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Stupid or useless ingredients

Only Ornamental

Only Ornamental

Spiritually inspired agnostic mad scientist
Veteran
I'd like to start a thread about ingredients (sure, they first need to be listed though they seldom are) of fertilisers and additives where you think "What the heck should that be good for?".
Maybe it's really a stupid and useless ingredient, maybe you simply don't know cause nobody knows it all, or it's there for a purpose but does have secondary effects too. Could also be a suspicion...

I just wonder because for example certain flavouring agents affect plants and some here say that product X smells like this or that. A grower might think "An additive with an aroma? WTF!" when maybe, just maybe, there's more behind it than just masking the chemical stench of the product.
 
Absolem

Absolem

Active member
Hey OO

As far useless ingredients I would say all the dyes used in liquid fertilizer. Like GH three part flora series and their pH up and down. Or all the dyes used in the sugar water to add "flavor".
 
B

bigganjabud

Erm do you mean like water in liquid nutrient?

All nutes are minerals and certain companies sell them in a cheated powder form

Just my tuppence
 
Only Ornamental

Only Ornamental

Spiritually inspired agnostic mad scientist
Veteran
Thanks for the contributions!

Absolem said:
...As far useless ingredients I would say all the dyes used in liquid fertilizer...
Click to expand...
Any idea which ones? Do they even list them?
bigganjabud said:
Erm do you mean like water in liquid nutrient?

All nutes are minerals and certain companies sell them in a cheated powder form...
Click to expand...
Water? LoL! Okay, you got me :) . There are, at least in theory, ways of making liquid fertilisers without adding water or any other liquid... Not sure if the nutrient profile and ratios would hold but more important the price for the raw material is around $ 50-100 per litre. Why would I know the price? I know said theory and did the maths for fun. It wouldn't be a pure mineral fertiliser and it might not even be registrable although not containing anything synthetic or unnatural... but the fertiliser laws are sometimes very restrictive (which also explains why many products are so similar).
But what do you mean by cheated powders? Sure, some additives needed during the granulation process and to prevent caking are quite "inert" or even subpar although others might contribute to the fertiliser itself (like clay dust or chalk).
rolandomota said:
I saw some purple x i think to make weed more purple lol what a steaming pile of bullshit
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Well... they also sell blue roses and orchids... just add some food colouring to the water and voilà ;) . I think it's already stupid with ornamentals and cut flowers and wouldn't want coloured weed, that's for sure!
 
BubbaBear

BubbaBear

Member
I've never seen any positive effects from root feeding silicate, I used potassium silicate for several years and orthosilicic acid products like Aptus Fasilitor for a couple years, I cut them out of my regimen and see no difference in my plants.

A few foliar feeds may help strengthen cell walls but but dumping silicate in your reservoir like everyone does just spikes your PH so you need extra PH down to get your PH in check and your plants can only take up about 1300 ppm of nutrients so your just feeding your plants extra bullshit taking the place of good old NPK.

If anything I've seen negative effects from feeding heavy levels of Fasilitor like Aptus tells you to do(double the dosage the first two weeks of flower to stop stretch) is what they instruct you to do, not only does that not work but it messes with the plants osmosis causing the plant to hold to much water making branches weak and brittle. Calcium is what you want for strong plants not silicate.
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Useless ingredients? Useless for newbie growers is anything other than NPK and micros. I'm a firm believer in learning what base nutrients do for cannabis, before playing with other ingredients.

Unless you have something to compare it with, additional ingredients are a wasted shot in the dark. :biggrin:
 
C

Cannabologist

Active member
Veteran
Dyes aren't quite useless - they are often used so that people, mostly children, do not mistake the liquid for plain water, and so do not drink it. This happens often in terms of coloring agents, it's primarily a safety issue, though most do not often realize this.
 
Only Ornamental

Only Ornamental

Spiritually inspired agnostic mad scientist
Veteran
Sure, colours help seeing where the liquid is (quite practical during manufacturing and handling) but in the current era of Coke, Fanta, and Gatorade it's hard to believe that a child wouldn't drink a liquid because it's coloured and tastes funny... rather the opposite! :D
 
Drewsif

Drewsif

Member
Calmag plus is local tap water.

Sweeteners are simple sugars and plant esters (contaminants) that absorb into the plant .
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
BubbaBear said:
I've never seen any positive effects from root feeding silicate, I used potassium silicate for several years and orthosilicic acid products like Aptus Fasilitor for a couple years, I cut them out of my regimen and see no difference in my plants.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I've used Pro-Tekt for several years now, DWC. I've found the structural strength to be greatly improved during veg. Overuse during flower ruins quality.

Definitely worth using in hydro.
 
Only Ornamental

Only Ornamental

Spiritually inspired agnostic mad scientist
Veteran
BillFarthing said:
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Uptake of all five amino acids [in soil] occurred at 2 μM and below[/FONT]
Click to expand...
That's more than a 1'000 times below the commonly used concentration of nitrate (in cannabis growing).
This simply gives an idea why amino acids may not contribute to nitrogen supply and show unpredictable or contradictory effects on yield. Under this aspect, their effects are of different nature than as source for macronutrients.
Very interesting subject and I'd like to hear personal experiences from IC users.
 
BubbaBear

BubbaBear

Member
Douglas.Curtis said:
Interesting, I've used Pro-Tekt for several years now, DWC. I've found the structural strength to be greatly improved during veg. Overuse during flower ruins quality.

Definitely worth using in hydro.
Click to expand...

Try adding extra calcium instead of silicate. For me silicate gives me strong but brittle branches that snap off the stalk easy, extra calcium gives me strong woody branches that are strong but playable . Grow more makes a great nitrogen free cal-mag I really like
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Plenty of calcium in my mix, appreciate the suggestion though. Brittle is too much silica, been there and done that. I generally don't use more than 5ml/gallon, every few weeks in veg. Flower gets about the same amount when the res is first mixed, none the rest of the run. :)

I get my mag from epsom salts and the sulfur is excellent for a boost to terpene production.
 
DoubleTripleOG

DoubleTripleOG

Chemdog & Kush Lover Extraordinaire
ICMag Donor
Any of the expensive rooting powders. Hormex makes a line of rooting powders that increase in price as the concentration of Indole-3-butyric acid increases. I have done a side by side with the #3 Hormex , #8 Hormex , and a $5 bottle of Garden Safe brand rooting powder you can get at Wal-Mart.

The $5 Garden Safe brand was the first to get root's on the cuts. #3 and #8 weren't far behind. But at $14 and $18 each, totally not worth it. $5 bottle works just fine.
 
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