All very good arguments people i like what you have to say. This experiment is designed to show that the two different strains( you can tell by the different leaf formation) are so much smaller than the other grown in fox farm. I'm not saying its impossible to grow no not at all. I'm saying that if you are going to plant a plant thats going to take months upon months of care and watching and waiting and energy, you will regret it in the end by not releasing the plants full potential. If you just wanna see if you could do it like i did on my first grow be my guest and grow away. Ill post more pics as they progress so you can really tell the difference between the two.
Ive done the exact kind of side by side grow that you are doing right now,if i were only running 10 plants or so i wouldnt have batted an eye & but for the amount of soil i need fox farms is out of the question,even miracle grow would be too expensive,so i researched soil & made my own blend.
After a few grows i got to wondering if i could get better results with expensive soil so i took out a 2nd mortgage on my home (not really) & bought a few bags of the FF original blend to run in a side by side grow to see for myself.
My results were the exact oposite of yours,my home made soil mix out performed the FF & my soil mix dont include any of the stuff like fishmeal,worm castings & oyster shells or bat poop,just a simple potting soil amended with sand,top soil,perlite & a simple humus/manure mix,all dirt cheap off the shelf products right from home depot.
The FF plants did ok too but i had better overall color in the plants with my soil mix & the sun leaves went a little further into the bud cycle before they started showing signs the end was near,the differences i had betwen the 2 soil types were small but dided against Fox Farm.
I attribute my better succes with my soil mix over the Fox Farm from me being familiar with how to get best results from my soil,all the science & research that supposedly goes into Fox Farm products, along with the extra additives Fox Farms includes in all their soils did nothing at all for my plants health or overall yeild.
I can & have also got better results from my garden using Peters Dynamic Duo fertilizers that are warned against using in this thread when compared against the Advanced Nutrients line for another test i did,what i learned from these side by side grows is this,a growers skill & familiarity with a product accounts much more for overall health & yeild vs using products that are supposedly top of the line,the same results or better can be had using much cheaper alternitaves it just takes a bit more research.