3 days on jack's 5-12-26 and the plants are loving it! Bye bye General Hydroponics forever

jonnynobody said:

Great picture of your ladies man! They look healthy as a horse in it's prime. How far into flower are you? Those auto's are interesting. I've never ran one myself, but I hear they greatly shorten the seed to harvest time. I wonder how fast you could turn harvests if you ran a perpetual with auto's? Harvest every 6 weeks?

And I'm actually very interested to see how your results are. I was apprehensive to buy the clone and flower formula. Let us know what you think when you've got a smoke report after harvest. I'm very interested to know how the quality is using the 3 different NPK ratios at different life stages.

A little hair cut defoliation will vastly improve your yield. How far into flower do you think you are?

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Also...ill start up a journal in the next few days.

jonnynobody said:

How often do you water? My standard 5 gallon plants that aren't exceptional monsters usually go every 2 days. Jager was my first plant that required 2x/day last cycle. This cycle I have 3 plants that vegged for over 10 weeks. Fucker's are mucking up my routine because they're so dam big, but the harvest should be substantial. Only got 9 in there this cycle. I have 1 more blue dream hiding in a 4x4x6.5 under the Geyapex COB. That girl stinks so good I don't think I'll ever let her go. BD is a keeper.

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My buckets are Hydroton/Hempy that feed directly into the netpots/rockwool. From germination to harvest I feed each bucket .25gal every 6 hours.

.Smoke said:

My buckets are Hydroton/Hempy that feed directly into the netpots/rockwool. From germination to harvest I feed each bucket .25gal every 6 hours.

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So you're kinda almost running a flood and drain setup, but inside of a hempy bucket? Your plants look fantastic and I love the cleanliness of your garden. You're the straight RIU MacGyver dude

My apologies for the 1980's reference. I realize the younger generation has no idea who MacGyver is

jonnynobody said:

So you're kinda almost running a flood and drain setup, but inside of a hempy bucket? Your plants look fantastic and I love the cleanliness of your garden. You're the straight RIU MacGyver dude

My apologies for the 1980's reference. I realize the younger generation has no idea who MacGyver is

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Thank you.
MacGyver is who made me buy my first swiss army knife.

The bucket is top fed hempy. 2" high standard drain. Only 2" of the hydroton stays moist above the drain.
Not quite sure how it works, but it seems to finally be getting there.

.Smoke said:

Thank you.
MacGyver is who made me buy my first swiss army knife.

The bucket is top fed hempy. 2" high standard drain. Only 2" of the hydroton stays moist above the drain.
Not quite sure how it works, but it seems to finally be getting there.

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i'm trying something new on one plant. a auto-feeding dwc in a 12qt storage container. i built it so that it drains itself at the 2 gal point so it has the same water volume as my waterfarms. that way my feed timer that i had dialed in for the waterfarms feeds the same amount.
i'm really sold on drain to waste dwc.

whats your PPM scale?

to what i remeber from playing with hydrobuddy, maxibloom is quite high in P, easy to reach a 100ppm, dont think that much is needed.
also while it have calcium, its not really high in that compared to when calcium nitrate is used in a 2/3 part fert (likey our jacks).
maybe that makes a diference to you?

cobshopgrow said:

whats your PPM scale?

to what i remeber from playing with hydrobuddy, maxibloom is quite high in P, easy to reach a 100ppm, dont think that much is needed.
also while it have calcium, its not really high in that compared to when calcium nitrate is used in a 2/3 part fert (likey our jacks).
maybe that makes a diference to you?

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500 scale. I'm so not used to feeding at that PPM. I can't tell you the EC with accuracy, but I think it was 1.6. I think your assessment has some teeth dude. Maxi does a great job, but the flowers taste like they received too much of an element. And I have heard over the years P can negatively impact flavor and burn quality if too much is applied in flower. If maxi is high in P and jack's is much lower that would certainly explain the difference in flavor and burn quality. Jack's flowers tasted fantastic with no "element" taste or burn quality issues. My only jack's flower cycle was also my highest GPW I've ever achieved. In hindsight maxi did not improve anything at all in my garden from quality to yield. It was a mistake to have ever switched from Jack's.

cobshopgrow said:

whats your PPM scale?

to what i remeber from playing with hydrobuddy, maxibloom is quite high in P, easy to reach a 100ppm, dont think that much is needed.
also while it have calcium, its not really high in that compared to when calcium nitrate is used in a 2/3 part fert (likey our jacks).
maybe that makes a diference to you?

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Maxi does have too much P-I've had good luck dosing a little lower then adding some additional potassium sulfate after the first couple of weeks of flower. The cal/mag levels have been perfect for me though. I'm going to give the Flora Pro nutes a shot soon, pretty similar to Jacks.

