We really need to dumb down everything to tomato level. Here's some history.
Do you know who wins the nutrient game? Businesses. As we debate, argue and lose our minds arguing about nutrients. The truth is, cannabis only needs 16 components to grow. Anything else is just fluff, Bullisht or PGRs.
Everyone wants that edge over the other guy. Nutrient companies know that. It's good for
business. Whether a product is needed or not business will make it. Whether it's legit or not salesmen will sell it.
Many of yall don't know how things have progressed through the decades, why things are the way they are. For example
Calmag. Anyone remember when it hit the market like a shining star and hero for growers? I bought a bottle like a fool. After a bit I realized 'DOH!' The wat am I doing? I got tricked.
Okay so continuing my story, before
calmag became a star it wasn't even talked about. Dirt growers were the only ones talking about calcium and magnesium. Wat me worry?
As hydro growers if we had a calcium problem or
any micro nutrient problem we'd just up the micro nutrients as we built feed schedules. Magnesium was never a problem because we pumped as much flora nutrients we could into the plants without burning them.
As men, we do stuff. Always looking for that special trick. Circa....early 2000s(?) cheap RODI water systems became popular or were popular in reef tanks. I was right in there since I had a Saltwater fishtank.
I foolishly switched to RODI while thinking I've made my life easier, pure water I could manipulate however I wanted. Immediately I had problems. Iirc PH stabilizing was a b-werd but that was the least of my problems, upping nutrients to try and fix stuff along with having unpredictable PH I was spinning.
Now that I remember I almost gave up on DWC. I recently started growing that style and no one else was so I had to figure out everything on my own. So many problems to iron out and now I threw RODI into the mix and went backwards. I stopped using RODI and got back on track.
Many others were still using RODI and did whatever to fix their problems. Then here comes
CalMag to save the day. Growers need and nutrient companies deliver! There's nothing wrong with that.
What is wrong is its promotion.
Calmag is a supplement for those that actually need it yet it's promoted by the masses that have no idea of why other than it boosting cal/mag, critical elements for growing weed, without them your plant is isht. That's intimidating to new/newer growers and even experienced. Everyone else is using
calmag so that's what you need! Right?!? Erm...NO! You need to buy it because it's business.
That story goes for most everything on our cannabis world. I can do a history of LEDs too...
The
ONLY thing i care about nutrients is if theyre safe, legit and have the 16 critical components to make my plant grow. Everything else what I said earlier...bullisht, fluff or PGRs. That's really the bottom line for all types of growers.
How can any legit nutrient line no matter the grow style be discredited? Other than it being a scam but that's another story, fraudulent nutrient lines.
What we as experienced growers should be talking about is exactly what the plant needs and focus on criticizing stuff we don't need. Your line has everything a plant needs 100%, my line has 75% and I gotta buy more stuff to meet the 100%. Why even promote the brand I'm using? It's obviously not made for me, it's made to take my money by buying extra stuff.
Too many growers don't know history, they've jumped in in the middle or late and they think they're following the SOP. Bad trends create bad habits that are passed on day by day to new growers. That's where we are today. Those bad habits created by marketing and spread by word of mouth got us all messed up.
Look at my grows, since I've started using GH Trio in 95ish I've had great grows, come 2005ish I fell into the marketing game with RODI and
calmag and messed my stuff up. Went back to tap water and GH and never looked back. I'll put my plants up against the most scientific grow, perfect specs, done in a $50b NASA lab and you'd quickly see they spent all that money to barely out do me, probably.
So if I can do that with a $35 pack of GH nutrients...why is there even a debate? Why not dumb it down to the base level with me?