greenleafnutrients
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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.
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.