Right on Goose.
just because it isn't on a label doesn't mean it isn't in the product. I have to say that the Hydroponic fertilizer sector is very poorly regulated, there is a label game that is more like cat and mouse than anything else. Have you ever noticed that a product goes away for a while and then comes back with a couple tweaks to the label?...
Hormones are only one class of PGR. Synthetic, petroleum based catalysts (ethanol being one of the more infamous), can push plants into cycles and make them do just about anything one could imagine- enhance, inhibit, accelerate, retard, control, height, stretching, lateral branching, ripening, color, hardening and so on.
PGR's are abundant in P-K boosters, anything that causes ANY instant response in a plant is FOR SURE not a natural reaction. Sure you will see an instant response, but the overall quality will suffer and I wouldn't ingest that chemically altered plant (opinion alert!).
If science can show me that kelp extract can be formulated to act as a ripening agent, than I will stand corrected. Until then and by the process of elimination, I am only left to conclude that Gravity's active agent is a synthetic PGR. What other chemical type could have such a profound and dramatic effect on a plant's growth in only a few days? There are a lot of chemicals to choose from:
155 PGRs
Pesticides-Common Names
The majority of user complaints- premature yellowing, leaf drop, burned flower tops, mysterious pH changes, correspond w/ the symptoms that one would see from overuse and/or misuse of a ripening agent. Several of the pre-harvest ripening agents from the links above are applied as a drench and work systemically to accelerate ripening.
While helpful in just about every growth stage, the listed ingredients- concentrated kelp, P-acid and a B complex are no more than a pretty, (if somewhat misleading), window dressing. The real player isn't listed. How could that be?
Gravity isn't patented. A patent would require a full disclosure of the formula and it's obvious that the company doesn't want to let the cat out of the bag. While they're not protected from another company reverse engineering and manufacturing their product, they can skirt disclosing any ingredient/s deemed to be a "trade secret" under 18 U.S.C. Ā§ 1839 (1996) and/or the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) in all but 5 states that haven't ratified it yet.
In short, if a ripening chemical in a formula is a trade secret, a company would not have to list the ingredient on their label. In lieu of someone reverse engineering the product, we may never know exactly what makes Gravity do its thing and therein lies the problem.