Rurumo said:

Maxi does have too much P-I've had good luck dosing a little lower then adding some additional potassium sulfate after the first couple of weeks of flower. The cal/mag levels have been perfect for me though. I'm going to give the Flora Pro nutes a shot soon, pretty similar to Jacks.

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It seems like the Florapro is designed for large scale commercial injection systems. Fertilizer is fertilizer as far as I know. Should work great in any hydroponic application. You'll just have to tinker around with the PPM's to find your sweet spot though, because their feed charts are based off of #'s per 100 gallons. Shouldn't be too difficult to dial in. Prices are relative to jack's. The only thing that bugs me though is Jack's advertises 0% heavy metals which is a big deal. GH's products are known to contain heavy metals. That's definitely a consideration when choosing a long term viable fertilizer.

jonnynobody said:

I took the plunge 3 days ago and transitioned my entire garden over to jack's 5-12-26 from GH's maxi grow / bloom, and all of the plants look fantastic at 647-675PPM! That's pretty incredible to me, and explains why my jack's grown flowers taste and burn better. I have to feed GH's maxi grow / bloom at 775-825PPM to prevent deficiencies. Jack's gets the job done at nearly 200PPM less. The plants are growing and are as happy as they can be with significantly less fertilizer input, so the plants are absorbing lower levels of elements and I believe this is directly related to flavor and burn qualities.

We've all smoked one of those fertilizer over loaded hydro flowers that scorch your throat and lungs. They often burn poorly, but visually appear like any other high quality flower. I believe it's the plant simply absorbing too many elements. Those elements accumulate in the plant's tissue. Flowers for instance, right? Who on earth wants an excessive amount of phosphorous or potassium in their flowers? P&K loaded flowers look great. It's all downhill from there. The flowers taste terrible, and they burn poorly due to the excess elements present in the plant tissue. That problem doesn't occur with jack's. I'm excited to post my post harvest quality report on the latest jack's grown flowers in the near future. Anyone else notice their flowers taste better with jack's versus other fertilizers that require much higher PPM's to satisfy the plant's needs?

Lights out at the moment. I'll snap pics and post them later tonight. I hate when I see a thread like this and the OP doesn't post pics. Just pisses me off

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You finally did it!

jonnynobody said:

It seems like the Florapro is designed for large scale commercial injection systems. Fertilizer is fertilizer as far as I know. Should work great in any hydroponic application. You'll just have to tinker around with the PPM's to find your sweet spot though, because their feed charts are based off of #'s per 100 gallons. Shouldn't be too difficult to dial in. Prices are relative to jack's. The only thing that bugs me though is Jack's advertises 0% heavy metals which is a big deal. GH's products are known to contain heavy metals. That's definitely a consideration when choosing a long term viable fertilizer.

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I'm obsessed with heavy metals in fertilizer, the claims these companies make are so frustrating. General Hydroponics, for all their flaws, actually use extremely clean mineral salts-you can see here, Flora, FLoraNova, and Maxi series are all below detectable limits for arsenic and cadmium. I encourage everyone to check each of their products on this website, https://apps1.cdfa.ca.gov/fertilizerproducts/ or the ones set up by Oregon or WA for 3rd party heavy metal testing of fertilizers.

Hollatchaboy said:

You finally did it!

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I can't emphasize enough how nice it is to hold a reservoir for 4 days without fallout junking up the whole thing. The PH doesn't even move. If I set it at 5.8 it stays there. Some of my girls are drinking daily now. It's so nice to just scoop out 1 gallon of solution and water a plant without first weighing 2 separate dry fertilizer's, mixing, adjusting the PH, and then watering. Jack's for life. Jack's for sanity

I want to try out their RO 1 part formula soon. I love the simplicity of a 1 part. The more simple life is the better

got you, if its 0.5 scale its easy to convert for me.
1.6 isnt low, but what do i know, it worked for you.

interesting, did you used any MKP PK 13/14 or any other P booster? sounds like you didnt and are happy with the 12 percent P contained in the jacks.
a lot people, myself included add the P boost by using MKP week 4-5, if its sensefull, idk.
atm the usual trend is towards less P, as far i understood mainly for enviromental reasons but recent studies show not that much P is needed.
it does make some sense, as tissue analysis show just a few perent P ( and about 25% N 50% K), not sure atm about fruits, think its similar while P should be higher.
P have a important indirect role as transport molecule, its the only element which gets recylced in the plant.
well, one can read a lot and find proofs and studies for everything.
even worse when you listen to podcast and mix that up with studies.
there are nutrient uptake charts out in the internet, havent found one showing similar curves.
this is one for example,.
another one, general for plants.

on maximun yield i found once a complete other one showing higher P uptake later in flower.

thats why i like such first hand reports like you did.

in the end all is a bit subjective, but for me its a proof that P isnt needed in such high quantities if you had a high GPW run with "just" 12% P.
also read the argument too much P impact flavor, no proof at hand.
have to say i am in the middle ground atm as i dont know better.
aiming for 50-60ppm, think it could be more like 30-40ppm, but no need for over 100.

i used one bag maxibloom longer ago with RO water and i remember dark i had some slight calcium problems, while there where for sure more factors at play at that time, a little calcium nitrate would had fixed that for sure.

