Although not strictly a requirement, they are highly useful - and not just for growing.
I wonder if the results had anything to do with them doing the grow.LMAO.
I wouldn't wish to infer that ANY manufacturer or retailer might be less than perfectly above-board in all things; I tend to give the benefit of the doubt wherever possible unless and until it is proven otherwise.
But it must be said that an unbiased individual with absolutely no commercial interest one way or the other in any of the products concerned is going to give the
impression of being more honest. That's just the way it is - and why "conflict of interest" is an official legal term.
you know they have the money to send a sample to test out
I don't know, lol. Having both a marketing department and keeping "a team of top scientists working night and day" is bound to cost the big bucks, wouldn't you think?
Of course since their own website, when it mentions the three businessmen who founded the business, places "business, marketing" before "horticulture, and engineering" when listing their "extensive combined experience in" - so I suppose that it's possible that they are "better able to leverage their marketing dollars to maximum advantage" (the bit between that last pair of quotes is mine). I couldn't say with one way or the other with any certainty.
so it really makes me wonder if they have a fear of some of the other brands i am using?
I don't know, man. The statements on their (spiffy, I must admit) website certainly lead me to believe that they're the best and most popular brand of all of the available brands of nutrients/supplements.
Of course you could place many of the same claims on a number of their competitors' websites and nobody would have a valid claim for libel. I read that web forums have people who love their products. But... Hey,
PitViper, how are you liking your General Hydroponics products, lol? And a short session with the search engine could produce other growers that just love their particular brand-of-choice. Part of that is because some growers have tried several different brands/combinations and have settled on what works the best for them. Part of it is because sometimes when a grower is starting to grow for the first time, he/she is - to put it kindly - perhaps not the world's best grower, and as said grower switches to other brands in order to try them he/she is also learning HOW to grow and therefore it is more likely (all things being equal) that the products that are tried in latter grows produce better results - because the grower has in the meantime learned more about growing. And part of it is because many growers will choose a product line based on whatever reasoning they use to decide, successfully produce a harvest, and decide that the product line must be outstanding - because look, ma, they got BUDZ (lol).
i know they copied Bud blaster but claimed to have better indigents or something. to be honest i wasn't really looking forward to using them that much, ive seen allot of growers using AN go back to GH. i really wanted to try the FF cha ching.
I'm sure that I've thanked you for doing what you do in a public forum - if I haven't, I should have - but I'll take a second to "say" thanks again for trying things that others haven't tried and to do comparisons between different products that purport to have like functions. If you guys got a nickel for every dollar that you've ubdoubtedly saved the members, well, you'd have a
bunch of nickels.
nope i am done with the swamp coolers. not worth the money to me, taking it back. tomorrow i am going to put a big a/c unit in a near by room. and vent from that room. hopefully that will help out when its 100+F* ill see if its enough venting to keep them cool?
If you can swing it in your setup, a/c beats swamp cooler because a swamp cooler works by humidifying the air (blowing air across a wet surface with a fan causes evaporation, which requires (or to put it another way,
uses) heat but then that moisture is in the air in the form of water-vapor. Air is cooler at that point so while the absolute humidity has gone up, the
relative humidity has gone up even more. So you turn around and throw a dehumidifier into the mix - which works (sort of) in reverse fashion; it condenses the water-vapor back into water, causing it to "give up" its heat to the environment (and through a process that itself creates heat). The two are "duking it out." An a/c dehumidifies the air as a by-product of its cooling-affect.
funny i got an e-mail back from AN and this is what they said. funny how they wont send me some samples but i might get some if i buy their products..lol. No Thanks Ill stick to GH.. i did not expect a company with all that money to not give out free samples, does not look good on them after they bash GH all the time
Nice form-letter. I'm not sure, but I think maybe I like the one from FoxFarm a little bit better. But anyway, lol:
Since you mentioned GH in that paragraph and context, here's something from a "lowly"
competitor. I know this guy, right? (Well, it can be said with complete honesty that I talk to him from time to time.) He decided to write to GH even though he didn't expect much, them being an established company that's been selling, producing, YES researching too, and also donating both products, design ideas, and in some cases labor to various projects, educational venues, and third-world countries for a few decades now and all.
This is paraphrased but believed to be accurate in the main. This guy emailed GH and stated that he might be interested in trying FloraBlend, FloraNectar, and Floralicious plus, except that, "That kind of stuff is, like,
expensive, innit? Do these products actually WORK? If so, how well do they work? If I told you what I currently used, could you compare them for me?"
Someone from General Hydroponics wrote back and said, "Well, I could do that - but why don't you just email me your name and address and you can start finding out for yourself in a week or two when I ship you some of them?"
The guy replied with (something to the affect of), "Oh, you have sample bottles? Cool!" and included his information.
He got another reply which stated, "Sample bottles? LOL. Have fun trying your samples."
