Bloom Boosters are a marketing gimmick.

He just looks like a guy in a lab coat and he writes pseudoscience articles about boosting brix. Snake oil salesman.

I agree with the bloom boosters are a gimmick, but their "bloom" is a low nitrogen formula, not a phosphorus bomb.

I don't think he could last 20 years in hydroponics peddling pseudoscience and snake oil. He has authored a book and numerous articles. I think the humic, fulvic and amino acids and other organics are an emerging science. Just look at how much better plant nutrients are these days than they were years ago. Much higher yields and better tasting, healthier fruits and veggies. Perhaps 20 years from now we will look back at today and wonder how we ever survived.

The nutes are expensive, but highly concentrated, and should last a good while. I just wanted to see if anyone had any experience using them before I spent the $$$. I primarily grow nectar plants to attract hummingbirds, so the increased brix theory lends appeal to me due to the increased volume and sugar content of nectar produced.

Perhaps I will be need to be the guinea pig on this one.

Longevity is irrelevant.

"but their "bloom" is a low nitrogen formula, not a phosphorus bomb"

It's not nearly as bad as some but the only way you could consider that simply a low N formula is by comparing it to a 'balanced' 20-20-20 fert which contains 4x the necessary P, in other words a P bomb. A true low N feet would be something like 5-5-20

If you want concentrated just get urea, superphosphate, and potassium sulphate, but that can be a PITA.

How does 3-12-12 compare to a "balanced" 20-20-20 but not a 5-5-20?

Because the PK ratio is the same with the 12-12 and the 20-20 at 1:1. With the 5-20 the ratio is 1:4.

Is a bloom centric fert supposed to be reduced P as well?

I don't see comparing 1940's pseudo-technology "Superthrive" to the advances in modern cellular microbiology. Would you argue a 2017 McClaren P-1 is no better a 1942 Packard?

Dyna Gro sells a 7-9-5 (1.8:1) and a Bloom formula 3-12-6 (2:1) and the Foliage Pro is 9-3-6 (only 1:2, but thats for foliar applications). Not a 1:4 ratio there, not even close. Do you consider Dyna-Gro "snake oil" as well?

Dyna-Gro's bloom formula is snake oil. Those companies make that stuff because it sells not because you need those levels of P.

Your problem is thinking there is such a thing as a bloom centric fert in the first place.

Don't take the 1:4 ratio as gospel. I was just using numbers that were factors of one another to make the math easier and more clear while relating to the already presented NPK numbers. The point is that you need a lot less phosphorus than potassium. The one I use is a 1:3 ratio.

When you start looking at research into hydroponic nutrient levels for individual crop species, you see that you don't need anywhere near the levels of P that are provided by most ferts. Sometimes you'll only need 1P:12K. But I've never seen research showing even a 1:1 relationship being necessary. Greenhouse growers of bedding flowers will use almost no P in the initial stages of growth in order to reduce internode length coupled with pinching in order to get a bushier plant with a greater number of flowers. But that wouldn't make any sense under the conventional bloom booster nonsense.

My point about Superthrive was to illustrate that snake oil can hang around for a long time even when it is clearly snake oil. Therefore the fact that this guy has been around for 20 years is irrelevant to whether the product is bunk or not.

Now wrt humic and fulvic acids, the evidence that they help much isn't that strong. At this point it doesn't even look like they actually exist in nature, so plants can't possibly "need" them.

http://www.gardenmyths.com/humus-does-not-exist-says-new-study/

Fungal inoculants can be useful in containers as long as the product is still viable which at this point seems unlikely unless you are getting a live culture from a lab.

http://www.gardenmyths.com/mycorrhizae-fungi-inoculant-products/

http://www.ogcsa.org/oda-finds-big-problems-with-little-organisms/

And a little bit about high P ferts. (And a little datum about roses having that 1P:4K ratio in their leaf tissue)

http://www.gardenmyths.com/bloom-booster-fertilizer-nonsense/

If you want to know what plants need, read research papers. If you want to know what people will buy read fertilizer catalogs.

Thanks for the links, I will definitely read up on them. I knew the super high "P" (10-52-10) were BS, but thought there was validity the reduced "N" more moderately increased "P" fertilizers, and the High "P" fertilizer producers were trying to out "P" the other guy.

On the Humic, Fulvic and what not, logic would dictate that growing in containers in a high bark, low peat (5-1-1) would lack some beneficial substances that one might find in garden soil (?). Finding the science to confirm or disprove that should be a lot easier than it is!

