homebrewer
Well-Known Member
The pH perfect stuff wasn't available at the time of this test but the gimmick that is 'pH perfect' would not have changed the outcome. What would have improved AN's results is the use of higher quality ingredients (no urea, no other water soluble nitrogen) and a more desirable NPK ratio for hydroponics.Hello. Lots of reading. Read most. So forgive me if I missed something. This test was done in 2011. Was the range PH perfect back then ? I use AN simply because it's easy to use and I don't need to mess with PH adjustment. Is there anything out there cheaper that I can try where I don't need to adjust ph levels. ? I'm not lazy , I just spend enough time with my tomato plants already and want things to take less time.
In regards to your question, just about every plant food on the market is less expensive and easier to use than what AN is offering. According to AN's site, each part of connoisseur should be ran at roughly 16ml/gal. That means that I would have used about 1.4 gallons of plant food in this test alone. THAT is not only expensive but that rate-of-use would require A LOT of trips to the grow store. I don't know how much growing experience you have but trips to the grow store take way more time than adjusting the pH of a reservoir a few times per week.
In regards to your comment about not wanting to 'mess with pH adjustments', it looks like you're running a drain-to-waste drip system according to your pics in this thread (https://www.rollitup.org/t/marshydro-led-grow.839368/page-39#post-11306228) so for you just about anything should be pH-stable since you don't recirculate. If you were running a recirculating system, I've heard Canna is pH stable and in my experience DynaGro is too. I just finished a 4 week ebb-n-flow veg cycle with protekt and foliage pro and the pH never moved from the 5.7 - 5.9 range. On top of that, a nine week flowering cycle in my 18 gallon res can be completed with about a litre of plant food. That's not only economical but that absolutely cuts down on the trips to the grow store.