When To Use Nutrient Suppliments Vs Base Nutes.

[Badwolf]

It seems that I have reached a point in growing where I have absorbed a bunch of knowledge and it comes down to specific questions. With that is there a general rule of thumb as to when you should use supplements added to your base nutrients?
I'll give an example using advanced nutrients A/B formula and there b-52, cal-mag, big, bud, bud candy etc .
now giving a hypothetical question your in week 4 of flower room spec are perfect.
Should I be using a supplement such as big bud and b-52 every feeding or is this more of something that should be used sparingly and I should rely more on the base nutes to make up the majority of the PPM that i am shooting for.

 

[squarepusher]

Some products have different ingredients compared to base nutrients, other products only have different ratios.

For example, base nutrient has NPK's and trace. Using a PK booster like MOAB or Shark attack, boosts PK ... however also you could possibly just boost your base nutrient levels, since a blooming NPK should have high amounts of PK anyways.

So, it you can just boost base nutrient levels and get a pretty similar result compared to taking a separate PK flowering booster.

However, some product are different completely, like B-52 for example has humics/fulvic and some b-vitamins which aren't included at all in the base nutrient. So, you could supplement B-52 to boost your humic/B levels which is impossible to get from base. Also, Bud Candy has ingredients that base doesn't have, like some plant extracts.

So it really depends on what you are aiming for, in my personal opinion just using a complete base nutrient could get you great results the whole way through. A lot of the supplement industry is just to collect some extra cash, if these supplements were so effective also, the nutrient manufactures could just include them in the Base Nutrient so you wouldn't have to buy separate products as well.