Embarrassing question

I’m halfway through my 3rd(week 1 of flower) and feeling ashamed that I never thought to ask the following question earlier on. If I use supplements only on the plants(Verde, Ginormous and Cal-Mag by Humboldt) and no actual fertilizer/nutrients am I stunting my plants growth? For context I have done 3 grows with 8 week veg cycles, none of my plants ever hit the 2 ft tall mark by time to flip to flowering nor did they double in size during the flowering stage. I’ve had to learn everything as I go because I don’t know any growers, not that is an excuse and I hope this is my “Aha” moment as dumb as it is.

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Probably. Do they look healthy?

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Very healthy canopy, they just never get that height. A few days into the flip
.

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Other things could affect that. For example, if trying to flower something in a really small pot or inadequate light intensity, those could play a role. Why not post some pictures. Might help you to get a better conversation going

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What are you growing?

I’ve had 8 week veggers top out at 2-3 feet and 6 week veggers hit 5’

I don’t know enough about your supplements to really comment on them.

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believe they still have a bit more to go until the 4th week of flowering… everything seems to be alright

These are a Mr Big stuff x Gary Payton x Tropicanna cookies cross. Grown in 5 gallon pots. The Verde is Humboldt Nutrients Verde (16-1-2), Humboldt Nutrients - Ginormous (0-18-16)

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I don’t know about this strain in particular but some plants want to be big and some want to be small.

I gave a friend a mix of seeds and he referred to one of the plants as a runt. He’s wrong. It’s just the others I gave him want to be vines and that one wants to be a bush.

Sounds like there’s fert in there.

But pics would help.

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Edited in a couple pics up above

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To just answer directly to the collateral question : they are absolutely not underfert.
To make a pattern with previous grows … more previous pics ^^

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They look good, maybe a little high on nitrogen.

The plants get nutrients from the soil and what you’re already giving them might be enough. You could push growth with higher strength nutrients but I don’t think you’d be stunting them

So, the answer isnt as easy as yes or no…
Your plants look plenty healthy with no sign of deficiency - so that’s great !
Also, your plants appear to have a compact growth pattern which is just as much genetics as any other factor.

IF you’re using a nice rich soil, often times, you won’t need any additional nitrogen during vegetative phase.

Personally, I don’t use vegetative nutrients because I use a kelp supplement that has small amounts of nitrogen. Combined with short veg cycles, it’s always been more than enough for me.
One way to see more “performance” out of your soil is to increase mycorrhizae, microbacteria and enzymes into your regiment. This increases the rate that the organic materials breakdown and become available to your plants.

I’d say, keep doing what’s working for you ! Veg nutrients are overrated.

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One of these probably has Cytokinin in the bottle.
That is a hormone that tends to makes plants short and squat.

This is most likely wrong.
They do not look high in N.
If they were you would see the claw.

If you notice the dark green color that is probably caused by the hormones.
You may notice a slight turn of the very tip of the leaves to the right or to the left, not up and down.
Kinda like a crooked finger.
This is another sign of Cytokinin usage.

These hydro store bottled nutes are full of hormones.
You can find more info here…

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Those plants look INCREDIBLE for only being fed supplements and no real actual N P K nutrients. Wow.

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Like this claw that’s starting?

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Smart ass on this one, i’m too used by the standard here to be enough cautious with the other side offer. I just quickly looked at an amazon listing for the ginormous and … lol

  • Contains no harmful hormones or synthetic chelates

Almost written by a lawyer ^^

When used as a foliar spray in the first weeks of flowering, Ginormous can assist in effectively flipping the switch in your plant

Well … enough to say with only the marketing that the nutes are on the grey zone, i confirm ^^

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Well said, brother! :wink:
Cytokinin is often used to initiate flower when flipping to flower.
It works on tomatoes too.

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You don’t need bottled stuff.

A good (certified) organic potting soil, sow beans (nitrogen fixing plant) alongside your cannabis for nitrogen, chop and drop when the bean plants start flowering or when they get too big, and just keep sowing in the same pot.

You can topdress with grass, chopped up kitchenscraps, nettle, dandelion, thistle, tree leaves, … that’s all the minerals and fertilizer you’ll ever need, and it’s free.

A little bit of everything goes a very long way, diversity makes the world go round!

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16-1-2

Verde is a Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium Fertilizer.

0-18-16

Ginormous is a PK supplement designed to deliver essential macronutrients during a flowering plants critical blooming stages.

Verde is a fertilizer with NPK. Ginormous is a fertilizer without the N.

https://www.pennington.com/all-products/fertilizer/resources/understanding-fertilizer-labels