homebrewer
Well-Known Member
A pound is like 450 grams so that's 450/600 which equals .75 grams per watt.
Dyna-Gro vs Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur (AK47 Grow)
- Thread starter homebrewer
- Start date
J. Smoker
Active Member
Yeah I just used the yelllow bottles grow a&b and their bloom a&b, and the dyna-gro did way better in my opinion. With the dyna-gro my ladies stayed green until harvest. The yellow bottles were mediocre at best, not to mention their "phat" and "ooze" additives are each $120 for a liter.
Sorry, but the price difference alone was enough for me to change brands. Not to mention the ease of use, I saved time and money. If you ask me dyna-gro is where its at.
J.
lunchbox421
Active Member
Great show and awesome work homebrewer! Not much of a poster, more of a lurker. I have a question regarding the ratios of NPK you find best that I've been wanting clarification on since your last journal with the GH. You prefer the 3-1-2 for veg and 1-2-1 to 1-2.5-1.3ish for the bloom cycle. I was curious to know about calculating these ratios when using various products, additives and what-nots? Do you just multiply the NPK by the respective percentage of total blend, add the values and divide by their highest common factor (to a certain extent)? Thanks for your help and keep it up!
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
1-1-1 works fine for veg. I don't try to emulate a particular ratio in veg since the fertilizers I've used over the years with a decent amount of N seem to all perform the same. In flower, I like something close to 1-3-2.
I'll simplify this to illustrate how I generally 'ballpark' NPK ratios. Say you have two formulas of (veg) 3-1-2 and (flower) 2-7-4 and both contribute the same ppm to a gallon of water. You can roughly just average the two by adding first, then dividing (adding results in 5-8-6, then divide: 2.5-4-3). The resulting number isn't a ratio per se but could be. In this case, the ratio would be 1-1.6-1.2.
Sometimes I'll use one part veg and two parts flower. So with the NPK values above, I'd double the flower NPK and add it to the veg, then divide by three (3-1-2 + 4-14-8 = 7-15-10...divide that by 3 equals 2.3-5-3.3). That resulting NPK value roughly equates to a 1-2.1-1.4 NPK ratio which isn't bad at all for flower. I wrote some excel spreadsheet formulas when I was bored at work that calculates all this stuff just by putting in the values. Hope that makes sense.
W Dragon
Well-Known Member
hey homebrewer i'm a little late as always mate but subbed along for the ride, great job as always mate and thanks for letting us follow along. your threads are soon to become my grail mate when i make the switch to E&F which should soon be on the horizon fingers crossed
newworldicon
Well-Known Member
Any picture updates??
I have used Dynagrow, AN, Foxfarm and Techniflora. In terms of results I find that Dynagrow's "Grow" is an excellent product, but I was not as impressed with their Bloom formula. AN is a better flowering formula, (especially their Hammerhead product). FF Big bloom when added to Dynagrow will improve flavor. Techniflora products although about as annoying to mix up as AN is, just works well as is, but yields are bigger with AN. So for me the best nutes for growing turned out to be a mix of Dynagrow, Foxfarm and AN products, (why do so many people think they have to stick with just one line throughout the whole grow?).
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
Day 36 today and were just over halfway done. Connoisseur still seems to be trailing in the density department and the overall bud production (visually) seems to be lagging as well.
The Connoisseur plants are a darker green and at this stage with DynaGro, Id be cutting back the grow formula to account for the lower nitrogen needs of the plants. With ANs Connoisseur, I cannot do this. When Im using DG and scaling back the nitrogen, this naturally scales up the phosphorus a touch and those ratios are personally what I think is making the difference here. At just past the halfway point, I believe that Connoisseur is supplying more than enough nitrogen to support healthy leaves, not enough phosphorus to promote blooms, and an unnecessary amount of potassium. We can slice brands up by labels and marketing and say this worked better than that but at the end of the day, those NPK ratios are what is driving production and overall plant health.
Oh, you may notice some cornmeal on the Connoisseur plants, Ive introduced some spider mite predators to combat the constant presence of pests. They do not get to the point where they affect yields or quality, but at harvest time I always find a few leaves in the back with severe damage and a colony of mites on the verge of spreading. Ill let you know how these bugs work.
Here are the girls .
