Quick disclaimer before I start, this blog is dedicated to Mineral Based Nutrients.
I won’t dive into organic nutrients for this one but do keep an eye out because an Organic VS Mineral Based Nutrients blog is on its way…
It seems that as of late one of the easiest choices for your garden has become one of the most difficult. What am I talking about? Well, nutrients of course. With so many options hitting the markets these days, it’s understandable to see why people new to hydroponic growing can get a bit overwhelmed when deciding what nutrients to run in their setups.
So, let’s try and break it down for you a little and hopefully make this decision a little easier on the brain. You can break nutrient formulas into 3 sperate categories:
- 2-part nutrients (Part A & B) which will do both the Grow and Bloom cycles
- 2-part nutrients (Part A & B) with separate formulas (Part A & B for Grow and Part A & B for Bloom)
- 3-part nutrients, single part for Grow, Bloom and Micro
2-part nutrients for both Grow and Bloom Cycles are my preferred way to go. They offer the ultimate in ease of use, and are always extremely well formulated to provide the tree with exactly what it needs, when it needs it. Some people worry that this method of nutrient will be light on nitrogen (N) in the vegetative cycle and missing correct levels of potassium and phosphorus (PK) in the bloom cycle, but this just simply isn’t the case. A well formulated nutrient will have no problems delivering the correct levels of N.P.K to your trees at all times. With so many awesome options available from fantastic Australian brands like Professors’ Nutrients, Bio Diesel and Nutrified in this category, you are almost guaranteed to find something that suits your needs perfectly at fantastic value for money.
Next, we will talk about 2-part nutrients with separate formulas for Grow and for Bloom. These can also offer ease of use with a simple swapping of bottles when the plant leaves the vegetative stage and enters its blooming stage. However, with auto flowering trees or outdoor crops, this switch can easily be missed by the untrained eye, and could potentially lead to using the wrong nutrient bottles in the flowering stage. This can cause a stunt to early flowering growth, harshly effecting overall yield. This isn’t really a problem with indoor crops making these nutrients another good option for indoor plants. Although some will argue this way is more capable of providing the correct levels of nutrients designed especially for the correct stage of your tree. From my experience, the two-stage approach does not make any real difference to overall yield and quality of crops. The main reason for this being the plethora of additives available from every nutrient manufacture no matter what type of nutrient they mix (we will dive into additives in another blog).
Then we have 3-part nutrients, which usually come in Grow, Bloom and Micro labeled bottles. The idea behind this is that you can mix different amounts of each bottle every week depending on what stage your crop is at, allowing you to really dial in your feeding schedule. I can see how this may have been a massive plus in the past but with the amount of research and development companies have put into perfecting their 2-part nutrients, I don’t really see any noticeable advantages of doing the extra work involved in going this route.
So, in conclusion, I think the best advice I can give is don’t let yourself get caught up into the Instagram hype of overpriced and difficult to use nutrients. Keep it simple and find yourself a good Australian made nutrient line. The money you can save doing this can be invested into a nice new L.E.D grow light for your room and that will definitely improve your yields and quality of harvest more than paying to ship nutrients half-way across the planet ever will. Remember – a successful grow is 90% lights, strain and environment, and that’s where I would be investing the bulk of my money.