The impetus of this whole RAW venture was the "omniA" amino acid and their claim to reduce powdery mildew. My Bee Balm gets decimated every year. I guess i'm willing to risk being schlockmeistered out of $12 to try to get rid of Powdery Mildew!

And as far as the individual N-P-K, Do you think they are OK? One could get the individual packets and build 1:3, 1:4 or (?), providing Ca-Mg-S and macros are added. As far as being a PITA, as stated in my previous post, I do have a penchant for over thinking and tinkering.

Thanks Nil for the article on humus - very interesting. I always wondered about how such a complex substance forms in soil and scratched my head every time. As a pure conjecture it could be possible that some other mechanism randomly creates tiny, short lived, pockets of high Ph that results in the "dark matter". Composting also produces some, may be different, very dark liquid. Although never tried to collect them, but is sure intriguing considering it can stain almost anything in contact. More intriguing because that stuff never attracts any pests or flies. For all I know that brown stuff may just be tannins and lignins since they resist decomposition.

Peat moss is used in container culture because of its high cation exchange capacity (CEC) besides ability to hold moisture. Humic acid or humates, created artificially, have a quite a bit higher CEC value than peat moss. I have mulling over the idea of adding humates to soil-less container mixes (511, gritty, etc) to see if it makes any difference. Although, I do not have any intention of doing a real scientific experiment.

mblan: A while back I had landed on a "calculator" for creating your own fertilizer from raw chemicals. I do not have a link handy but it was in some hydroponic or weed forum. That calculator tried to figure out proportion of chemicals to achieve some desired goal of NPK plus Ca, Mg, S and a few other elements. It is a complex problem to solve in general. For example you can use Calcium Nitrate for N and Ca, but to add S you may not be able to use gypsum since it will increase Ca also. May be use epsom salt to add the S since it will add Mg also - and so on. To get the right proportions of everything requires some magic. Tinker away.

I may have given you that link TOC.

HydroBuddy

http://scienceinhydroponics.com/2016/03/the-first-free-hydroponic-nutrient-calculator-program-o.html

Making your own fert is a PITA and there are enough formulas out there that you should be able to find a premix that gets you at least 90% there, and then just add like calcium nitrate to tweak the nitrogen levels or something. There are readily available hydro tomato ferts that have really low N that you then add CaNO3 when you need the N. If you do decide to roll your own, order from chemical supply houses. It will be much cheaper than ordering individual chemicals from a hydro company. They tend to exist to gouge marijuana growers out of money. I get things like ammonium sulphate, urea, or superphosphate in 50# bags from a landscape supply company for cheap when I need a specific concentrated nutrient. But it can be tough to formulate a complete nutrient mix from individual ingredients from a landscape supply place hence the chemical supply house recommendation.

Nil: That is the calculator. Thanks. I remember playing with it just for fun.

Thanks for the hydro buddy link. I might get the base ferts in bulk, butI'll probably still get the extras in 2 ounce bags from the Hydro gougers to tinker with. If I decide to do it on a permanent basis, I can buy in bulk . I really don't have enough plants to warrant buying separate elements in 50 lb bags.

How about posting your experiments here in this thread? It will be interesting information.

My plan is to do a side-by-side from cuttings or probably nursery stock, in 5-1-1 with Dyna-Gro FP all year, DG-FP for 1st month or so, then one of those crazy 10-52-10 bloom formulas and one with DGFP/ and my own low "N" concoction.

It's a little late to start this year, so it won't be until next year but, if the good lord willing and the Creek don't rise, I will.

Nil13 you stated the fertilizer you use is a 1:3 PK ratio...may I ask what brand you use?

Grow More 15-5-15 Cal/Mag

They are local to SoCal. The best value in ferts usually comes from a local manufacturer.

I recommend that you dose everything with a consistent N concentration for that experiment. So calc everything out to like 100ppm N and just let the PK vary. Also do a random matrix to control for differences in container location.

