Dyna-Gro vs Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur (AK47 Grow)

homebrewer

Well-Known Member
Hello HB and community. I have been reading all the post but it will take awhile. I'm on page 103 at the moment. I am disabled from a failed back surgery, blah blah. My doc gave me a script and I am growing my own. I picked DWC 4 bucket, in a 4x4x6'8" tent. 600 watt ballast. I got an enclosed hood with a fan blowing air over bulb and out exhaust. I have a carbon filter setup but plant are only 21 days from when I put them in rock wool cubes and in the net pots. It took me the last six months saving to get everything to try and have a good first grow. I know I picked about the hardest way to grow but it was on purpose. I need something to make me get out of bed. Anyways I got a pH meter and have been keeping it between 5.7-6.2. I got a Dipstick ppm meter.

my concern. I changed water today in one plant and change another tomorrow in another. I put 5 tsp pro-TeTk and 4 tsp Grow(4 gallons per bucket) and the dip stick only shows ppm between 280-420(.7), 200-300(.5) EC0.4-0.6. Looking at the non-recirculating feeding schedule I have it looks like I'm running a little lean. I am trying to KISS and I am using only Dyna-Gro Grow, Bloom, Pro-TeTk and Mag-Pro. I didn't put any mag-pro in cause I am running from well water and I read something about only using it if running RO. It will be awhile before I can afford RO. There are a couple other things I need first. I don't think my plants look to bad but then I start second guessing thinking I see something. I have gone on and on and my apologies. Just learning and trying to do it as best I can and kind of wondering if I'm under feeding. I'm fairly sure I'm not over feeding. Here is my picture and Hello community.

View attachment 3030875
That seems a little weak as 1tsp of Grow for me would be closer to 600ppm (.7).

Plants look good though. I don't think you'll need that magpro.

Maybe top water them with some res water every day just to get them really going.
 
Hello HB. Thank you for responding. That's what I thought as well. I think there is something wrong with the Dip stick ppm meter. I will exchange the meter as soon as I can. I wish to Thank You for this thread about Dyna-Gro. It is fantastic. I can see many appreciate your experience and expertise and I am one of them. Thanks again
 

chuck estevez

Well-Known Member
Hello HB. Thank you for responding. That's what I thought as well. I think there is something wrong with the Dip stick ppm meter. I will exchange the meter as soon as I can. I wish to Thank You for this thread about Dyna-Gro. It is fantastic. I can see many appreciate your experience and expertise and I am one of them. Thanks again
in the bottom left corner, there is a little star, hit that on HB's post and give him some rep.
 

j.ride

Member
It's easy to stay ahead of bugs, it's not so easy to fight them. Sweep, wipe surfaces down, clean your room and bugs will be cake to manage. I like to go on about plant food and all but environmental management is really the MOST important part of cultivating good meds. Live and learn but don't get lazy.

Buds look good though!
Thanks for the tips. I think I adverted disaster this time around but I now see how fast things can spiral downwards and get out of hand.

These will probably be my last pictures before I harvest and I think things are still looking good. Things are getting very sticky and very frosty. A couple of plants have started to show a little yellowing at the edges of the leaves but the vast majority of everything is still green.

I pinched off a couple of nugs for my buddy to sample. He has been very weary of my not wanting to flush, among everything else. It's like I've been fighting him every step of the way.... and it's exhausting. At this point all I can do is roll my eyes and smile.

The samples did get a very good review. He was impressed with the smell, taste, looks and the effect. He did say one had a bit of a sizzle and went on about why we need to flush. Can a sizzle be attributed to not flushing? Can proper curing take care of this?

Being as the samples were taken at not even 7 weeks and before I have started to taper down the nutrients, I'm going to stick with my original plan and not flush. Some of these strains might need longer than the 8 weeks but I like the idea of sticking to a stricter schedule for now. This is something I may play with in the future, along with doing multiple harvests off of the same plant.

Even after all of this and seeing the success with his own eyes, I do not think my buddy will be switching from his current nutrient line. It's not my goal to get him to switch and I really don't care what he does on his own, but I find the psychological aspect of it fascinating. It's like there's a part of his animal brain that refuses to acknowledge the truth in this matter. Maybe it's going "if he can do this his first time with a one part solution, think what I can accomplish with my 8 bottles when I get things dialed in again!" Or perhaps it's something like "Dyna-Gro is awesome for newbies, no doubt about it. But I'm past that stage. Advanced growers use complicated feeding charts and don't need dumbed down one part solutions." Human behavior can be most interesting.