So the guy got free samples. He got a QUART bottle of FloraBlend, a QUART bottle of FloraNectar, and a small bottle of Floralicious Plus (I guess it's meant to be used in 1/5th or so amounts that the other two would be?).
He then emailed back profusely expressing his thanks and appreciation and asked if maybe the wrong package was shipped due to the size of the samples (just shipping them probably cost a few bucks) sent.
The GH contact replied (and probably had a good laugh while doing so) that, sure, they could probably start making up tiny little bottles of everything that would require folks to use a magnifying glass to read the micro-sized labels - and that a lot of people would still be so appreciative of the fact that they actually received a response that was written on the spot by a human being (let alone, retail-sized bottles of products) instead of just a form-letter that they would feel good about the experience and purchase some stuff from GH. But that that wasn't their way - that people ought to be able to at least go through a small sample-sized grow using their samples and that way the growers could decide for themselves how the products worked (or not). And that if the products did work, their cost would be more than offset by the fact that the user would be more inclined to purchase more of it in the future and in any event it seemed like a better way to go about things than to just spend that amount of money on advertising and marketing. Also something to the affect that "When you try them out for yourself, if you are happy with the results, you'll tell a few friends and that'll carry a lot more weight with them than any shiny ad copy. And if when you try them, you AREN'T happy with them you'll tell a lot more friends and no amount of ad copy is likely to help." And that they "had a pretty good idea" that the products worked.
I got a kick of hearing about it.
I think the agro product Mfg. have the wrong concept about samples.
I went to the hydro store to buy a product, told the "clerk" what I wanted talked
about it for a few minutes, spent a few minutes reading the labels of similar products, bought & paid for the one I wanted and then the clerk gave me a sample of what I just bought, with the sample I won't even open the qrt. of product I bought for months-LOL.
Doh.
Next time you're interested in a new product, try contacting the manufacturer. Include details such as the products that you currently use, what reason(s) you have for wishing to try their product, et cetera. Be polite and positive and if you've heard/read anything good about that product or the brand, mention it. Not all manufacturers offer free samples - but MANY of them do. After all, if you end up with a product (whether you had to pay for it, it was a sample, or a gift) and it gives results that you like, you're going to purchase more of it, right? They know this! It's not like people are leaching from the manufacturers and are trying to get infinite free grows. Sending out products to try when those products have to be regularly replenished is good business sense and covered under "the cost of doing business." Not to mention that they know that treating a customer like they actually VALUE that customer's business is important.
PS- I used to work somewhere and we offered samples of our products, they were the last-no not even on the priority list, until a month or so before a trade show.
Just FYI
That can happen but it can also work both ways. I've heard of places that produce a certain number of samples at any given time and that when there's a major trade show that they're probably going to take them all to the show and return without any (which makes sense because of the large amount of potential customers that they encounter there). But I've also heard of places that have responded to inquiries with something along the lines of, "Yes, we do generally offer sample-sized samples (lol) but at this time they are all dedicated to (an upcoming trade show/event). The guys in the back told me that it's going to be a while before more are available and from your location I can tell that you aren't near any shows. So I'll just go ahead and send you some full-sized bottles."
And another person that I talked to emailed the company that makes/sells the Rich Earth products (mainstream gardening stuff (OMRI-certified) but with an impressive ingredients list that looks like over 50% of the periodic table of elements, lol) and got a reply from the owner(!) of the company. A couple of back and forth emails and the (rather nice) lady that owns the company stated, "I'm not located at the warehouse but in the office. We don't have samples here but I've got some of each (of the three) product(s) that we carry up here for my own use. Would you mind terribly if I sent you those?" and then sent some fairly large containers of the stuff that were at least half-full.
So you never can tell, and when it's all said and done, it doesn't hurt to ask. And you can always try asking at your local hydroponics store if all else fails since the same companies that send samples to prospective customers also routinely send them to the stores with the intentions of them being given to people to try.
The price is almost double that of GH.
How odd. Their website makes a point to state that their products are the best value. I guess that must mean that they will produce at least double of what GH's products produce then (since to be a better value, it would have to be at least slightly more than the same factor that the price is higher, right?
I really was hoping to get to see these products in action in the real-world by someone that I have learned to trust from reading previous journals. But I guess I can understand your reticence to spend your money to obtain the products if the manufacturer doesn't (appear to) trust the product enough to feel that the possibility that you'll get results that are good enough - that is to say, better than other like products - to cause you to purchase it in the future would offset the actual cost for them to produce the product and ship it to you.
BUT - isn't AN a sponsor here? Maybe if an email is sent requesting it, one of the people at the company would respond here and give their reasons (there may be valid ones that none of us have thought of? Or they just might not like sending out samples which is of course their right) or at least be willing to discuss the product in question in relation to the products that you are going to be testing. I assume after looking at some of their labels, product names, and ads that they're definitely NOT afraid of a cannabis-related venue, lol.
)..The price is almost double that of GH. So I guess it's the least they can do if your spending that kind of dough..
