Nutrients The Autoflower Network welcomes Prescription Blend!

[Prescription Blend]

Thanks for the warm welcom from everyone and especially @Son of Hobbes for helping set this up. I will be on regularly to help answer questions and follow along with your grows. Let me know what your thinking and I’ll do my best to respond as soon as possible.

 

[Prescription Blend]

Welcome. Excited to try a fully organic line with my hydroponic system. Thanks for joining AFN.

FYI our formulas are not registered organic, our nutrient formulas are based on using organic/non-gmo plant extracts and minerals from biological sources, we do supplement this with traditional components and some of these things are not organic.

 

[Waira]

---- Welcome to AFN Matt and Prescription Blend!

I'm looking forward to seeing this test run here, you'll have some fine growers now and later to put PB through the paces... I liked what I saw, and that you have very complete nutrient/supplement coverage.
Also, it's well divided into the 6 parts, which allow some tinkering but still keep that solid overall coverage = ... I'm a big fan of foliar treatments, looks like the Bio-Si and Kelp-ful (fulvics! ) can be used as such.. I'm the Infirmary guy here, and see a lot of micronutrient issues roll in, which many learn the hard way are a bitch to fix sometimes! Si and fulvics are big help in treating them, along with a rich source of micro's. I assume it's Kelp-Ful that has the best load of them?

Don't sweat the autoflower feeding schedule too much, so far as I've seen, the diversity in tolerances, demands, etc. runs the gamut, no generalization will apply to all IMO... Same common sense precautions, and a little direct measure data will help set the table! Dilutions and start-up feed sched' will depend a lot on the medium and method too, so the usual tinkering and testing TDS/EC is wise when running new nutes... It's good to know what kind of ppm's the nute solution has... Do you have some info on that for say, the standard finished solutions?
With the diversity of growers and methods here, we'll see soon enough what works and what's doesn't!
I'm not in a grow mode currently, but likely will be late Spring, so if an outdoor photo/tent auto test is of interest still, I'll be sure to ring your bell:smoking:

 

[Death The Cultivator]

FYI our formulas are not registered organic, our nutrient formulas are based on using organic/non-gmo plant extracts and minerals from biological sources, we do supplement this with traditional components and a small amount of those are not organic.

I appreciate the honesty. I used another brand of organic nutrients that fell short of OMRI registration. I'm not in agriculture and don't need the certification plus it saves everyone money. It's understandable that certain things won't always be organic like leonardite but the product you're offering focuses on what's important and not every nutrient line does that.

 

[Prescription Blend]

I appreciate the honesty. I used another brand of organic nutrients that fell short of OMRI registration. I'm not in agriculture and don't need the certification plus it saves everyone money. It's understandable that certain things won't always be organic like leonardite but the product you're offering focuses on what's important and not every nutrient line does that.

All true, we would much rather say it up front then have people with misconceptions be disappointed later.

FYI, fulvic acids are actually one of our organic inputs and not from leonardite. We use a fermentation process to digest and extract fulvic acids from organic non-gmo plant matter including peat and a variety of vegetable materials from organic crops.

 

[Mossy]

Hello and welcome @Prescription Blend
I'm one of the testers here on AFN. So I'm just going to let you know what is my set up as far as growing goes.

I'm a closet grower, I grow at night from 4 PM to 10:30 am (18-6) I also grow autos, it's not legal in my state yet but I prefer to grow my own. I use Fox Farm Ocean Forests soil as my soil. I use distilled water, spring water and RO water for my growing needs. Which ever one I can get from Walmart. My tap water is hard water and I dont use it for watering but use it to flush.
My tap water ph is 8.09, the spring water is 7.75 and the RO water 7.00. I dont have any distilled water on hand to test yet.
All of them have different ppms and ph levels.

Well Done @Bigg Al ..let @Prescription Blend know what he has to Play with,,,

I was kinda waiting for @St. Tom and @Only1Sky to Pipe up and let him know we had some 2019 GOTY/Super growers on his Team...but I guess they are keeping the trial as their Secret Weapon to defend their Titles 2020....Sneaky ....

@Prescription Blend ..we have a Team of tried and tested growers who have shown grown and reviewed Vendor products.

When you See the yellow Gladiator Badge below their User Name..it means they have successfully completed Show Grow/Reviews for AFN Vendors in 2019. Have a great weekend.

 

[Prescription Blend]

Hello and welcome @Prescription Blend
I'm one of the testers here on AFN. So I'm just going to let you know what is my set up as far as growing goes.