Rurumo said:

I'm obsessed with heavy metals in fertilizer, the claims these companies make are so frustrating. General Hydroponics, for all their flaws, actually use extremely clean mineral salts-you can see here, Flora, FLoraNova, and Maxi series are all below detectable limits for arsenic and cadmium. I encourage everyone to check each of their products on this website, https://apps1.cdfa.ca.gov/fertilizerproducts/ or the ones set up by Oregon or WA for 3rd party heavy metal testing of fertilizers.

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Been smoking the shit out of maxi buds for almost 2 years now. Dammit I hope you're right

jonnynobody said:

Been smoking the shit out of maxi buds for almost 2 years now. Dammit I hope you're right

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Lol, no worries, it's one of the cleanest fertilizers on the market, main reason I went back to using it. They use the same salts in Flora Pro, which is why I want to try it. What really pisses me off about Gen Hydro is how they try to actively deter small growers from using Flora Pro by saying you can't measure out small amounts, that you have to dump the entire bag into the injector tank or whatever...if you talk to a rep they'll try to steer you to Maxi, Flora series, or Flora Nova every time you bring up Flora Pro-the reason being, Flora Pro is dirt cheap compared to the products marketed to small growers. It's total BS, you use the stuff just like Jacks and in almost identical amounts.

Rurumo said:

Lol, no worries, it's one of the cleanest fertilizers on the market, main reason I went back to using it. They use the same salts in Flora Pro, which is why I want to try it. What really pisses me off about Gen Hydro is how they try to actively deter small growers from using Flora Pro by saying you can't measure out small amounts, that you have to dump the entire bag into the injector tank or whatever...if you talk to a rep they'll try to steer you to Maxi, Flora series, or Flora Nova every time you bring up Flora Pro-the reason being, Flora Pro is dirt cheap compared to the products marketed to small growers. It's total BS, you use the stuff just like Jacks and in almost identical amounts.

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GH got themselves in a pickle. They wanted to compete with Jack's stealing their market share so they made Flora Pro. But they don't want the average gardener knowing they don't have to get raked through the coals anymore for their other lines of fertilizer and can take the shortcut straight to FloraPro along with the huge cost savings. GH wants it both ways. I don't think I'll shed a tear for those profiteering cocksuckers

jonnynobody said:

GH got themselves in a pickle. They wanted to compete with Jack's stealing their market share so they made Flora Pro. But they don't want the average gardener knowing they don't have to get raked through the coals anymore for their other lines of fertilizer and can take the shortcut straight to FloraPro along with the huge cost savings. GH wants it both ways. I don't think I'll shed a tear for those profiteering cocksuckers

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Is flora pro cheaper?

jonnynobody said:

GH got themselves in a pickle. They wanted to compete with Jack's stealing their market share so they made Flora Pro. But they don't want the average gardener knowing they don't have to get raked through the coals anymore for their other lines of fertilizer and can take the shortcut straight to FloraPro along with the huge cost savings. GH wants it both ways. I don't think I'll shed a tear for those profiteering cocksuckers

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Exactly, they're so short sighted because it looks like a great product, i'd love to try the "hardwater" micro version, and it has high sulfur levels too, which I like. It's definitely a product they could have marketed directly against Jack's, but when you look at the cost of a 25 lb bag of Flora Pro compared to an equivalent amount of Maxibloom and consider they have the same ingredients only in different amounts, it's obviously just a callous marketing decision. They think small growers are ignorant enough not to notice.

Hollatchaboy said:

Is flora pro cheaper?

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$57 for 25#:
https://growgreenmi.com/general-hydroponics-florapro-grow-soluble-25-lb-bag-9-11-19?gclid=Cj0KCQiAnKeCBhDPARIsAFDTLTJnzQSyOfen8-fUTo_z3g390o-UZ5USrTlEhfSE8vzB4z5AkKFytDYaAtvREALw_wcB

Hard to hawk overpriced liquid bottles with FloraPro available for that cheap.

jonnynobody said:

$57 for 25#:
https://growgreenmi.com/general-hydroponics-florapro-grow-soluble-25-lb-bag-9-11-19?gclid=Cj0KCQiAnKeCBhDPARIsAFDTLTJnzQSyOfen8-fUTo_z3g390o-UZ5USrTlEhfSE8vzB4z5AkKFytDYaAtvREALw_wcB

Hard to hawk overpriced liquid bottles with FloraPro available for that cheap.

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Well damn!