foxfarm conspiracy or not?

was def planning on using straight light warrior for clones and seedlings have to find out where to get the worm castings dont know if my hydro store has em im sure if i switch up im going to have an easier time veggin i got a pretty sweet set up should be having better results my ak 48 that went the distance took forever veggin and flowerin and only got an oz sure it was grower error cause i have great equipment sure the soil played a part too if those girls hadnt died i might still be tryin to figure it out cant wait till the other ones r ready to transplant so i can change up and see how much of a differance it makes thanks

light worrier is designed for seeds and clones, i can veg plants 2 feet on ffof in one month with no nutes, and i have no other complaints, ive noticed by cutting the soil your holding back water retention, dirt is suposed 2 be moist and get wet, it just needs 2 dry, fox farm has already added perlite and the drainage is acceptable in my opinion it drains great,

shadow420 said:

Where can i buy fox farm products im in the jacksonville florida area

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Gardners Edge.....bout $20-22 for 1.5 cf

I have two papayas loving life in FF Ocean Forest. I compliment it with pura vida grow and bloom, with the ocassional spritzing of organic B - no complaints yet, but I'm only a month into it... I have found that out of six grandaddy clones, three in rockwool did the best, two in FF died, and one in jiffy peat pellet is trying not to die now, but it will be a struggle. Out of my three good clones, I put one into a bucket of straight FF with plain h2o and it drooped. That was yesterday. A little light Organic B mix for a little foliar feeding and today it is perking up...so IDK, it seems viable, but maybe rep has preceded it a little. Might be worth experimenting.

PassiveNature said:

I have two papayas loving life in FF Ocean Forest. I compliment it with pura vida grow and bloom, with the ocassional spritzing of organic B - no complaints yet, but I'm only a month into it... I have found that out of six grandaddy clones, three in rockwool did the best, two in FF died, and one in jiffy peat pellet is trying not to die now, but it will be a struggle. Out of my three good clones, I put one into a bucket of straight FF with plain h2o and it drooped. That was yesterday. A little light Organic B mix for a little foliar feeding and today it is perking up...so IDK, it seems viable, but maybe rep has preceded it a little. Might be worth experimenting.

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if u phed the water for the ffof thats probly wat killed them, this stuffs ready use right outta the bag

and thier is no conspiricy, fox farm has a new dirtplant on the east coast and i have heard it doesnt grow well at all full of acid stick with the stuff from the west coast read the bag 2 make sure ur getting the right stuff

The new soil is manufactured in South Carolina, using a local pine mulch in lieu of whatever they originally used at their West Coast manufacturing plant. The West Coast plant still produces the original product.

I used to use Ocean Forest religiously, until I started transplanting into the new soil. It looked and smelled COMPLETELY different, and wouldn't absorb ANY water. It clearly needed a wetting agent, something my old Ocean Forest NEVER needed.

I was so dissatisfied I actually called the company, and they wanted me to return my product to the store from which I purchased it and get a new bag free of charge. The problem is the new bag would be from the same pallet as the stuff I was returning, so that didn't help much. The customer service rep at Fox Farm wanted to ship MY 3/4 bag of shitty soil back to his office so they could inspect the product...

Not sure if that ever happened, but the hydro store guy gave me a store credit equivalent to the cost of the Ocean Forest, and recommended I try Bio-Bizz Light Mix. Since then I've created my own soil mixture of Bio-Bizz Light Mix, Fox Farm Light Warrior, 9-3-2 Bat Guano, and 1-0-0 Worm Castings. Recently I've started adding some granular mycorrhizae as well, with positive early results.

I love my new soil mix and wouldn't go back to Ocean Forest even if they did start shipping the original formula out to the east coast.

Light Warrior and Big Bloom are quality products though, and staples of my organic operation.

I dont grow in soil as i dont have time but as far as thier nutes they dont seem to have changed except prices have jumped alot in last year. On the color or lightness remember they make a soil bottle and a hydro bottle and the soil bottle is darker green The tiger looks the same and Big Bloom seems to be the same as it sppm is consistant as always per measurement..

im on my first grow im using the trio of fox farm nutes and FFOF soil its great i used it from start to finish it burned my seedlings a tiny bit but other then that the soil alone lasted me a month before i needed nutes

i PH my water to 6.5 the soil is all ways between 6.2 and 6.7 never had a problem grow is going great still

Fox Farm makes no misrepresentations about their products and they market them well. For a company that offers only 3 " organic" fertilizers they still seem to be acknowledged as a more eco-friendly company. The truth is they use the same ingredients that say Scott's or Miracle-gro use but perhaps in different quantities and solutions.

I can make no claims about their effectiveness but does it really matter? If you like the Kool Aid you're going to drink it regardless of what I say.

