Oh then you definitely know what I'm talking about.
Drastic indeed, can open the closet twice a day and still be shocked by the growth. Last round I had 4 plants I didn't top or train at all, was selecting a mom for some seeds and wanted to see their structure without training. Two of them increased a whopping ~1200% in size (from 5inch tall to 60, stem like a broomstick). Germinated and a little preveg as seedling under 54watt only, then 2-3 days in the flower tubes before the switch. Check out the two on the left in the back:
Switched to 12/12 (2 buckets to be removed, males)
View attachment 3026894
A little over 20 days later:
View attachment 3026895
The one right in the back is just a very stretchy (failed) cross of my own. But, the one in center front is the mother of the clones I linked to in my previous post, the node spacing after transition on the clones is about half of that on the mom. A huge and welcome difference.
H&G A component NPK 3-0-3
H&G B component NPK 1-3-6
AB Combined: NPK 4-3-9
When using little or no Multizen (4-0-1) during veg, that's not a bad ratio at all. Last round I used a little more A than B during veg and transitioning, basically wanted to see if I could get away with using just A and B. The combined N-P-K of 4-3-9 is very doable during veg but while I'm not a big fan of high P boosters or high P throughout the entire flowering phase, I essentially want to lower the N slowly during the flowering stage, while increasing the P a bit.
GHE (FloraDuo) Bloom is 1-5-3. I know of some growers who use merely that product (without Grow, which is 5-0-5) and go straight to 12/12 (from rooted clones), and do fine yield-wise but often end up with premature yellowing and a yellow harvest. GHE Bloom alone is too high on P (imo), I don't want to the P to be higher than the K at any point. As you can see, by combining some GHE Bloom with H&G AB I can effectively lower the N
and give it a little PK boost in week 5/6 (GHE Bloom+ extra H&G B).
The past few rounds with H&G led to the best and most frosty results I had, it'll be interesting to see how using GHE Bloom as an additive will influence that, or hopefully won't. If it doesn't work out and end up with premature yellowing, I may use Bud XL again next round. Also being 4-0-1, it's odd, because others (Canna, or take Ripen with zero N from GHE for example) tend to focus on P and K at the end of the flowering period, while Bud XL is mostly N and zero P. If I wouldn't know better by now, that would 'feel' like adding veg/grow nutes at the end. It more than evens out if you use the high PK shooter but while I'm pretty sure the XL means little to nothing, I have wondered several times if and how much it influenced the result quality-wise.
Just found this thread via random house and garden google search, haven't got the chance to read every post, I've skimmed threw it some. very interesting. Thought id'e give my 2 cents with the products and my regimen.
House and Garden aqua flakes can grow some wild huge plants very fast both in veg and bloom no doubt. knowing this i can use this to my advantage though, less veg times, less plants, bigger plants = bigger harvests. Running large scrog nets ie 4'x4'+ works to my advantage with such massive vegetative growth.
House and Garden Roots Excel, old recipe, silver bottles works great, but they no longer make it anymore, it is a different product recipe on today's shelfs, the new formula sucks IMO.
This forced me to try General Hydroponics Rapid start. I was blown away at how much this product makes a difference in root development. Now if GH changes this shit i will be pissed the F*** off!!!
Here's my recipe with my personal touch, works great every time for me!
I use both HM and Blue lab tds/ppm pens
Veg-
Ro water
House and Garden aqua flakes ab equal parts 300-500 tds, depending plant size and growth rates.
Rapid Start 1ml-gal all through veg
Botanicare Silica Blast 1ml-gal all through veg
Ph if necessary, i don't find i need to after adding in this order, takes me to 5.8-6.0.
weekly water changes will yield the most impressive results!
Bloom-
Ro water
House and Garden aqua flakes ab equal parts 500-750 tds, depending on stage and growth of plants.
Rapid Start 1ml-gal first 2-3 wks of transitional bloom, drop after that.
Botanicare Silica Blast 1ml-gal till week 4-5 of bloom, drop after that.
Note- you can run just this and have a successful harvest. if you want to step up production/quality add below.
Liquid Kool Bloom/Top Booster (2ml-gal with KB), (3-4ml-gal with TB) weeks 4, 5 or 6 for one week only then drop. Week used is strain dependent, ie 8-10 week finishers.
Kool Bloom Powder/MOAB/Beastie Bloomz etc. 1/8-1/4 tsp-gal run the last 3 weeks of bloom. I've never used top shooter so i cant speak for that product.
Flush for one week with plain ro water, then harvest!
Tip-
you can encourage faster bud sites and or stop transitional stretch the first week of bloom by adding either liquid kool bloom/top booster the first week of flower. I don't practice this much because i anticipate the benefits from the transitional stretch, but if my plants are to big going into flower, or for some reason i would need to keep them squat i will do this.
I've just recently started using bud xl. I will post what i think about this product after i experiment with it some more. being its a carb product i should easily be able to distinguish a difference between running it or not, given i know exactly what to expect with my current strains and regimens not having used it before.
i have one question about drip clean after seeing the first post about it "messing up plants if not used from the beginning". and i didnt see a rebuttal on that . whats the conclusion on that statement, i was considering it??
hg