I'm a closet grower, I grow at night from 4 PM to 10:30 am (18-6) I also grow autos, it's not legal in my state yet but I prefer to grow my own. I use Fox Farm Ocean Forests soil as my soil. I use distilled water, spring water and RO water for my growing needs. Which ever one I can get from Walmart. My tap water is hard water and I dont use it for watering but use it to flush.
My tap water ph is 8.09, the spring water is 7.75 and the RO water 7.00. I dont have any distilled water on hand to test yet.
All of them have different ppms and ph levels.

How does you product affect the difference between each one? Will my soil make a difference? Being OF is a hot soil and the first 2-3 weeks I dont use any nutrients, how will I use your product for this soil?

If I use coco do I have to use cal/mag with your product? Do you supply cal/mag? Do you have a feeding schedule?

That's all I could think of at the moment but I'm sure others have so more questions.

Again, thank you for letting me test your product! My current grow will be finished in 2-3 weeks as they are photoperiod plants and will have my next journal with your product!!

Bigg Al thanks for the quick rundown of your setup, you have a few questions stacked in there so I'll try to touch on all of them.

Water sources and pH: Water sources have a lot of variability but generally fall into a few categories of hardness and mineral content. We balanced the components in our formulas to work with a wide variety of water types and it will naturally stabilize pH in the range of about 5.8-6.3. Your nutrient solution pH is dependent on several things but primarily the mineral content of your source water. High mineral content (specifically carbonate hardness) will result in a pH closer to 6.3 where very low mineral content will give you a pH closer to 5.8. If you use distilled or RO water then you may find that you need to adjust with pH up (or add a little more Bio-Si).

With a soil like OF or any other variety that starts out a little hot you would want to wait on feeding until the plants use the food premixed in the soil media similarly to the way you would treat any nutrient line to avoid over feeding like you described above.

Cal/Mg... (@Mcdee @Proph this is on topic for your questions as well) We don't have a specific product designed to provide extra cal/mg and here is why. We have included these elements into several of the other components however calcium and magnesium are primarily delivered through our Core A/B solutions. One thing that you will notice is different about our system compared to a lot of other options out there is that we don't drastically change the feed program from veg to flower. Our Core A/B is used from start to finish and the other components are varied to adjust the NPK ratios for different growth stages. In our testing we found that keeping a consistent feed gave better results, kind of like how people are supposed to eat balanced diets instead of carbs one day, vegetables the next and meat after that. Each nutrient has a response curve and interactions with other nutrients, we have determined what we believe (and you all will tell us if you agree of not) to be ideal levels of these components to provide sufficient calcium and magnesium in demanding environments such as coco while also staying in the peak area of the response curve for other medias like OF. That said, it is possible that you could have an extremely cal/mg hungery strain that wanted more but I would be surprised if that were the case. (let me know if it happens)

Great questions, keep them coming! I have attached our feed chart, note that is not auto specific it is designed for photos.

Also, going forward I should say that sometimes I can geek out a little hard on the science so for anyone out there please don't hesitate to ask for clarification on terminology or to have a topic covered in more (or less) detail.

 

[St. Tom]

Bigg Al thanks for the quick rundown of your setup, you have a few questions stacked in there so I'll try to touch on all of them.

Water sources and pH: Water sources have a lot of variability but generally fall into a few categories of hardness and mineral content. We balanced the components in our formulas to work with a wide variety of water types and it will naturally stabilize pH in the range of about 5.8-6.3. Your nutrient solution pH is dependent on several things but primarily the mineral content of your source water. High mineral content (specifically carbonate hardness) will result in a pH closer to 6.3 where very low mineral content will give you a pH closer to 5.8. If you use distilled or RO water then you may find that you need to adjust with pH up (or add a little more Bio-Si).

With a soil like OF or any other variety that starts out a little hot you would want to wait on feeding until the plants use the food premixed in the soil media similarly to the way you would treat any nutrient line to avoid over feeding like you described above.

Cal/Mg... We don't have a specific product designed to provide extra cal/mg and here is why. We have included these elements into several of the other components however calcium and magnesium are primarily delivered through our Core A/B solutions. One thing that you will notice is different about our system compared to a lot of other options out there is that we don't drastically change the feed program from veg to flower. Our Core A/B is used from start to finish and the other components are varied to adjust the NPK ratios for different growth stages. In our testing we found that keeping a consistent feed gave better results, kind of like how people are supposed to eat balanced diets instead of carbs one day, vegetables the next and meat after that. Each nutrient has a response curve and interactions with other nutrients, we have determined what we believe (and you all will tell us if you agree of not) to be ideal levels of these components to provide sufficient calcium and magnesium in demanding environments such as coco while also staying in the peak area of the response curve for other medias like OF. That said, it is possible that you could have an extremely cal/mg hungery strain that wanted more but I would be surprised if that were the case. (let me know if it happens)

Great questions, keep them coming! I have attached our feed chart, note that is not auto specific it is designed for photos.