You can't tell me they're any more effective than MiracleGro just as I can't tell you they're any less. It's all based on our personal opinion and growing procedure since we can't actually ask the plants what they like more. They just absorb what's needed to grow.

Just to illustrate an example of effective marketing. Take this quote from the FAQ website.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When it comes to synthetic fertilizers, quality matters. FoxFarm chooses only the finest ingredients for its family of fertilizers that deliver optimal nutrition for each stage of a plant’s growth, and bottom line we never - will never - never going to happen in this lifetime- use cheap fillers or low-grade, industrial chemicals.[/FONT]

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What exactly is a cheap filler? So high grade industrial chemicals are ok?

If you consider the costs involved in manufacturing the ammonia used in synthetic fertilizers like the FF Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, and Marine Cuisine then you might find that they actually can't use a cheap industrial chemical because none exist.

smoking chef said:

I have noticed ocean forest is acidic. One grow ago my ph got way out of wack. I tested my runoff using 6.7 ph water and my runoff was 4.3. I now use 1/3 OF, 1/3 light warrior, 1/3 promix bx, and some lime mixed in. best grow I ever had! 18 zips off 6 plants.

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how big is your light?

Ummm actually fox farm uses absolutly not the same ingrediants as miracle grow or shultz completely different. Miracle grow uses no bat guano in any of thier products as its a chemical fert verses Fox Form being more organic based

This thread has certainly got some opinions flying around. It's been a couple days since I posted on this ongoing thread, so I'll share more of my opinion. A lot of the points being made here seem arbitrary. I think sankakugatame raised several good points in his post on page 3, with his reference to marketing being the most on target. These companies are out to make your money, and that doesn't make them the devil, it just makes them a business. They love nothing more than to hear growers like many of us flying off the handle on these threads, quoting their sales pitches verbatim about how great they are. Stop wearing a logo on your arm, and break the Fox Farm mold a little bit. If you're that fond of your results with their stuff, maybe even try mixing other brands with their stuff -- with some type of knowledge of what and why, of course. If you like their products, again, that's fine -- but at least form an opinion after testing the waters with some other products. How can you say that because you see no problems, that they're the best? Have you tried a grow with no Fox Farm products ever? Do you even know what's in their products? My original points that I made on the 1st page still ring true, in my opinion. If you're growing organically or even just soil-based and you're not mixing your own mixes, then you've still got training wheels on and you're only hurting your own potential. You might surprise yourself with what a little research and some trial and error will do for you. Just my thoughts, after a few Fox Farm AND non-Fox Farm grows.

J Dub

Ive used about a dozen or more companys nutes and seem to always come back to fox farm with a little usage of others as additives such as Humboldt counties products and some botincare Sweet and grotek super H2O2..Every grower finds a product that works for them but to me personally as far as FF nutes I havent seen any change thier soils I can not speak on as only soil i use is Miracle Grow Moisture control for my mother plants as its high nitrogen give me many green branches and many more branch sites to cut

J.W. said:

This thread has certainly got some opinions flying around. It's been a couple days since I posted on this ongoing thread, so I'll share more of my opinion. A lot of the points being made here seem arbitrary. I think sankakugatame raised several good points in his post on page 3, with his reference to marketing being the most on target. These companies are out to make your money, and that doesn't make them the devil, it just makes them a business. They love nothing more than to hear growers like many of us flying off the handle on these threads, quoting their sales pitches verbatim about how great they are. Stop wearing a logo on your arm, and break the Fox Farm mold a little bit. If you're that fond of your results with their stuff, maybe even try mixing other brands with their stuff -- with some type of knowledge of what and why, of course. If you like their products, again, that's fine -- but at least form an opinion after testing the waters with some other products. How can you say that because you see no problems, that they're the best? Have you tried a grow with no Fox Farm products ever? Do you even know what's in their products? My original points that I made on the 1st page still ring true, in my opinion. If you're growing organically or even just soil-based and you're not mixing your own mixes, then you've still got training wheels on and you're only hurting your own potential. You might surprise yourself with what a little research and some trial and error will do for you. Just my thoughts, after a few Fox Farm AND non-Fox Farm grows.

J Dub

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Heres part of it for me, i have found something that works great for me. Also I dont wanna waste 3 months of my life finding out the new soil im using is crap. Its like growing a nice plant and it hermies at 6 weeks. makes you wanna kill someone, lol. foxfarm is good and readily available, just 5 min from my work. I heard of foxfarm on this site, or i never would have bought it. everyone says foxfarm is not the best then what is, i dont want trial and error, thats what this forum is about. doing it right the first time.

