Dyna-Gro vs Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur final writeup
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Cliffs notes:
I paid more for lower yields and more daily work ***
The reason for this comparison was to take an honest look at one of the most over-hyped and most expensive fertilizers currently on the market and see if its performance justifies either. During my last comparison (
Dyna-Gro vs General Hydroponics (Dumpster grow) ), I was so impressed with my first run with DG that I not only switched the fertilizer that I used for my flood and drain system, but I also replaced the Botanicare products that I was using in the dirt. Just like last time, I wasn’t looking to make a switch away from my current nutrient brand but if Connoisseur’s performance justified its price, I was of course open to improvement.
I’ve always wanted to try an expensive, ‘cannabis specific’ nutrient like Advanced Nutrient’s Connoisseur but aside from their price, the one thing that made me hesitant to conduct a test was their NPK ratios and overall mineral content. According to the guaranteed analysis on the backs of the bottles and on their website, Connoisseur only supplies 7 minerals whereas DynaGro supplies 16. For flower, DynaGro offers roughly a 1-3-2 NPK ratio as I use it and Connoisseur offers a 1-1-2. Personally I’d think a 1-1-2 would make a better veg ratio than a flower ratio but according the ‘PhDs’ and ‘tissue samples’ over at AN, they say fertilizers today contain too much phosphorus and not enough potassium.
In this test, the 1-1-2 ratio resulted in smaller yields than I have previously seen with GH and DynaGro and the yield that I did get was leafy and lacked density. I don’t know if AN purposely supplied a poor NPK ratio as to encourage the purchase of their expensive boosters or they genuinely believe in their choice to under-supply phosphorus during the flowering cycle. Either way, the yield results are below and are exactly what I expected.
In addition to the smaller yields, the visual health of the plants started to decline around day 40 and I believe that this is due to supplying too much nitrogen during the last third of the flowering cycle. When I use the DynaGro grow and bloom in flower, I use more grow in the first third of flower because the plants are creating leaves and branches. As the flowering period progresses, I cut back the grow because they simply don’t need that much nitrogen to maintain healthy, green leaves. With Connoisseur’s 2 part formula, you have no choice but to oversupply nitrogen and undersupply phosphorus late in flower which for me resulted in leaf curl, margin burn, leafy flowers and lower flower density.
What I initially liked about Connoisseur:
There isn’t a whole lot that I liked about Connoisseur. It comes in two parts and neither part is cheap. Separately, both mix fine with water and part A has a really attractive candied apple color. When mixed in the res, the res stays crystal clear and the lack of salt buildup in the medium over an entire grow cycle is very desirable. When adjusting the pH, it didn’t take very much up or down to get to an optimal range. Also, the nutrient concentration levels of Connoisseur is about average based on other hydroponic fertilizers that I’ve used so I give them a little credit for not selling an overly watered-down product.
PH Stability:
Connoisseur’s pH stability is simply not very good. I consistently had to make several adjustments per week as I was using it in RO water and I’d say that the GH 3 part performed just as well in this category. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not in my veg or flower room so on a small scale, the lack of pH stability with Connoisseur might not be an issue for some. However, when running multiple reservoirs, it becomes tedious and time consuming to pH all of them and skipping this step is of course a better scenario. Comparatively, DynaGro’s pH stability is about as good as it gets. Sometimes I need to do an initial adjustment at res change time. Other times, I can go weeks without touching my pH Up or Down bottles. DynaGro’s pH stability is honestly so good that a competing brand could only be equal in their performance.
Price:
Connoisseur is expensive at a total cost of $170 for 1 gallon of part A & B. The other thing to note is that part A and B are only used for flowering so if you need to veg some plants, you’re making another trip to the hydro store for 2 more bottles. DynaGro on the other hand has a grow and a bloom formula which costs roughly $100 total for a gallon of each and that’s all you need to take plants from seed to harvest. Fewer bottles to work with at a lower cost is something that I really like and DynaGro.
