!! i hope so

I just bought a fuck ton Miracle Grow expand n gro.. Its a Coco product it has pre added nutes so.. I am going to flush the shit out of it to get PPM's as low I can..

Just filter it through a mesh, or hand pick out those little balls thats in it. They're the slow release nutes. The rest of the nutes are in with the matter, which will dilute with time/flushing. Remove the little balls and you're half way there. Downside there is of course, you'd likely need to feed seperately on a longer crop etc.

Damn I never saw those little balls until just now.. I just squeezed one and it jizzed on my face.. Wow that my be about the most Homo thing I have ever said..

RollupRick said:

Just filter it through a mesh, or hand pick out those little balls thats in it. They're the slow release nutes. The rest of the nutes are in with the matter, which will dilute with time/flushing. Remove the little balls and you're half way there. Downside there is of course, you'd likely need to feed seperately on a longer crop etc.

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Closetgardner said:

whats water curing bud??

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It's a crime against cannabis.. never do it..

RollupRick said:

Just filter it through a mesh, or hand pick out those little balls thats in it. They're the slow release nutes. The rest of the nutes are in with the matter, which will dilute with time/flushing. Remove the little balls and you're half way there. Downside there is of course, you'd likely need to feed seperately on a longer crop etc.

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Okay, now I'm nervous ... We had a few bags of MG potting soil around so I used it (for the first time out of 7 grows out of fear but my grow went so horribly last year, I threw caution to the wind). I put about 1/4 to 1/3 of a 1 or 2-gallon pot (depending on whether I had it sexed) in April and then put them in the ground in May, throwing no more than a handful in the hole. The rest was peat and native soil. I used Miracid as a foliar feed 3-4x during veg (about 1x per mo) and I plan to use MG bloom booster (2 or 3x) at half strength during the first half of flowering. I plan to harvest during the second half of October and don't plan to use anything (I am also using organic insecticides weekly and half-strength organic nutrients) except plain water if needed after Sept. 15th. Plants turned our to be quite large so I am hoping most of the nutrients have been and are being used up pretty good.

My concern is will my bud taste like crap or is this a low enough usage and sufficient flush time?

I don't feel threatened, not with my cigar-cutting asshole. Once again, the balls are the key, lol

Laney said:

My concern is will my bud taste like crap or is this a low enough usage and sufficient flush time?

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I wouldn't worry mate, I think a lot of the MG association with post-dry nutes etc is either one of their strong products, especially liquid feed etc. The slow release is a good thing, as it means the plant isn't flooded by strong nutrients, instead gains access to it over time. By all means flush, whether it'll work or not, still no reason not to flush. Nothing will remove the nutes already used by the plant, so the goal would be to minimise any excess during the last days before harvest. Because the nutes here are slow released, logic dictates there will be a gap between when the soil was flushed and the slow release nutes have a chance to saturate surrounding soil with fresh nutes etc. If you can hit it in that window, its no biggie.

I was thinking of using the MG Bloom Booster a couple of times in August at half-strength. It is 10-50-10 at full strength. Maybe that would be pushing my luck ... I'm growing mostly sativa doms and I don't want fluffy buds

I once gave a friend some of my seeds that had bred, my lovely Shoreline x Herijuana x Jack Herer.. Well we worked in the oil field together and his girl grew them in Mg soil and added no nutes whats so ever she just watered them with tap water not even RO, distilled or anything.. And I can not lie the plants came out beautiful and some of the best pot I had ever smoked.. I think people believe that more Nutes means better, bigger buds.. But I see so many just burning the fuck out their plants..

Under ordinary circumstances, I'd agree. I used very little in the past and it budded up just fine, weather permitting (two grows were devestated by flooding). This year, however, I LST'd all but 1 plant and do believe I am pushing the limits of what the plant can get out of the soil (most plants have 20-30+ good-sized colas) so supplementation seems to be indicated.

I'm in the gentle gentle mentality, no extremes. Better to have some of everything than an abundance or deficiency of any.

All things in moderation.

Its easy to love them to death.