Nope it's sure not. My gig is not anywhere close to dialed in my opinion.
Jalisco Kid was getting 1.25 g/watt+ with 2.2-2.8# specimens he was saying.
Tobor got 1.6 gpw with a single scrogged specimen of the white.
Heath Robinson makes us all look bad.
I have been on a learning curve for a while.
I have been fighting Crohn's for my adult life without knowing what was wrong with me until recently.
Where my lips were blue and I came within a week of not making it. My intestines would not absorb nutrients for a while, lost 20 pounds and went through such misery and pain that I developed PTSD from it.
During my absence from the boards recently and all.
I have spent a while knowing the changes that needed to take place, but was physically unable to make the changes, and was the onliest person there was to do the work.
Jalisco Kid's posts are what led me to the diy nutes. And then there are Fatman's insights.
You cannot fine-tune your nutrient ratios as easily buying AN.
Most cannot tell what the ppms for n-p-k-ca-mg-s are for their food.
So when determining cause and effect relationships, the ones with less knowledge are at a disadvantage.
I used AN for years. But they reformulated so often, I would get results that I was happy with only to have the formula changed.
If AN had left things alone, like other nute companies, I may have not gone with salts.
The thing I can brag about is that at this point, my cost for nutes and additives is under $100 per 1k per year. I see how 2.5/light is possible in my room with my cultivar.
Unfortunately I cannot take the glass out of my reflectors, so that kept me at 2/light and not more.
That 2/light was with 3 digital ballasts, and 5 magnetic.
4 tired hps, and 4 MHs that cost 18.00 apiece off the internet.
VPD that was good but not optimal.
Handwatering 12 bigass specimens every 2 days.
Getting victimized by root aphids because I was scared to use imidacloprid and spectracide, because my immune system had very little left to give.
So there is lots of room for optimization and improvement.
Illness has kept me from achieving the results that I believe that I can.
I am a big fan of dialing in 1 cultivar until happy.
I am hopeful that this is the year where everything will come together with my health, and allow me to garden like I would like to.
There will be multiple reinvestment cycles until the room makes me happy.
The best quality I have experienced was grown with AN 3-part and
Botanicare's
Cal-mag for base nutes, and hammerhead(old hammerhead)/
MOAB, with some other additives, mostly under a
hortilux blue mh.
So I have been chasing that quality ever since.
I can give my plants the exact same ppms, in fact improved ones, with my salts.
For like no money. And infinite tuneability. And no one will change my formulation without my consent.
AN also gets flagged in OR lots, because they deliberately lie about the guaranteed analysis. So what you thought you were buying for NPK is not always what they are selling you.
All of this gets in the way of me dialing in my strain.
The last ferts I was buying was
Botanicare's CNS-17. 5 gallon jugs, after my discount, were $90. I was burning through them every 18 days. Plus driving 200 miles round trip. Part of why I was so interested in purchasing the raw salts.
Now I can reverse engineer anybody's nutes, and will effectively never pay for fertilizer again.
There is no reason for me to purchase any ferts from a grow store anymore.
No more drip clean either.
No more RE.
No more Banana Manna.
Because I studied until I figured out how to pay regular ag prices for inputs.
This is what I am advocating.
I even give my veg and flowering formulas in posts, and explain why they are the way they are, and the medium they are intended for.
So others can save money too.
And then put the money towards environmental controls.
Can't hit 2.5/light without a fairly perfect environment.
The important thing is that I am not trying to take advantage of anybody's brand loyalty to sell them a product with worse value than the product I sold them last year.
And AN is.
For some, it will continue to be worth it to buy AN.
But like JK and others before me, I feel it is my duty to offer this info to a couple people who feel the same way.
Don't forget to hate!