In the world of hydroponic nutrients you have two paths to go down.
You have your liquid nutrient lines like this one from General Hydroponics,
very classic line.
Then you have your dry or powdered nutrients like this one that we're taking a
look at from Growershouse.com, this is the Veg+Plus Bloom line.
Now in this video we're going to talk about the reasons you might choose one
over the other. So let's go ahead and get into it.
Liquid nutrients are the way that I started out gardening in general actually.
Hydroponics was the very first method I ever tried and this particular line from
General Hydroponics, the FloraGro,
FloraBloom and FloraMicro are the ones that I used.
So when you're talking about a liquid nutrient, it's just, it was the norm.
It's what everyone used and it's slowly,
slowly falling out of favor specifically because what you're buying is a lot of
water. You're paying for the weight of shipping that water and you're paying for
oftentimes more bottles than you might need.
And the reason for that is because number one, the salts that are used,
have to be water-soluble. They have to work in this format. Number two,
they may react with one another and so that's why these are split up.
For example, when you're mixing General Hydroponics,
you want to put this one in first your FloraMicro and then you go ahead and add
these two. In addition, you do have to make sure that you shake these up,
especially the FloraMicro, nice and good before you use them.
If you were to potentially leave one of these caps slightly open like I did
here, you can see you lose some to evaporation,
you lose the water through evaporation and you know in general these lines can
get a little intense. This one certainly is a compact three bottle line,
but I mean some of the brands out there have insane families, if you will,
of liquid hydroponic nutrients and really it comes down to cost.
You are just simply paying more money for the privilege or the convenience,
I suppose you could say, of having it mixed already.
And that brings us to dry or powdered nutrients. As you might imagine,
the very first benefit right out of the gate is simply that you're not paying to
ship the water.
And so everything in here is a nutrient concentrate.
And so let's go ahead and open one up. This is the Veg+Bloom Ro/Soft.
And so what that's basically saying is it's recommended for use if you're using
reverse osmosis water or you just have soft water.
So it's recommended for water quality between 0 and 0.3 EC.
Then they also have the Tap/Hard. So this one is from point yeah,
0.3 to 0.7 so this would be the one I would use.
My water tends to be on the harder side.
If I was setting a system up right now and mixing nutrients,
this would be the one I would use.
Then they have Dirty and they also have hard dirty (HD).
So Dirty is specifically recommended for peat based applications,
soil based applications and Hard/Dirty is a mixture of course of this one and
this one and it's recommended for things like rockwool or inert media. Now,
let's go ahead and take a look.
The other thing that's giving you a clue here is Veg+Bloom.
And so all of these four right here,
which are engineered for specific water quality actually are a full nutrient,
a complete nutrient. It's an 8-5-13 and so it'll take you all the way through.
Although of course as you can see right here,
there are some other products that you could consider.
Let's go ahead and take a look on the inside.
What you're left with is a container and you have a resealable plastic bag and
this is dramatically more cost effective as compared to buying these types of
bottles.
Another thing I would recommend when you're using a dry nutrient like this is as
soon as you open it up,
especially if you're in a humid environment or potentially have spilled any
water or anything like that, get those silica desiccant packs and pop one in.
So the instant you open this, take a silica desiccant pack and throw it in.
Some of the things that um, they use to make shoes smell less bad,
all that sort of good stuff because you don't want to risk any water getting in
here.
Another thing that's important to remember here is while of course you have to
shake things like FloraMicro or the liquid nutrients before you use,
it's also a good idea to give this a light little shake just because the
particle sizes aren't uniform.
And so of course the smaller ones will fall down and the larger ones will stay
on top. And so it's a good idea to give them a nice little shake before you use.
But really it's much more easy to manage because all you do is open it up,
use what you need,
close it and you don't have to worry about making sure the cap is on.
You don't have to worry about spillage. I mean,
I dunno how many times I've spilled my FloraMicro or my FloraGrow.
Any of these really, Micro is the worst to spill though because it's so,
it's so dark and it just stains everything.
Whereas you can kind of get away with spilling this. Not a good idea anyways,
but this is just easier to manage.
Now while you can get yourself all the way from Veg through Bloom,
aptly named with these ones right here,
they do have a couple other ones that are kind of nice. First of all, for me,
coming from the world of soil these days,
most of the time I do like the addition of beneficial bacteria.
This is the +Life, and then you have an 8-0-0 Stackswell.
This is a plant growth powder, another one that you can add in.
And then of course if you're going crazy with the blooming and you have a
0-22-12 this is the Shine Bloom Additive.
So there are some other things that you can add in,
certainly not absolutely required, but for your specific growing application,
it may be worthwhile for you. So hydroponics can get pretty expensive.
You have your lighting systems, your dosing systems, your measurement tools.
All of that really adds up. And of course the nutrients add up. And so to me,
if there really aren't a ton of downsides to going with a dry nutrient,
then it makes sense to make that switch. Yes,
it can take a little bit of time to get used to mixing it and all of that,
but it just makes more sense.
It's simply more cost effective and there really aren't that many downsides as
compared to a liquid nutrient. Now, look,
I don't have anything against liquid nutrients per se.
This General Hydroponics three part series,
which is one of the more basic ones out there,
has proven to be quite effective for me and I've grown for years and years with
it and only recently have I switched over to dry nutrients.
And so I'm evolving as well.
It just seems like the jig is up and it makes a lot of sense. I mean look,
even in my soil garden when I'm using like an organic granular fertilizer out in
my raised beds,
I'm always preferring that as compared to a water soluble liquid fertilizer if
possible. Sometimes you do need a fast feed,
but if I can get away with a slow release fertilizer just amending prior to
planting or something like that,
then I'm always going to do that because it's just simply more cost effective.
And I'm not out here trying to spend the most money in the garden,
I don't know about you guys. But anyways,
I hope that was informative as to the differences between these two types of
nutrients. Again, a huge thank you to Growershouse for sending these out.
You can find links in the video description and,
and thanks to Veg+Bloom as well. And until next time, guys,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.