Athena AG PRO Line mystery ?

[greenleafnutrients]

We routinely keep up to date with other companies and products in the industry, and noticed that Athena Ag is the big up and coming player blitzing the liquid, and now dry nutrient market with their new Athena AG Pro Line. Also worth noting, Advanced Nutrients finally got on the wagon and is releasing their answer to dry nutrients, clearly because wholesale prices are dropping fast with wide scale legalization and medical, and growers have to be smarter in the nutrients / fertilizers they choose in order to stay profitable. Here are the new products that Advanced Nutrients and Athena AG have released for the dry/powder fertilizer market

Before these release, the main goto for dry nutrients/fertilizers have been:
Jacks 5-12-26 + Calcium Nitrate (or Jacks 3-2-1 as some people refer to). This is a 2 part formula (or possible 3 part with the addition of Magnesium Sulfate/Epsom), that allows for great customizaiton
General Hydroponics MaxiBloom and MaxiGro: This is a pretty time tested formula for hydroponics, unfortunately the macros aren't directly geared towards Cannabis, but they will still get the job done pretty good.
Greenleaf Nutrients Mega Crop (our product) which is a 1 part complete dry formula

So as we imagined in 2016 when creating Mega Crop, we know the industry and market would eventually shift in this direction towards dry nutrients/fertilizers, simple because they are less expensive to produce, and less expensive to ship, while maintaining the same quality. Liquid nutrients essentially were mostly a glorified snake oil market that hydroponic nutrient companies (like AN) could charge astronomical markups from material costs, and lay on heavy marketing and convince growers who could sell units for $4000+ was their best choice.

So the reason I am making the post now, is because we ran these new products (Advanced and Athena AG Pro) through our proprietary computer models dealing with fertilizers and nutrients, and when processing the Athena AG based on the label values, some huge red flags came up!! I was wondering if any of the smart people here would be able to conjecture of what exactly is going on with this situation.

So I will outline the situation here. Based on for example, the GROW product which is NPK 2-8-20, we were able to simulate this formula using 37% less of the ingredients stated on the label. For example, we can recreate the same exact ratio using the following:

Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4) 0-52-34 15.8%
Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) 13.5-0-46 15.8%
Potassium Sulfate (K2SO4) 0-0-52 14.7%
Magnesium Sulfate Anhydrous MgSO4 15.5%
Iron DTPA 1.1%

These are the exact 5 ingredients listed on the label, and the formula is exactly recreated using the above ingredients and amounts. So, the big red flag here, is that if you add up all the % above, it gives 15.8 + 15.8 + 14.7 + 15.5 + 1.1 = 62.9%. So in other words, we are able to recreate their formula exactly using only 62.9% of the state label values! This is significant, because it means 37% of the contents of the bag are unaccounted for! Even if we were generous and substituted the lowest grade Magnesium Sulfate, it would still only lower the total 7% and would still leave over 30% unaccounted for!

So in other words for people not following, in the Athena AG Pro GROW product, when you buy a 25lb bag from the store, between 30-37% of the contents are unaccounted for. This is a huge amount! Usually margins for error at maximum a few % points in the fertilizer industry, and usually companies will make their labels slightly below actual contents so the guaranteed minimum analysis always hits in case of incomplete mixture or testing errors.

Some possible explanations:
1) There is a mystery ingredient(s) in this product not listed on the label which you would be feeding your plants (a bit scary?) which makes up over 1/3 of the entire contents
2) The label they listed is incorrect and doesn't represent the contents (also concerning if the grower doesn't know what they are getting).

Based on our own calculations, maintaining the same ratios stated on the label, the formula could potentially be as high as 37% higher than stated, which would be something like

N 3.4%
P2O5 13%
K2O 32%
Mg 4.8%

So anyways, we aren't planning on running further lab testing involving actual samples or analysis. This was more of just a fun kind of discovery, since we routinely check on whats latest and hot in the industry, and we wanted to post it here to see if any of the smart people from THC Farmer would be able to offer any guesses or input on this situation.

Everyone also you can sign up for the POTM contest we are giving away free monthly samples to the winners, and also we plan in September to do a big forum wide $4000 giveaway of free products to everyone here, so stayed tuned for that ! We will do an announcement for that so everyone can try and have a good chance to win some free products.

 

[Dr.Green55]

Its an interesting product for sure, has shown great results, but its a little different in feeding and irrigation strategy.

When you say you exactly recreated it , what do you mean by that? Do you mean macro and micro individual PPM and ratio's , the same PH value, because what you used wouldn't come out to as low PH, what about precipitation, and what was the EC.
I would think if your lab testing it, you should already know what your asking.

Athena is meant to be mix at a higher EC like 3, judging by the macro's and micro's, Also Athena mixes to a low PH, so there is clearly a anion or powdered acid added, and they are clearly using a line cleaner, its seems to be working quite well, Maybe pekacid, but i'd put my money on something else that they are going to try and keep to themselves. They may also be adding a PH stabilizer just a guess, and they also prill so there could be something added to help in the prilling process. That would be my guesses

Have you reached out Athena to see what they have to say ?

 

[greenleafnutrients]

Its an interesting product for sure, has shown great results, but its a little different in feeding and irrigation strategy.

When you say you exactly recreated it , what do you mean by that? Do you mean macro and micro individual PPM and ratio's , the same PH value, because what you used wouldn't come out to as low PH, what about precipitation, and what was the EC.
I would think if your lab testing it, you should already know what your asking.

Athena is meant to be mix at a higher EC like 3, judging by the macro's and micro's, Also Athena mixes to a low PH, so there is clearly a anion or powdered acid added, and they are clearly using a line cleaner, its seems to be working quite well, Maybe pekacid, but i'd put my money on something else that they are going to try and keep to themselves. They may also be adding a PH stabilizer just a guess, and they also prill so there could be something added to help in the prilling process. That would be my guesses

Have you reached out Athena to see what they have to say ?

We just ran the product through some in house nutrient software we have, which allows us to run analysis and get higher level info. We didn't actually purchase the product or run physical tests. No we don't plan on reaching out to them, its their business to put what they want in the product, and we aren't going to make a big deal of it outside of just commenting on it here. Also according to the MSDS sheets, there are no other ingredients. We aren't going to make a big fuss at all, it just seems ethically (and potentially legally) questionable to not be labeling ingredients properly if its the case they are including other ingredients not listed. Usually growers want to know exactly what is in their fertilizer so they can be fully informed.

The new Advanced Nutrients products look pretty interesting as well from a design standpoint. From our analysis, these products seem like a higher quality than the Athena, however AN went with a "4 part" serious which gets really overly complicated imo with stocking different bags/formulas. We are trying to keep all of our formulas 1 or 2 part maximum for now, we considered a 3 or 4 part but the benefit is not worth the complexity and cost imo now. Appreciate your input! Also, the prilling process is mostly done through compression for this type of fertilizers. There may be some small amount of "binder" added but they run the raw powder through these compression rollers to get "balls" like this

 

[Dr.Green55]

Well I don't know for sure either way whats in there product or not, But I wouldn't go to the bank on your numbers either if you never fully tested it, I have no dog in the fight lol I don't use any of either of your products as I mix my own. But I think if you truly wanted to find out you 'd see what they have to say. good luck