I’ve been growing for years now but nutrients are a bit of a blind spot for me.
All these brands sell these complete sets with various flower boosters and root boosters, etc. I have no idea how necessary/worthwhile it is and feel I’m being sold the kitchen sink.
I have a hydro set-up and I’m currently using Vitalink bloom nutrients along with Shogun CalMag. I tend to use something called Sumo Active Boost from Shogun during early flower and sometimes use something called Dragon Force near the end of flower but honestly i kinda just picked this shit at random when starting out and kinda stuck with it. I only switched to Vitalink bloom nutes from Shogun recently cause its much cheaper and doesn’t have the stupid fake Japanese branding and I figured it must be roughly the same shit although it has a much darker colour.
So what is actually necessary and is there much difference between the brands?
Are all the addition things actually necessary or is A+B and Calmag all you need?
Also what sort of EC levels should I actually be aiming for during different plant stages? I would follow the brands guide but did that as a child feeding fish and they died from overfeeding cause obviously the brand wants you to use lots of their product.
Any infor and advice welcome but bare in mind I’m running DWC so living soil, etc off the table. I do have a worm farm and hime made loving compost I use for growing veg on my balcony but stick to hydro indoors for a number of reasons.
Some additives might be beneficial, I’m not a hydro guy, but I tend to think the fewer the better. “Super Terp Bloom Booster” just sounds like bullshit.
Nutrients can vary widely from brand to brand. I can’t speak for any specific nutrient brands, but I can say that generally cannabis specific brands cost significantly more than non cannabis products, and they do the same things. A lot of it is marketing hype. That doesn’t mean to skimp out on nutrients but you don’t need to spend extra just for things labeled for cannabis. A good way to compare nutrients is with side by side trials on cloned plants that are identical.
Watched a grow podcast, and a fairly well known grower was on. They were talking about how they were using “all these BOTTLES” and when they started using less bottles, their plants improved. They blamed the bottles.
Truth was they had no idea what those BOTTLES were, or what they do (or dont do) and why. They had zero understanding of how their plants work.
Though its not the fastest nor easiest path to the answers you are looking for, I can’t recommend strong enough to learn some of the science, just the basics. Then ‘all those BOTTLES’ won’t be a mystery anymore, and you will be able to easily pick out the good stuff from the snake oil.
Found this article about the nutrient basics. Its not for canna, but still mostly applies:
There is a lot of good info out there. Strongly recommend anything from Dr Bruce Bugbee.
You need absolutely nothing besides a good two part to grow great cannabis. Jack’s or Megacrop are good formulas. I don’t even change water during grows and I use nothing other than nutes and PH adjustment.
