- Hi, Ethan Walter here with Bright Agrotech.
Today we'll be giving you a beginners guide to NPK
and nutrient solutions.
Hopefully by the end of this video
you will understand exactly what
these three letters stand for.
(upbeat music)
So what does NPK stand for?
If you've ever bought any fertilizer or nutrient solution
you will see these three numbers
clearly displayed somewhere on the packaging.
That stands for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
N, P and K.
If you paid attention during high school chemistry
you should hopefully know this.
So these three numbers here represent
the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium
that is available in this fertilizer.
These three numbers will always be
in that same order of N, P and K.
And should be clearly displayed
on just about any fertilizer you will buy.
Will every nutrient solution come with
all three of these nutrients included?
The answer is for a complete and balanced fertilizer, yes.
But this is not always the case.
Frequently you will often see blooming fertilizers
which will have no nitrogen at all.
So they will just display
a big fat zero for that first number.
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
These are known as
the three essential macronutrients for plant growth.
Without these your plants will not be able to thrive.
So what are the benefits of each
of these three nutrients for plants?
To start with Nitrogen, your first number,
that is the green up nutrient.
This is what makes your plants green.
It makes them grow big
and it makes then grow strong.
Nitrogen is listed first because it is the
absolute most important nutrient in your solution.
Phosphorus is essential for blooming.
It helps with all reproductive phases of your plants.
So if you want a lot of blooms, a lot of flowers,
if you want to produce a lot of fruit or a lot of seed,
you want phosphorus in your solution.
Potassium plays a very essential role
in plant photosynthesis, as well as CO2 uptake
and activation of plant enzymes.
As well as regulating water uptake within the plants.
It is also essential for building strong healthy stems,
as well as producing strong viable seeds.
Since they only list these three numbers,
N, P and K on the front of your bottle of nutrient solution,
you may think that these are
the only nutrients that your plants need.
Unfortunately, you would be wrong.
There are several micronutrients which play
pivotal roles in the production of plants.
They are just used in much smaller quantities,
not anywhere near as much as N, P and K.
That's why they concentrate on these.
But most complete and balanced fertilizer solutions
will also contain other micronutrients
and other elements in the solution
for complete and total plant growth.
You may notice that these three numbers
do not add up to a hundred percent.
These are percentages of your solution.
So what is in the rest of your solution?
If you're using a liquid, a lot if it's water.
You gotta have a carrier agent for these nutrients.
Also, there are the essential micro elements.
That makes up a portion of the solution as well.
Another thing to bear in mind is that these are not
pure elemental forms of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
It has to be available in a form
in which the plant can take it up.
So there are other elements and other weights
that are combining to make up the rest of this solution.
For example, if you look at phosphate,
it is listed as the phosphate molecule,
not pure elemental phosphorus.
It is P2O5, is the actual molecule
that plants are using to take up.
An important thing to note is that
there are several different sources for these nutrients.
If you look on the back of this bottle of Dyna-Gro,
for example, there are actually two sources
that make up that 9% nitrogen.
There is 2.9% ammoniacal nitrogen,
which as you can imagine, would be ammonia derived,
and then there is 6.1% nitrate nitrogen.
Just to reiterate, these are not pure elemental formats
of these nutrients, there are several different
molecular compounds that can be used
to supply these essential nutrients to plants.
The quality of that nutrient will depend on
which compound is used,
and using which compound for that nutrient
will vary greatly depending on what you're end goal is,
Whether you're in soil or hydroponics,
and many other factors.
So a source like Dyna-Gro is synthetically derived.
You may be wondering to yourself
if there is an organic option.
The answer is yes, there is,
but there are some trade offs with going organic
in a hydroponic setup.
Some potential trade offs with organics
is that you need a very strong microbial community
in your nutrient solution.
The microbes are what drives organic growing,
they cycle the nutrients and make them available
in a format that plants can use,
much like these nutrients in a synthetic solution
are already available in that format.
So if you don't have a strong microbial community
an organic solution really won't work for you.
Another drawback of it is
it takes time to culture that microbial community.
So if you go organics, it's always recommended
to let your reservoir set up and culture
and begin to cycle those nutrients
so that by the time you do have plants into your system,
the nutrients are available for plants.
If it has not had time to culture
and cycle those nutrients, there will basically be
no available nutrient for your plants.
One final drawback of organics and hydroponics
is some solutions do stink.
Putting a highly microbially active solution into water,
you can wind up with lots and lots
of anerobic microbes that produce
horrible, horrible smells in your grow room.
I know this from experience.
If you've spent any amount of time
looking at fertilizer or nutrient solutions,
you'll notice that these numbers that
they display on the package can vary quite a lot.
So what does that all mean?
How do you know what you need to grow what you want to grow?
The solution is actually quite simple.
What we have here is Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro.
It's what we like to use a lot for lettuce,
greens, anything leafy producing a lot of green growth.
And if you were paying attention earlier you'll notice
I said nitrogen is essential for green leafy growth.
If you look at the numbers on here, 936.
Nitrogen is your nine,
it's the highest in concentration there.
High in nitrogen fertilizers are essential
for producing lots green leafy growth.
That is mostly what you will be using in a ZipGrow system.
If you look at our lettuce formula, however,
you will notice it is very high
in phosphorus and potassium.
And if you have any knowledge on growing
you might say, Ethan, this looks like a bloom formula
for flowering and fruiting plants.
Why would you use it on something green and leafy
like lettuce that you don't want to bloom,
you don't want to produce seeds,
you don't want to produce flowers?
The answer with this is, it is used as a two part solution
in our auto dosing system.
So we will actually supplement this base formula
with calcium nitrate, which provides the calcium
as well as additional nitrogen.
So that reason alone is why you way see
some nutrient solutions which may not have
any nitrogen at all in them, because you are supposed to
supplement it with a two part solution.
Also with blooming, nitrogen isn't super essential,
so when plants get into a bloom phase
they need lower concentrations of this.
Some manufacturers may choose to not put any it at all.
So if there is any confusion on what
is a good idea for what you want to grow,
just remember high nitrogen is good for greens,
leafy vegetables, any lettuce, anything like that.
High phosphorus, high potassium is essential
for flowering and fruiting plants like vegetables.
If you have any further questions,
there is literally tons of information on the internet.
Google is your friend.
We really hope this video helped you out a lot
with understanding what the basic N, P and K,
nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium ratios
are in your fertilizer or nutrient solution.
If you have any questions or suggestions
for videos you would like to see from us
on this topic or other topics in the future,
please let us know in the comments below.
If you would like more information
on how to mix and dose these nutrients right away,
please check out our beginners guide to hydroponics.
Once again, I am Ethan Walter here
with Bright Agrotech, until next time.
(upbeat music)
Ya!