My grow center had a customer appreciation day yesterday. It was awesome. I met a ton of local growers. Vendor booths all over the parking lot giving away samples out the wazoo. The store itself was giving away a ton of full-size nutes via raffle and “spin-the-wheel”. Nobody walked away unhappy. Some of the raffle items were high dollar. $1500+ all the way down to $20 items. Here’s my haul.
The reps that most caught my attention were Advanced Nutrients and Nectar for the Gods. I was intrigued by both lines. I’m also intrigued by Heavy16 because holy shit… the price! BUT, then the rep was thoroughly underwhelming in his explanations. Kind of a “use it or don’t. I don’t really care.” feel. I mean I didn’t expect him to tap dance, but he wasn’t really interested in talking about what separates them from the rest. I won a nice starter set, so I’ll still research further, but I wouldn’t have dropped that kind of $ based on his answers.
Everyone swears theirs is the best. Everyone claims follow the chart - don’t half it. Few publicly admit theirs is specifically formulated for mj. To me, it should start there right? If you can’t/won’t tell me your product is specific to my crop, why should I use it? Are the non-mj growers (that aren’t really using your products anyway) going to turn their backs on you? Seriously, I’ve been vegetable and flower gardening for 40 years and I never even heard of any of this stuff before looking into growing mj. Of course there really are people growing hydro tomatoes and such, but there’s no way that’s the real target market.
Who here has seen any of these product lines at Lowe’s, Home Depot, Menards, Walmart, etc? If you ask, they don’t even know what you’re talking about. Not entirely shocking given that big box stores tend to hire anyone who passes the UA. Now I’m ranting aimlessly.
The real point is how to decipher what’s true. I trust the experienced growers. There are several on here that walk the walk and have the bud porn to back it up. I have my favorites. I’m sure we all do.
Let’s try to discuss it without insisting one line or another doesn’t work. As soon as someone says a particular line is crap, someone else posts a picture showing otherwise. I’d rather know your favorite and why. What you’ve tried before and why you changed. Stuff like that.
Oh yeah - I’m using General Hydroponics. It’s my 1st “grown-up” grow. I was going to use Botanicare and switched to GH because the prices were way better. I figured I’m going to mess things up the 1st time no matter what line I use, so I went cheaper for my learning process. Now that I have a handle on my methods, GH is fine. They’re doing what they’re supposed to. It’d be interesting to run a grow, using a couple different lines with all other conditions equal. A proof-of-concept grow. Yes, I see the added hassle and expense in what I’m saying.
Sounds like you had a good day and haul! I’m envious as I doubt Nebraska will ever go legal so no vendor shows in my future As next spring will be my first somewhat independent grow outside I’m interested in following along
I’m extremely fortunate to have the store I go to. It’s 15 minutes from my house and everyone that works there also grows. What we’re all growing we don’t straight up say out loud, but you’ll hear all related terms said freely. My state also isn’t exactly legal yet either. Rx legal but not quite implemented yet. I’m rolling the dice getting a head start like I am, but I personally think it’s a way bigger risk to transact outside of my home and you don’t usually really know what you’re getting.
Sweet come up. Few months back my local store GrowGeneration had one of these and i won a bunch of lights and nutrients and soil. They do it every 6 months for customer appreciation. I tried the heavy 16 i think its a pretty decent brand, i just dont like how they packaged the sample boxes with just additves, no grow or bloom so it was kind of pointless to use them, i used them 2-3 times on my seedlings then switched to emarald harvest 3 part. Looks like u got some of the same stuff i won
I grew up helping dad with a big garden. I also worked in the orchards and fields that were around our home in California. I’ve seen lots of expo shows in some 50 years of growing things and they all promise the same thing–‘buy our products, follow our feed schedule and you’ll skate trouble free to a large harvest’
It never seems to work that way. Every plant strain is a bit different with different needs. What is the basis of any grow is the soil. If you have good soil you won’t need to feed much. I’ll spend my money on a quality soil like FF ocean forest, which has pretty much all the basic nutrients a plant could want.
The only MJ specific nutes I’ve used have been Maxicrop Seaweed and Sensei Cal-Mag. The rest of my stuff is what I feed to my Tomatoes, which are another acid loving plant.
@muffybunny I’ll say this I’m loving the nectar line
I haven’t updated my threads in a bit and will try to in the next week or so but the line works great
@Countryboyjvd1971 - Nectar is the one I’m most excited to try. I’m curious about the calcium-based focus. I was going to do 2 different strains next grow and try scrog, but for the sake of experimentation, I’m going to just do 4 more ilgm blueberry autos, traditional grow. I already have enough GH for another grow, so I’m thinking 1 GH, 1 NftG, 1 Advanced Nutrients, and 1 , potentially Mills, Dyna, or Humboldt. Any others I should consider?
Wow sounds like you have it covered well
I’ve only used ff and the nectar my self
And I’ll say this I had to flower my gold leaf five weeks after sprout
Normally I’d go six or more weeks
As next spring will be my first somewhat independent grow outside I’m interested in following along 
