interesting findings on advanced nutrients comparison

i found a few interesting things about AN's products.


for example, take a look at their NPK ratios. notice how they have generally kept the same NPK values after all these "improvements." also, notice how you get the exact same results with GH 3 part as base. i will say however, that GH 3 part has exponentially more metals in their products (not a good thing). take a look at the conni line vs the 3 part lines..... practically the same thing! now, the connie line is supposed to be "super chelated" but really, how much of a difference does that make?



after this discovery, i wanted to see what other tricks may be up AN's sleeves. all these times i hear people preaching that powder is a more bang for the buck. this is the furthest from the truth! take a look at bud blood which AN would claim is superior to bud ignitor. you would think that bud blood being older, less effective, and in powder form be cheaper than bud ingitor.....yet bud blood is $70 more!

then i took a look at big bud powder vs big bud liquid. very similar results. big bud powder is $37 more than liquid!

while looking at the chemical make up of overdrive i realized it looked identical to botanicare CNS17 ripe. in fact they are the exact same thing. to further prove this to myself i threw in the numbers into the canna stats calculator. look at the ppm results...the same thing! if you go with CNS17 ripe will you save a whopping $81!

another thing to remember is the liquid nutrients are apparently chelated while the powders are not.

You have some interesting spreadsheets there!

IMO it's better to take the final ppm-s into account, instead of adding up the NPK-s when comparing nutrient profiles.
It's not a good idea to simply add up all those NPK-s and compare them, because the fertilizers application rate counts too.

So first we have to calculate the final ppms for every element we get when mixed the nutrients according to the recommended application rates, week by week.
Since the nutrient levels will differ every week, we have to compare feeding schedules week by week, or at least stage by stage (veg vs veg, flo vs flo).

When comparing two fertilizers, an important thing that is often not taken into account is their pH, this will determine the amount of "pH up" or "down" needs to be used with them, and this adds a significant amount of nutrient into the final solution.
Sometimes people add more P with "pH down" than they add with the fertilizer.

An other thing is the way NPK is expressed on their labels.
AN express it as w/v%, GH express it as w/w%, this can easily lead to a 15% difference in the level of contained nutrients when someone puts their weight into the cannastats calculator.

More on these at SrhoomDr's thread.

I'll post some more info later.

i figured that since the AN calculator keeps the base nutes at a constant 4mL and all additives at 2mL that it wouldnt make much of a difference. in order to do a more precise calculation all you need to do is plug all these numbers into the canna stats calculator (which i may do next time im super bored)

good point on the pH up and down. but according to AN all their products are "pH perfect"

Advanced Nutrients Grow/Micro/Bloom "Grandmaster level" (= with all the additives)
VS.
GH Flora Drain To Waste "Expert" (= with all the additives)

GH's application schedule use growth stages (like seedling, mild growth, growth, transition, etc.).
AN use weeks, this makes the comparison a little bit harder, but it's easy to spot some main differences in this diagram:


For example:
- AN gives 2x as much K, Ca, Mg, and N than GH
- during flowering, GH gives more P than N

The same thing as numbers:


And NPK ratios.


It might take some time to understand this graph, but NPK ratio is an important aspect of nutrient programs perhaps more important than the actual levels of each nutrient.

wow those charts are awesome! where did you find them? i would love to get my hands on some other graphs as well or maybe even find out how to make my own. i would love to see comparison charts of the connie vs sensi.

I'm glad you like them.

I used an excel spreadsheet to make these.
I can upload it, but it was made for my own use, I doubt that anyone else could use it in it's present form, although I tried to make it user friendly but because of lack of interest, I stopped working on it.

Connoisseur "Hobbyist"
VS
Sensi 2 part Bloom "Hobbyist"
(based on these schedules and product labels http://advancednutrients.com/hydroponics/oregon/calc/index.php)


They look very similar on the first diagram, but one could point out the difference in Ca and N levels:



With numbers



And an other type of diagram:



It might seems to be complicated at the first glance, but after a little while it can be very useful when someone wants to see the difference between each nutrient levels, just by looking at them. For example.:
At the lower right diagram (indicated by Mg) you can see the levels of magnesium provided by Connoisseur (beige line) and Sensi (blue line), as it can be seen at the top of every picture.
Beige line is higher than blue line so Connoisseur provides more Mg.
The difference between them is indicated by the red dashed line. It's the same on every week, and its about 10. (12 when I hoover the mouse over the dashed line)
There is no difference in the levels of K, so the red dashed line is at 0, and the beige and the blue line are over each other.


Ratios (not too useful in this case)


This one is better now, to quickly compare NPK ratios week by week.


First two columns (blue and red) are for N, middle columns are for P, the last two are for K.

At the first week of flowering (Flo1)
Connoisseur has an NPK ratio of :
2,3 : 1 : 3,8 (blue columns)
Sensi has an NPK ratio of:
3 : 1 : 3,7 (red columns)

Doesn't all this assume that these companies are being honest about what's in their products? Do we have any reason to believe them? Seems like I've read a LOT of people who work in the industry claim that companies regularly and intentionally lie. Isn't this why product availability varies from state to state as officials test and find lacking the disclosure on nutes?

I'm not trying to sling muck, it's an honest question. I admit I have no knowledge of this, but have read it from many well known posters and several sites. Just curious what ya'll think of that issue?

An other thing is the way NPK is expressed on their labels.
AN express it as w/v%,

Click to expand...

Are you sure?

Cool charts. You should do a cost per gallon of each different nutrient recipe.

Avenger said:

Are you sure?

Click to expand...

That's what their tech support told me by email:

"For the liquid products the NPK% are listed as W/V (weight/volume) while the powders are listed as W/W (weight/weight.)"


Bugler: Yep, that's a big problem when comparing nutrients, even if they are honest, NPK can differ by 1 or 2 percents from what they state on the label.
In the EU, even the fertilizer regulation does allow 1 percent differences.

But at least there is one thing we know for sure, they are shooting for that NPK, and there's maybe a reason for that.

An other thing is there are not just growshop ferts, anyone can mix their own, or buy from a reputable company, so the exact NPK will be known, comparing feed schedules made for different plants like tomatoes, trying to learn from those while analysing them... etc
I believe most (if not all) the fertilizer solutions sold in growshops are just watered down fertilizer salts, the purpose of their being is to make profit, thats all.
Anyone can make their own.


Anyway I hope these infos, or the spreadsheet itself will come in handy one day.

Tester, those charts are simply amazing are are right up my ally. I love this kind of research! I am going to have to study them after work and I'll definitely have some questions.

Just at first glance it seems like connie and sensi are very very similar.

Good job on those. Love revealing data

The last post before mine was in 2010. So apparently I'm 7 years late...
But hey, at least a good old thread will be bumped up for people to read again.