Comparatively with no boosters and given the same feeding levels, Connoisseur costs me around 128% more than DynaGro ($32 vs $14) for a single flowering cycle. Factor in vegging and Advanced Nutrients’ cost only goes up. In case you’re curious, the GenHydro 3 part would cost close to $19 for a single flowering cycle or only 35% more than DynaGro.
Yield:
The final yield of this 600 watt grow using Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur was 450 grams or about 1 pound. Based on the average yield of my last 5 grows with AK47, this is a decrease of 20% as compared to DynaGro (AK47 with DynaGro usually yields around 20 ounces). The issue with this final yield number is that just over 2 ounces of the 450gram yield had such poor density that I’ll either have to cook with it or process it in another way. I’ve never had an issue with poor bud density before but the lower buds on the plants were leafy, airy, and unsmokeable. I’m still calling the yield 450 grams but only about 13.8 ounces will be donated to patients, or about 31% less than normal.
As early as day 15, I could tell DynaGro was probably going to out-yield Connoisseur so I even implemented a few different bloom boosters as to emulate what the average AN user might be giving their plants. I started with KoolBloom and even switched to Hydroplex in case Koolbloom was bumping the potassium content up too much.
Another thing to note about the yield is that my AK47 strain when grown with DynaGro almost ALWAYS out-yields my Dumpster strain. My first run ever with DyanGro and Dumpster yielded 17.2 ounces which is 7% more than the AK47 in this grow. Had I chosen my Dumpster strain for this grow, the yields would be even smaller than the 450 grams that I yielded this round.
Another side note: the GenHydro 3 part would have also out-yielded Connoisseur with average yields around 17 ounces with AK47 and not to mention better density from top to bottom.
Cost per Ounce:
The cost per ounce measure is a metric that factors in everything from the price you pay at the hydro store to the concentration levels of your given fertilizer. Looking solely at fertilizer cost here, Connoisseur is 3 times more expensive than DynaGro as it costs $2 an ounce with Connoisseur vs about 70 cents per ounce with DynaGro. Just to throw another brand in there, GH is around $1.11 per ounce.
Why am I making such a big deal about cost and the number of bottles needed to grow healthy plants? I don’t like making trips to the hydro store. I don’t like using 6 watery products throughout the grow cycle that all run out at different times which calls for multiple trips per month to the grow store. I like buying a highly concentrated fertilizer knowing that it will last a very long time and that I’m not paying for a company's marketing budget every time I’m buying fertilizer.
Quality:
During this grow, I’d say resin production was pretty close between the two fertilizer brands. After the excessively long trim job, Connoisseur grew a good looking product with the only visual and tactile difference being the lower density flowers as compared to DynaGro. My personal opinion was that at its best, the Ak47 grown with Connoisseur was only
as good as the product grown with DynaGro. In no way was the effect more potent or longer lasting. I will say that the flavor was a little blander than I’m used to but the smoke was also smoother than I was used to. Now I’m not going to pretend like my sampling was objective and blind like it is with my testers, but these were just
my impressions. Based on the smoke reports from my blind testers, they actually thought that the 2 samples were indistinguishable from one another. So with the cost-per-ounce being 3 times greater with Connoisseur as compared to DynaGro, the medicine was only equal in quality at best.
In summation...
There is really nothing that I liked about Advanced Nutrients’ Connoisseur except for the low salt build-up in the medium (which is as good as DynaGro’s lack of salt buildup) and the color of part A. Connoisseur is expensive, the pH isn’t stable, it grows excessively leafy flowers as compared to DynaGro, it yields lower than the GH 3 part and DynaGro, the yield that you do get lacks density but the quality and potency is there. So with all of Advanced Nutrients’ hype on their website, what exactly is the consumer paying for? At the end of the day, Connoisseur is just a fertilizer and there is nothing magical about it. Well, fertilizer in and of itself is a little magical in my opinion. But magical in the factual scientific sense, not magical like Harry Potter which is what Advanced Nutrients would like you to believe.
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