drblueball
Active Member
there are so many different nutes out there, what do people think is the best for veg and flowering??
i am using bio bizz bio bloom and bio bizz top max
i am using bio bizz bio bloom and bio bizz top max
nutes
- Thread starter drblueball
- Start date
Vindicated
Well-Known Member
Good question! It might seem hard to believe, but the US government spends a lot of money on plant science & research. Lots of universities get funding for doing experiments on different soils, fertilizers, and lighting. Even NASA has gotten into the act by taking plants on board the space shuttle. The earliest botanist I think can think of was Leonardo De Vinci. And I probably don't even have to tell you, but there is a really good scientific journal dedicated to the subject of plants, animals, and the universe we live in called Nature.
What does all this mean? Well, to save you a bit of reading, basically, scientist have figured out that plants pretty much uptake organic and chemical nutrients the same way. With organics, the microbes in the soil, along with rain, and a bit of work on the plants themselves, break down the nutrients into very basic chemicals. Manufactures have learned from scientist that they can get the raw ingredients, purify & concentrate them, then arrange them in what they think are good ratios, and slap pretty stickers with big marketing claims on them and the public will just keep buying it up. The public for some reason seems to remain unaware that plants (not just strains or species, but the specific individual plants) each have their own needs that vary from plant to plant. Instead of believing what's on a label or what Jim and Sarah say is the bees knees of fertilizers, I would just look at the label and pay attention to the NPK and ingredients list. Once you understand what your plants need, its much easier to pick out the nutrients that actually work best.
Of course this is the internet and I wouldn't dare expect you to believe me or anyone else on here. I also know it can seem really difficult to find all the articles universities publish. Luckily Google and most major search engines have a few tricks that help you find this kind of information. One trick that I use on a daily basis is called the "site" operator. Using the site operator you can do a broad search on a specific domain name or TLD.
For example, in this case maybe we want to find any article about fertilizers on any university websites. We don't care about manufactures sites or blogs because we can't really trust them. Universities are all pretty trust worthy and best of all, everyone of them uses the .edu TLD. This means all we have to do is run a search using the phrase: "fertilizers site:.edu" (without quotes). Test it out for yourself or click on this link: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=fertilizers+site:.edu
*****
I know I know, you just wanted everyone to rattle off a list of good brands and I had to write a essay. Hopefully by doing a bit of reading you can get past the idea of a perfect fertilizer. I personally look at the price, NPK ratios, ingredients, and micro-nutrients. If I see 5-1-1 for $20 bucks and 1-1-1 for $1, I'm buying the 1-1-1 and I'll make that stuff work. In a perfect world I wish I could just buy all the raw ingredients and make my own magic blend, but it's just to expensive to do that, so instead I watch for sales. This is also why I laugh when I see people rave about Roots and FoxFarm yet totally discredit Miracle Grow. Some people just don't want to know the facts and have to believe that their $200's in soil and fertilizers was well spent.
Well anyways, sorry for the long winded post, and I hope this helps. Best of luck and have fun growing!
- Vin
What does all this mean? Well, to save you a bit of reading, basically, scientist have figured out that plants pretty much uptake organic and chemical nutrients the same way. With organics, the microbes in the soil, along with rain, and a bit of work on the plants themselves, break down the nutrients into very basic chemicals. Manufactures have learned from scientist that they can get the raw ingredients, purify & concentrate them, then arrange them in what they think are good ratios, and slap pretty stickers with big marketing claims on them and the public will just keep buying it up. The public for some reason seems to remain unaware that plants (not just strains or species, but the specific individual plants) each have their own needs that vary from plant to plant. Instead of believing what's on a label or what Jim and Sarah say is the bees knees of fertilizers, I would just look at the label and pay attention to the NPK and ingredients list. Once you understand what your plants need, its much easier to pick out the nutrients that actually work best.
Of course this is the internet and I wouldn't dare expect you to believe me or anyone else on here. I also know it can seem really difficult to find all the articles universities publish. Luckily Google and most major search engines have a few tricks that help you find this kind of information. One trick that I use on a daily basis is called the "site" operator. Using the site operator you can do a broad search on a specific domain name or TLD.
For example, in this case maybe we want to find any article about fertilizers on any university websites. We don't care about manufactures sites or blogs because we can't really trust them. Universities are all pretty trust worthy and best of all, everyone of them uses the .edu TLD. This means all we have to do is run a search using the phrase: "fertilizers site:.edu" (without quotes). Test it out for yourself or click on this link: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=fertilizers+site:.edu
*****
I know I know, you just wanted everyone to rattle off a list of good brands and I had to write a essay. Hopefully by doing a bit of reading you can get past the idea of a perfect fertilizer. I personally look at the price, NPK ratios, ingredients, and micro-nutrients. If I see 5-1-1 for $20 bucks and 1-1-1 for $1, I'm buying the 1-1-1 and I'll make that stuff work. In a perfect world I wish I could just buy all the raw ingredients and make my own magic blend, but it's just to expensive to do that, so instead I watch for sales. This is also why I laugh when I see people rave about Roots and FoxFarm yet totally discredit Miracle Grow. Some people just don't want to know the facts and have to believe that their $200's in soil and fertilizers was well spent.
Well anyways, sorry for the long winded post, and I hope this helps. Best of luck and have fun growing!
- Vin
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