I think this grow has been an incredible success and I will post some yield numbers and reviews of the final product when I have them. I'm really excited. Thank you again homebrewer for your diligent comparisons and for sharing your wisdom.
 

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homebrewer

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the tips. I think I adverted disaster this time around but I now see how fast things can spiral downwards and get out of hand.

These will probably be my last pictures before I harvest and I think things are still looking good. Things are getting very sticky and very frosty. A couple of plants have started to show a little yellowing at the edges of the leaves but the vast majority of everything is still green.

I pinched off a couple of nugs for my buddy to sample. He has been very weary of my not wanting to flush, among everything else. It's like I've been fighting him every step of the way.... and it's exhausting. At this point all I can do is roll my eyes and smile.

The samples did get a very good review. He was impressed with the smell, taste, looks and the effect. He did say one had a bit of a sizzle and went on about why we need to flush. Can a sizzle be attributed to not flushing? Can proper curing take care of this?

Being as the samples were taken at not even 7 weeks and before I have started to taper down the nutrients, I'm going to stick with my original plan and not flush. Some of these strains might need longer than the 8 weeks but I like the idea of sticking to a stricter schedule for now. This is something I may play with in the future, along with doing multiple harvests off of the same plant.
One honestly can't judge anything by an uncured sample of premature bud. Though I suppose it's a good thing that it's already good.

It's my theory that any sizzle in your bowl is caused by either water and/or unfermented plant sugars. A proper cure is important.


Even after all of this and seeing the success with his own eyes, I do not think my buddy will be switching from his current nutrient line. It's not my goal to get him to switch and I really don't care what he does on his own, but I find the psychological aspect of it fascinating. It's like there's a part of his animal brain that refuses to acknowledge the truth in this matter. Maybe it's going "if he can do this his first time with a one part solution, think what I can accomplish with my 8 bottles when I get things dialed in again!" Or perhaps it's something like "Dyna-Gro is awesome for newbies, no doubt about it. But I'm past that stage. Advanced growers use complicated feeding charts and don't need dumbed down one part solutions." Human behavior can be most interesting.

I think this grow has been an incredible success and I will post some yield numbers and reviews of the final product when I have them. I'm really excited. Thank you again homebrewer for your diligent comparisons and for sharing your wisdom.
While your plants look good, finish out the process with a good dry and a 1 month cure. Let your buddy sample your stuff then and then ask him what he thinks about 'one-part veg nutes' during flower. Producing top quality cannabis is only partially about the plant food though; a stress-free life cycle, a patient harvest and a proper cure are crucial parts of the equation. Personally I think DG makes the 'stress-free life cycle' part a lot easier.

Overall though, I think you've got some tweaks to make but you're doing a fine job there already.
 

Samcro4

Member
HB,
I have been lurking for about 6 months trying to absorb as much info as I could. Finally signed up for an account this month because RIU wont display pics to non members. I am knew to growing mj and in the process of vegging my first grow. Spent ALOT of time researching my set up, then moved on to research growing after reading Jorge's MJ bible. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and say thank you. I have been following you, Uncle Ben, and some others. There is sooooo much misinformation and disinformation out there. It's like I've learned and relearned the same things 50 times in 50 different ways from 50 different guys. But thanks to the no bs common sense approach you guys incorporate I feel like I've built a good foundation of the basics which allows me to apply critical thinking to what I read and hear. It allows me to choose who and what I want to believe based on the information available to me.

Anyway, thanks from a new guy. It can't be easy answering the same questions from new guys like me everyday. But without guys like yourself sharing knowledge and experience guys like me looking to learn would be learning some bad practices. Thanks for giving back to the community. I still have alot of reading to do, and I am keeping my fingers crossed I don't run into any major problems on my first grow. But I am confident I will get better at it each time. It's like anything else in life.
 

homebrewer

Well-Known Member
HB,
I have been lurking for about 6 months trying to absorb as much info as I could. Finally signed up for an account this month because RIU wont display pics to non members. I am knew to growing mj and in the process of vegging my first grow. Spent ALOT of time researching my set up, then moved on to research growing after reading Jorge's MJ bible. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and say thank you. I have been following you, Uncle Ben, and some others. There is sooooo much misinformation and disinformation out there. It's like I've learned and relearned the same things 50 times in 50 different ways from 50 different guys. But thanks to the no bs common sense approach you guys incorporate I feel like I've built a good foundation of the basics which allows me to apply critical thinking to what I read and hear. It allows me to choose who and what I want to believe based on the information available to me.