DynaGro day 36:
Connoisseur Day 36 (this is the largest Connoisseur bud at them moment):
DynaGro Day 36:
There were some comments on the resin production of both brands, here is a closer look:
AN Resin:
DG Resin:
The Connoisseur plants are a darker green and at this stage with DynaGro, Id be cutting back the grow formula to account for the lower nitrogen needs of the plants. With ANs Connoisseur, I cannot do this. When Im using DG and scaling back the nitrogen, this naturally scales up the phosphorus a touch and those ratios are personally what I think is making the difference here. At just past the halfway point, I believe that Connoisseur is supplying more than enough nitrogen to support healthy leaves, not enough phosphorus to promote blooms, and an unnecessary amount of potassium. We can slice brands up by labels and marketing and say this worked better than that but at the end of the day, those NPK ratios are what is driving production and overall plant health.
Oh, you may notice some cornmeal on the Connoisseur plants, Ive introduced some spider mite predators to combat the constant presence of pests. They do not get to the point where they affect yields or quality, but at harvest time I always find a few leaves in the back with severe damage and a colony of mites on the verge of spreading. Ill let you know how these bugs work.
Here are the girls .
DynaGro day 36:
Connoisseur Day 36 (this is the largest Connoisseur bud at them moment):
DynaGro Day 36:
There were some comments on the resin production of both brands, here is a closer look:
AN Resin:
DG Resin:
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
The demands the plants have during the veg cycle are easily met by just about any 'grow' fertilizer out there. DG's bloom formula needs more nitrogen which is why I supplement a touch of grow along with the bloom.
AN's flowering formula is why their yields (in all likelihood) will be lower at the end of this test. I don't think that makes it better
. Hammerhead is another typical product with a wacky and pointless NPK value (2-4-10) which is basically identical to their kushie kush garbage (1-3-8 ). Had they switched those hammertime values to 2-10-4, that may actually work well with the lack-luster NPK ratios of their base nutes. It's not about brands, it's about the backs of the bottles. Use what works best for you but you should be able to explain why something works better with an analysis of the mineral contents.
lunchbox421
Active Member
Thanks for explaining homebrewer. I was going to build a spreadsheet (gotta love excel) for this as well to have together with my feedcharts and notes on different nutrients. I was thinking, using your example in your response with the 1 part 3-1-2 and 2 parts 2-7-4 plus say I want to add 1 part 2-10-4, I'd take .25(3-1-2)+.50(2-4-7)+.25(2-10-4)=2.25-6.25-3.50. If I divide this in half, or by two , to bring the values down it would bring me to 1.13-3.13-1.75. Does this make any logical sense or am I way off? I'm using a few different products right now and you've made me look at things a little different. Most of the additives don't change my NPK (enzymes, superthrive, etc) but some do. I want to figure out what my overall NPK is right now and at each weekly res change to see where I'm at. I always check to the back of the bottle to see what's going in but mainly just follow the chart. This way I can see where I could have done with less or more of something. Definitely going to give dyna-gro a run after seeing the great ph balance and ease of use but I'd like to get set up a flood and drain table first. Currently with coco and everything is great except when using drip systems you need to find a way to thoroughly water if not half starts to dry out too quickly. Anyhoo awesome pics and keep it up, be safe!
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
Lunch - What is the NPK value of your base and additives and how much of each are you using? Like I said, I ballpark this stuff and knowing that my base usually makes up 80% of my total ppm coupled with the fact that I don't use more than 3 'npk' bottles, that makes it a lot easier than figuring out the figures when using 6 bottles.
Quick example:
Connoisseur in equal parts (4-0-4) + (1-5-6) = (5-5-10) or a 1-1-2 ratio.
Adding in koolbloom at (0-10-10) and comprising 15% or so of my total ppms results in about a (1-1.5-2.5) ratio. I wish the K and P were switched as 1-2.5-1.5 is solid.
Anyways, not an exact science per se and starting with great ratios sure makes ending up with great ratios a lot easier.
Quick example:
Connoisseur in equal parts (4-0-4) + (1-5-6) = (5-5-10) or a 1-1-2 ratio.
Adding in koolbloom at (0-10-10) and comprising 15% or so of my total ppms results in about a (1-1.5-2.5) ratio. I wish the K and P were switched as 1-2.5-1.5 is solid.
