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Nutrient Basics

There are so many additives and nutrients out there. How do I know which ones to use? Why are there so many? Is there a single solution? We will attempt to answer these and other questions new growers often have about nutrients.

Is there a single solution?
There are a lot of quality all purpose products to choose from that will give you good Yields if used alone. Maxsea All-Purpose Plant Food (16-16-16), Hum Tea and Superthrive are excellent single step solutions for the right outdoor garden.

Why are there so many?
This allows you better control over the ingredients that you are using.

Cooking analogy: If you had garlic salt that was a 1:1 ratio, 1 part garlic, 1 part salt, but you realize a 2:1 ratio would taste better, you would have to specifically add garlic to achieve the desired result. While adding more garlic salt would give you the amount of garlic you wanted, your food would be over salted, it wouldn't taste as good and you probably wouldn't eat as much.

The Idea is to feed your plants more of what they need, and less of what they don't need. They will take in more nutrients, grow faster, bigger, stronger and produce higher yields.

How do I start?
Start by creating a good basic recipe. It is a good Idea to use 50% - 60% of the instructed amount when starting a new recipe, because it is much safer and easier to add than remove. One of our most popular basic recipes, and what we will usually recommend to new growers is;

• Cutting Edge Solutions 3 part system
  Micro
  Grow
  Bloom
• G-Rex
• And Hum Tea

These 5 items can be used at all stages, and adjusted at each stage for best results.

Micro, Grow and Bloom are a good base for your primary nutrients, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (N-P-K). This is like an adjustable version of the all in one products we discussed earlier.
Micro is high in Nitrogen but has no Phosphorus or Potassium (6-0-0)
Grow contains all three primary nutrients (2-1-6)
Bloom has no Nitrogen but is high in Phosphorus and Potassium (0-6-5)

G-Rex promotes root growth to help increase nutrient intake, node count, flower density and more. If you aspire to go "Pro", or you are a professional farmer, G-Rex could be your new best friend.

Hum Tea is a good source of nutrients that will promote vigor and growth. It has beneficial microbes to help prevent disease, and is difficult to use to over use on accident. Learn how to make compost tea.

When Mixing 3 part systems, always add Micro first, this will allow the molecules to bond correctly, failure to do so could cause nutrient deficiencies.

Once you've got a base, look for deficiencies or burning tips which can be a symptom of chemical burn. New growers should start small and seek the advice of an experienced grower they can trust. Do not attempt to diagnose from a book if you are a new grower, there are to many variables to get consistent results.

After your base is stable, bring your nutrient levels up until you stop see gains. When increasing the nutrients does not increase your results, stop increasing the nutrients and use the lowest amounts for the best results.

This is a great base to use with soil.

What about Hydroponics growers?
If you are using grow media instead of soil, you will need to add two more things to your base, Mag-Amped because it contains magnesium, and sulfur, and Plant-Amp which contains calcium. Magnesium, sulfur and calcium are essential for plant life and already in soil.

You will want to start with are about 80% of what the directions say to use, because you don't have the soil to provide extra nutrients.

Now that you have a good base, you can fine tune your recipe by adding some of the following elements, as always we recommend starting with small amounts and building up.

• Sugaree – Complete Enhancer, hardener, sweetener, increases resin and aroma.
• Solar Gaia – Promotes healthy soil and creates a structure for beneficial biology
• Uncle John's Blend – Corrects potassium deficiencies in flowering and fruiting plants. Increases flower and fruit production, intensifies perfume in aromatic flowers and yields richer flavors in fruits. UJB can also be used as a foliar spray to reduce stress after transplanting.

Using a "multi-step" system gives you better flexibility, and more importantly lets you fine tune your recipe to help you achieve the perfect fruit or flower.

I used Cutting Edge Solutions in this article because they are an easy to use, quality products at a reasonable prices, it also let us view the majority of 1 company's product line.

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