These people knocking Harley Smith ought to look him up and check his credentials. He’s really the Guy who started hydroponics. He was asked to develop the hydroponics educational videos to be taught in schools And it’s not just hydroponics— he’s been invited into so many things including the Netherlands who are years beyond the US on growing everything. His stuff isn’t snake oil — it’s actual scientific grow nutrients and minerals. It’s just the best of the best - not just a bunch of fillers. For example, I bought a tiny little bag of potassium for my hibiscus and for my orchids during the excess heat of summer and the bag makes 800 gallons. It’s very high strength. Growing orchids is much more difficult than growing marigolds and I have found his products that I’ve bought to be very good. We now know how important hormones are to plants and how important something as simple as calcium and magnesium is to plants in terms of health and to help them withstand disease and sucking pests. Minerals are very important in the right ratio to help flavor. We didn’t know how important water quality was and the relation of water to type of fertilizer. We didn’t know about biofungicides, or mycorrhiza either. Most people didn’t know this stuff 30 years ago — commercial growers might have know some of it but there wasn’t anything out there for hobbyist. It’s people like Harley who helped with all that.

I personally have used the all in one grow and flower version and i still continue to use the full regiment of NPK RAW nutes in a soil mix with phenomenal results. You may not have the best luck on your first try around as it does have a slight learning curve on application as you can really adjust the program for what each and every plant wants and needs the most. As we all know all strains are and want different concentrations. thats why i dont like the whole 20-20-20 crap, Ive never had healthier nor happier plants until i used NPK RAW. Im not gonna lie im not a huge fan of thier all in one mixtures but that goes right back to not every plant wants the exact same thing as its neighbor. You cant go wrong with adding like Kelp, Humic Acid, Fill up, Omnia and some microbes maybe even some B-vitamin the best part of all is just with those couple of types you can make like 3 separate and different foliar sprays like kelp and humic acid mixed in a small dose and used foliar is awesome. VT did a 10 year study on it I found out as im from VA but i digress. Harley is just a guy who loves what he does and is backing a product he truly gets excited about who can blame him. if you would actually watch the whole videos you would see he knows his shit without a doubt. seems like some people just hate on them without any valid argument or even knowing anyone that has used the line of nutes but they will always say that their own regiment is better than everyone else's. Dont forget you can get the super small bags for hella cheap like 10-12 bucks on amazon or they have a starter kit with all the nutes they sell for like 90-110$ and that will run you a full grow and have some left over to start your next. Id say go for it man its worth every penny

Exactly my thoughts Al. But you expressed it much better. For most they do not even mention the ingredient in their product description. One has to look up the SDS sheets to find them out. For some they do not even attempt to do that. Fine business model.

I'm always skeptical of any product that doesn't conspicuously state what the product consists of. Eleanor's VF-ll and some of the fertilizers advertised as "specifically for fiddle leaf figs" are extremely dilute fertilizer solutions sold at usurious prices. Why call it Raw Nitrogen/ Phosphorous/ Potassium when you could easily call it what it is (see my post above for the info)? Answer: to make it's more difficult to see how badly you'd be getting taken if you buy the stuff.

There are precious few plants a grower can't keep perfectly happy with Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 with some ProTeKt 0-0-3 on standby for those plants which prefer a bit more K than the 3:1:2 ratio fertilizers provide. A gallon of it costs about $42, and makes 3,072 gallons of maintenance strength solution. That's $.014 (1.4 cents) per gallon of solution. I tend to embrace and indulge my nerdy side, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay 990% more for a product (than I can buy it elsewhere) just so I can say I bought it from Harley and mixed it myself. I try not to be a proud person, but I still have some dignity. Plus, I think most of us would agree we can squeeze 1.4 cents out of our budget for a gallon of fertilizer solution every week or two. Keep your head down going in and out of McDonalds, Starbucks, and 7-11, and you'll find enough lost pennies to keep yourself in fertilizer perpetually.

Al

The only raw chemical I buy is Agsil (https://buildasoil.com/products/agsil16h-potassium-silicate#tabs-4). It is dry Potassium silicate - the stuff in ProTekt. I mix a batch of 1/2 gallon at a time to make the equivalent of Protekt. They have the recipe on their website. I bought a one pound bag quite a few years back and I am on the last bit of it now.

This stuff is very caustic. And also very hygroscopic (absorbs water from air - for people who have not heard of that term). So needs to be kept very well sealed otherwise becomes a solid cake. Happened to me with the last few ounces in the bag.

Many years back I tried to buy 50# bag of Peters 25-5-15 (https://www.amleo.com/peters-professional-high-efficiency-fertilizer-25-5-15/p/G25515) but shipping was quoted to be $250 for a $50 product !!! They called me to explain that it is Hazmat product - both ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate for the N part are explosive in nature. Needless to say I cancelled the order immediately. I tried to use my 20% off coupon to no avail.