- Thread starter
- #181
Sorry for the delayed replies and I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! 
Good discussions while I was gone!
Also, I'm not sure how long it takes you to feed your plants or how you value your time, but in 16 weeks, you would be feeding 48 times with your current nutes and with GeoFlora, you would be feeding only 8 times.
Good discussions while I was gone!
I'm not aware of peer reviewed studies other than those done by me and numerous other growers - it works!
I'm 420% sure you can find inexpensive fertilizers out there, but to use the same ratio (i.e. 10-10-10) all the way through the growth cycle for cannabis just doesn't account for the changing needs of the plant. IMHO, if there's enough Nitrogen for veg, there's probably too much Nitrogen for flower. Most nutes for cannabis are two or three part and the GeoFlora pricing compares favorably to other good nutrient lines. Then again, until a couple of years ago, I was using AN, so I'm used to paying some HIGH prices!Thank you, Mr. Krip. What threw me was that ounces can be used to measure both volume and weight and the only time they are interchangeable is with a substance with the same density (weight to volume ratio) identical to water but I see when they convert from ounces to cups they say it is only approximated so apparently the density of their product is close enough to water that they use ounce for both weight and density interchangeably. GEOFLORA Organic Dry Nutrients
Using your calculations for 16 weeks assuming an eight-week veg and eight week flower period that works out to $24 for one plant in a 10-gallon pot.
With the single part chemical fertilizer I am using I bought 9.9 kg or 9900 g for $119.29. Assuming I feed my 10-gallon pot 6 g times 2 gallons three times per week for 16 weeks during the life of my plant I would use 216 g. That is based on the assumption I would give maximum doses throughout its entire life so this is considerably larger than the actual amount for simplicity of calculation. Dividing the 9.9 kg by the 216 g each plant would take determines my 9.9 kg bag could fertilize 49 plants and dividing the initial cost of $119.29 by the 45.83 plants it can grow means my chemical fertilizer costs me $2.60 per plant in a 10-gallon pot over its life.
$24 divided by $2.60 means that going organic would cost conservatively 9.2 times as much as using chemical fertilizers per plant. Not saying the cost is prohibitive this is just the reality in dollars and cents between organic and chemical. Now I am starting to understand why the organic strawberries at the grocery store cost so much.
Also, I'm not sure how long it takes you to feed your plants or how you value your time, but in 16 weeks, you would be feeding 48 times with your current nutes and with GeoFlora, you would be feeding only 8 times.Yes! With quadlining, there's a lot of extra time spent on LST training the plant horizonally. With UBT, it's just a method of topping.
I do agree it is more but you are comparing it to one of the cheapest chemical fertilizers on the market right now though. If you look at the cost of what some of the other chemical and liquid fertilizers are with their various bottles, the cost could be more on par.
What drew me to it is being able to grow organic with a 1-part (in my eyes since you only use one at a time and never both) fertilizer, plus only dosing every two weeks vs mixing almost daily with the chemical fertilizer the both of us are using. That extra cost may just be the cost of going the KISS organic way vs the easy chemical way. Now as far as results, that’s what I’m here for (no pressure @Mr. Krip).
This method is primarily for seedlings since you need to have opposing nodes. When I UBT, I'm really taking my first clone. Usually, that first clone will also have opposing nodes and can also be UBT'd. By the time you're ready to clone again, the plant will be more mature and many times will then be producing staggering nodes which don't lend themself to a 4-cola UBT. As Brother @Radogast points out, you want enough roots to sustain four colas instead of the one you just removed, so letting it grow out a little before the UBT helps.
There is very little time lost with UBT, the plant just gets a few nodes shorter, but growth rate doesn't stall, at all.
That's the "apical dominance" which makes the main stem always more dominant than the side stems so the plant tries to put all it's growth energy to the highest point. When we top, LST, or supercrop, we're forcing the apical dominance to other parts of the plant.
):
i bet your tolerance is pretty high..lol..
Actually this sounds like quadlining but still you shared great information for me. I've been thinking about clones and topped plants for a while and got some unanswered questions. First I am not sure if later generations of clones are weaker than the original. Is that a fact? Second, does topping plants from a higher point damage the yield? I got my second question almost answered after reading the thread a couple of minutes ago.
and this is basically like mainlining from a higher point. I don't imply that I found something great but I noticed some advantages of this type of training. First, when I'm able to use red dominant spectrum on veg. I observe a great stretch. I strip the side branches frequently and only focus on the crown. Plant doesn't need to spread its energy into sidebranches and only to the top. I leave some fan leaves and some nodes occasionally but after plant reaches the desired height, I top it and strip everything below the remaining two nodes. While vegging under red dominant spectrum, stalks of the plants are also getting girthier. Blowing fans on the plant also helps to get a girthier body. After that point, you'll have a three weeks old plant ready for training. I think plants that old and big can fill a 3x3 SCROG net in 1-2 weeks for coco. If you add an extra week for vertical growth, then you have lots of longer cola sites. Then you can flip and trim everything besides the many secondary colas until bloom week two or three. These many secondary tops are may even be tertiary tops because sometimes, mostly when another problem is present, a plant just can't fill too many long colas even in hydro if the plant gets too big. If you got fewer colas from lower nodes, they will bulk up much more than these. But still, the average size of these nugs are more than acceptable because you got lots of them. Here is a below average example of these many nugs on my Purple Punch, which yielded over 350g inside 3x3 with thrips 
I haven't seen you in ages and very happy you stopped by. 