Anyways, not an exact science per se and starting with great ratios sure makes ending up with great ratios a lot easier.
lunchbox421
Active Member
Currently I am using House & Garden Cocos A+B which are 8-0-0 and 2-4-10 respectively. I started backing off a bit after week 4 on the this and added in some pbp because some of my ladies were too green. I use about 50/50 mix of A+B and PBP per gallon. I also use RO water so I add Cal/Mag. Protekt at 3ml per gallon plus extra if need to ph up.A little Liquid Karma. And I'm starting week 7 so I'm giving H&G's Shooting Powder a run which is 0-39-25. With my cal/mag, protekt and liquid karma I'm at about .3-.4. After adding A+B I'm around .9ish and then I add pbp till around 1.2. Finally the Shooting Powder brings me up to 1.6-1.8. This is all off the top of my head since I don't have my notes with me. Next week I'll be adding more Shooting Pow and I think it'll bring me up to 1.8-2.0. I'll see after this week how they respond to the first week of SP and take it from there.
Those conni plants look nitrated to the max. Too much green and it looks like the leaves are just beginning to claw. Definetly going to delay flowering. Also in my experience, when the plants are over fed like that late in the cycle it just gets worse even if you cut back on the EC.
I cant tell any difference in the resin production. A lab test would be required to do that.
I cant tell any difference in the resin production. A lab test would be required to do that.
burrr
Well-Known Member
when you say nitrated, do you mean nitrate nitrogen, or just to much N in general?
rosecitypapa
Active Member
I've been attempting to do the same thing, and then came across this resource which has a link to Hydrobuddy:
https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/368514-hydrobuddy-free-hydroponic-nute-calc.html
It's pretty fun to play around with. You can add the label ratios of any commericially available fertilizer and it will calculate the resultant ppms. I just used it to see how much Dyna-Gro 3-12-6 is needed to add with FP 9-3-6, Botanicare's Cal-Mag and Epsom salts to come up with an NPK of 1-3-2 with N to Ca @ 1 to .8 and Ca to Mag @ 1 to .5.
My plants have been showing mag deficiency even with the addition of Cal-Mag. Hydrobuddy says my Cal Mag has 42 ppm of Ca and 15 ppm of Mag and it bumps up my N by 25 ppm.
I'm waiting on some callbacks from Dyna-Gro and Botanicare to verify the ppms that the software gives and what they know is in their product.
person1,000,001
Member
using cns17 ripe 1-5-4(25ml/4L) in coco 100%, adding lava rock next time. Other nutes in the mix, hydroplex 0-10-5(8ml/4L), hygrozyme(12ml/4L), sweet-raw(15ml/4L), 3d amino cal-carb 4-0-0*10ml/4L(no longer using switched to organicare calplex by botanicare, hand't been using the hydroplex while using that until this last feed w/2.5 weeks left, giving me a 5-5-4 up till now, argh, but a good product.) Liquid karma 0.1-0.5-0.1 i think, giving me a ph of 6.79, tds 1440. My tap water ph is at 6.25 w/ tds 140. I'll have to see what the bloom part readings comes out as, cns17 is a 3 part program, a little annoying but I do like it. Have you tried any of the things I mentioned above? I'm really happy w/ what they did for me, but a little new to what measurements work best for hydro gardens. I used organic wet betty once and saw a nice difference in the leaves in that magical 3 day swing after using something good. Or its a bad 3 day swing if its a bad product. I hear people mention a need for a hardener but don't hear much about a wetting agent. The wetting agent sounds like its more useful to me, as from what I've read on the hardener Gravity by humboldt its a toss up as to how much it works. Any thoughts on this wide range of ponderings?
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
I agree, they are getting too much N at the moment but the EC levels are perfect for this strain (1.2 EC which is exactly what the DG plants get). The big problem I have with Connoisseur's 2 part formula is that I cannot cut back the N without cutting back on everything. Each bottle contains a different set of minerals and when added together, they make a 'whole' fertilizer. I've already cut back to allow for some ppm for a PK booster and even then, they're a darker green than I'd prefer.
That's too many products for me to manage. I'd simply to the necessities.
I've been using AN Sensi A/B as a base nute and it has pretty much ruined every crop I have done. There's always some kind of deficiency showing up and the yield is pathetic. For a 1000w light I would yield about 6 ounces. That's just sad. With Conni, it'd be slightly better but not enough to justify the price. AND there's still deficiencies showing up. The AN Sensi Grow formula is ok. haven't had a MAJOR problem with that yet, but the mothers would show deficiencies though, meaning that long-term use will eventually bring the problems to the surface. I have a profound hatred for the hydro shop owner for turning me onto AN. Now, I'm using dynabloom as a base. Hopefully, everything'll get better...