Anyway, thanks from a new guy. It can't be easy answering the same questions from new guys like me everyday. But without guys like yourself sharing knowledge and experience guys like me looking to learn would be learning some bad practices. Thanks for giving back to the community. I still have alot of reading to do, and I am keeping my fingers crossed I don't run into any major problems on my first grow. But I am confident I will get better at it each time. It's like anything else in life.
Glad I could help!
 

joe macclennan

Well-Known Member
yup, your advice has been invaluable

It's amazing that I was doing things so wrong...for so long :? lol.

the grass is indeed greener on the other side :)
 

Samcro4

Member
I change my waterfarm buckets once every 6 days. I have ALOT of them. Did not want to go with the big Rez in the beginning because I figured if I screwed up, hopefully it would be localized. There are a couple other reasons: heard a whole connected system is really hard to clean, and I would have to come up w some type of work around on how to drain that bic Rez as opposed to picking up an individual bucket and bringing it to where I empty my waste water.

Anyway, I am using Advanced nutes 3 part. I am def gonna switch to dyna gro once I run out, but they came with the buckets so I went with it. Plus, there is some flexibility in mixing desired macros with the 3 part as opposed to other nute systems out there. I premix 5 gallon buckets with the nutes, and I have gone light on nutes from the beginning because I read Sensi Star is nute sensitive. I've been succesful thus far.

My girls are to the point in veg where they are really starting to drink. By day 6, they've drank a little over a half gallon. My EC reading at that point is higher than I'd like at 1.8 (approximately), and my ph goes up from 5.8 after the fresh change to the low to mid 6 range.

Do you guys typically just add water to top off your buckets mid week or do you mix your nutes and add water and nutes with same ratio you started off the week, or do you just leave it until your change at day 6?

i have just been waiting to do a complete change on day 6. I have not run into any major issues. I have experienced some burn on the tips of a few leaves on only a few plants out of many. And it's literally just the tip, about 1 cm in from the point of the leaf. At the same time, my girls are just starting to really feed and I can see this problem compounding.

I am thinking about topping them off with water only mid week. I know it will dilute my solution, bring down my EC, and raise my ph, but I feel like its a safe option. I could remix some 5 gallon buckets and top it off w my complete solution, but then I would have to get some exact measurements on the individual buckets to make sure I don't burn my girls.

In your experience, what would you do or what have you done in this situation? Complete change mid week? Just add water? Measure your macros and proceed accordingly on individual buckets?
 

Samcro4

Member
sometimes I add water, but rarely add nutes after initial mix
I take measurements when changing my nutes every 6 days. Based on the readings, my plants are mostly drinking water. Ph is remaining pretty stable, but ppm is jumping up about 300 points, and the girls are drinking about a half gallon of h20
 

MrEDuck

Well-Known Member
I take measurements when changing my nutes every 6 days. Based on the readings, my plants are mostly drinking water. Ph is remaining pretty stable, but ppm is jumping up about 300 points, and the girls are drinking about a half gallon of h20
If your ppm is rising like that it means the nute solution is too concentrated and the plants are using energy to suck up more water. Energy that would be better used growing. Look for your EC to remain stable and the plants will reward you.
 

Samcro4

Member
If your ppm is rising like that it means the nute solution is too concentrated and the plants are using energy to suck up more water. Energy that would be better used growing. Look for your EC to remain stable and the plants will reward you.
Thanks. I am going to drop the nutes by 10% each Rez change until I find the sweet spot as far as concentration goes. I already use 10% less than called for, but this is the answer I was looking for. Thank, bud.
 

MrEDuck

Well-Known Member
I'd say if you're seeing a 300ppm spike over a week you can probably start with more like a 25% drop. What is your starting concentration and where does it climb to?
Nute companies generally advise crazy high doses...
 
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