Also, going forward I should say that sometimes I can geek out a little hard on the science so for anyone out there please don't hesitate to ask for clarification on terminology or to have a topic covered in more (or less) detail.

hi and a big welcome from the UK how is your feed for say autopots in coco I'm very curious and will be following with interest

 

[Prescription Blend]

Im not a rep, but just some general gardening info for ya.. Calcium and Magnesium are both "Macro" nutrients. In the description on page one for the base, "Core A and B", it says that it provides the macro and micro nutrients needed from start to finish, so I'm assuming that's why there is no stand alone calcium or magnesium product. I also see that they have an Si (silica) product as part of their line up, which works hand in hand with the provided calcium. That description says it uses different silica sources, and one of the most popular sources used for plants is calcium silicate. So it looks and feels like calcium is more than covered.. This lineup actually reads like a true complete lineup.. I can't see any nutritional gaps! This should be a good product for you all to test!!

Yes this is absolutely intended to be a complete line up and a stand alone nutrient system. The only thing that we want to but don't make are microbiotic inoculates for beneficial bacteria and fungi. These are very different processes then brewing nutrients and we decided to leave that for the future when we can devote the appropriate time for testing. Our nutrients are compatible with any brand of beneficial microbes so if you choose to use them then just pick your favorite variety.

 

[Prescription Blend]

---- Welcome to AFN Matt and Prescription Blend!

I'm looking forward to seeing this test run here, you'll have some fine growers now and later to put PB through the paces... I liked what I saw, and that you have very complete nutrient/supplement coverage.
Also, it's well divided into the 6 parts, which allow some tinkering but still keep that solid overall coverage = ... I'm a big fan of foliar treatments, looks like the Bio-Si and Kelp-ful (fulvics! ) can be used as such.. I'm the Infirmary guy here, and see a lot of micronutrient issues roll in, which many learn the hard way are a bitch to fix sometimes! Si and fulvics are big help in treating them, along with a rich source of micro's. I assume it's Kelp-Ful that has the best load of them?

Don't sweat the autoflower feeding schedule too much, so far as I've seen, the diversity in tolerances, demands, etc. runs the gambit, no generalization will apply to all IMO... Same common sense precautions, and a little direct measure data will help set the table! Dilutions and start-up feed sched' will depend a lot on the medium and method too, so the usual tinkering and testing TDS/EC is wise when running new nutes... It's good to know what kind of ppm's the nute solution has... Do you have some info on that for say, the standard finished solutions?
With the diversity of growers and methods here, we'll see soon enough what works and what's doesn't!
I'm not in a grow mode currently, but likely will be late Spring, so if an outdoor photo/tent auto test is of interest still, I'll be sure to ring your bell:smoking:

Yes, 6 parts was the sweet spot between easy to use and setup for customization. Your spot on with the foliar, both Bio-Si and Kelp-ful make great foliar feed when needed. The main source of micros is Core A which contains your full spread of Amino-citrate chelated micro nutrients but Kelp-Ful also contains micro/trace elements naturally found in kelp and these are chelated with fulvic acid. pH issues and a few other things can induce micro deficiencies as you know but save for those unfortunate events I don't think we will need any Dr visits but its good to have you here just in case!

As far as an auto feed program.. we quickly realized most of the same things you brought up that make it very difficult to have a single applicable program for autos without saying something like "switch to the flower feed at the first signs of transition" but that is not helpful for new growers that might not notice the early signs. Still hopeful though and if it can be done I think it would be done here on AFN. We uploaded the feed chart but I'll put it here as well. It shows an approximate target PPM for each week. We have a very low salt index formula since a lot of the ingredients start out as organic compounds so our full strength flower solution should raise your PPM by ~1000 over the starting water reading. (This is with an EC=500 PPM conversion factor so if you use a EC=700ppm you'll have a different reading)

Definitely looking forward to seeing what everyone gets going and some variety in style/media/technique was one thing that we talked about when your team was contacting testers. We want to hear about what you all like as well as what you don't like, we know that growers don't pull punches when it comes to criticism and we can't wait to get into these tests.