Lets put it this way, our bodies naturally produce testosterone in men, but synthetic testosterone are steroids and putting them in your body has more negative results to contradict the positive results....now, men can increase it naturally by taking food, exercise, or natural supplements, not synthetic products, without the side effects.
APPLY THAT TO PLANTS-if you want to jack up your plants with synthetics and additives-expect some side effects- what they are we do not know exactly yet, we dont know much about plants in general yet imo. They are as complex as humans and are not able to explain their symptoms or emotions as a person could.
Look at what they do to our meat in america and the side effects that it is showing. Asians are starting to eat more fast food and they are all getting more health problems, taller and fatter babies, all sorts of issues, from eating processed, preserved food with a f*ton of additives. Hence the stupidly named "organic" food movement to go hormone and steroid free in our food. Its taken 20yrs to find these things out in
Why is it so hard to at least accept that if you apply the same common knowledge of meat, fruits & veggies, to your smokable fruit- you cannot agree that truely organic/ active soils are safer, tastier, healthier, getting a better balanced diet and overall a better product.
I also have a hard time with people claiming to be all organic and using Kelp, fish oils etc. because that shit is not found in soil! that IMO is worse than using synthetics.
In the end, yes u can basically achieve the same results, sometimes better looking results with synthetics, and yes it is a preference.)Some people prefer to take the easy way out and take steroids instead of working out and eating right...) but i can say without a doubt that active/natural soil is by far the best way to grow, just like naturally fed animals and produce are better for you and taste better.
On a side note i think Veganics is the way to go, but very difficult to learn, very advanced. Im trying to learn all i can and start doing some in small batches at my warehouses soon. I have done hydro and there is no love (im "new school" and believe in energy transfer and all that) and the plants seem to grow less full, have a different high, even when i was in there all the time and did all the normal music and such-and these are clones that i do in sunshine #4 and soil too, with same nutes, same basic watering amounts/times etc (try to be consistent so i find the variable thats making it better or worse), just different results. Tried organic hydro and it was good, but too much work and still not as good as soil. **IMO hydro should go with synthetics bc there is not much difference because the components are broken down before delivered- 1 thing i agree with in this whole thread
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After everything though, i still love FoxFarm with SS#4 and its what i start my patients off with. Easy to control and easy to tell where you messed up. Usually use that with strains I'm unfamiliar with. Its all preference but regardless, i have to say -you get out what you put in. Chefs use raw ingredients, foodies mix their own spices, most people use a premixed bottle. Food all tastes good to the layman, but the connoisseur can tell the slight differences. In the end, it all gets you HIGH