If your a newbie, fox farm or any soil isnt for you. Newbs think they are sappose to go full strenght on the hydroponics bottle and get a nice surprise in a week. Ph out of balance? Lime can only do so much. Go half strenght on the nutes and every second or third watering. Go light.
Soilless is way easyer and its almost foolproof. Pro-mix is my top pick for indoor. Very hard to fuck up. You give soilless full strenght every second watering.
ALL soils are "hott" Just go light and you wont have problems

WidowShamus said:

Heres part of it for me, i have found something that works great for me. Also I dont wanna waste 3 months of my life finding out the new soil im using is crap. Its like growing a nice plant and it hermies at 6 weeks. makes you wanna kill someone, lol. foxfarm is good and readily available, just 5 min from my work. I heard of foxfarm on this site, or i never would have bought it. everyone says foxfarm is not the best then what is, i dont want trial and error, thats what this forum is about. doing it right the first time.

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I see what you are saying, and that's kind of what I was saying on my original reply on page 1 of this very thread. If it works for you, then great!! If you've tried a bunch of methods only to realize that you work best wit FF gear, then by all means, stick with it!! I just simply believe that with soils, there is no "best". Much like cooks, us growers use ingredients to create something. Also much like cooks, if we don't know what we're doing and we eff up the results, it's easy to blame an ingredient. In response to "everyone says foxfarm is not the best then what is", I am of the opinion that there is no "best". Soils do vary in quality, sure, but to grow quality Cannabis you HAVE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and modify your mixes, regardless of what soil you use. Despite the pain in the ass of not getting results when experimenting, this is how we learn. If you know what to look for and know WHY you're making changes or trying new things, then I doubt you're going to mess up TOO awful bad. Trial and error is the only way to learn through your own experience. Reading what a bunch of other people do and then sticking to it to "do it right the first time" is a pipe dream, IMHO. If you're not getting better after each grow, then you know the reason why. Again, I'm not downplaying anybody, I just don't want to see people limit their potential by getting "caught up". Just my thoughts.

J Dubs

FF for new growers is actually a good choice if growing hydro/aero. If you follow the chart exactly and keep your ph at 5.5 to 5.8 FF is impossible to burn with

J.W. said:

I see what you are saying, and that's kind of what I was saying on my original reply on page 1 of this very thread. If it works for you, then great!! If you've tried a bunch of methods only to realize that you work best wit FF gear, then by all means, stick with it!! I just simply believe that with soils, there is no "best". Much like cooks, us growers use ingredients to create something. Also much like cooks, if we don't know what we're doing and we eff up the results, it's easy to blame an ingredient. In response to "everyone says foxfarm is not the best then what is", I am of the opinion that there is no "best". Soils do vary in quality, sure, but to grow quality Cannabis you HAVE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and modify your mixes, regardless of what soil you use. Despite the pain in the ass of not getting results when experimenting, this is how we learn. If you know what to look for and know WHY you're making changes or trying new things, then I doubt you're going to mess up TOO awful bad. Trial and error is the only way to learn through your own experience. Reading what a bunch of other people do and then sticking to it to "do it right the first time" is a pipe dream, IMHO. If you're not getting better after each grow, then you know the reason why. Again, I'm not downplaying anybody, I just don't want to see people limit their potential by getting "caught up". Just my thoughts.

J Dubs

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This is why you only start with three plants and work your way up. I made a mistake of starting with a hundred and failed. Almost didnt want to grow again. I learnt alot. I should have started small.

J.W. said:

I see what you are saying, and that's kind of what I was saying on my original reply on page 1 of this very thread. If it works for you, then great!! If you've tried a bunch of methods only to realize that you work best wit FF gear, then by all means, stick with it!! I just simply believe that with soils, there is no "best". Much like cooks, us growers use ingredients to create something. Also much like cooks, if we don't know what we're doing and we eff up the results, it's easy to blame an ingredient. In response to "everyone says foxfarm is not the best then what is", I am of the opinion that there is no "best". Soils do vary in quality, sure, but to grow quality Cannabis you HAVE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and modify your mixes, regardless of what soil you us, maybe even learned a little e. Despite the pain in the ass of not getting results when experimenting, this is how we learn. If you know what to look for and know WHY you're making changes or trying new things, then I doubt you're going to mess up TOO awful bad. Trial and error is the only way to learn through your own experience. Reading what a bunch of other people do and then sticking to it to "do it right the first time" is a pipe dream, IMHO. If you're not getting better after each grow, then you know the reason why. Again, I'm not downplaying anybody, I just don't want to see people limit their potential by getting "caught up". Just my thoughts.

J Dubs

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definately respect that. thanks for all your input, thats what i asked for when starting this thread. also the professional approach that you brought has been pleasing to read. Shamus