Comparison with/without fish blood and bone in soil

[qpwoeiruty]

I have been using fish blood and bone (FBB) mixed into the soil for my plants as I wanted something I coould put in the soil and not have to add more nutes from start to finish, just watering only. I've had some issues (about 1 in 3 were noticeably stunted plants) which I initially put down to either a fungal gnat problem or a ph problem. I have been trying to sort those issues without luck and someone I know gave me a sample of their cannabis specific nutes to try in a side by side with FBB to test if specific cannnabis nutes live up to the hype.

I haven't used any of the cannabis specific nutes yet because they are really for flowering, the soil has everything the plant needs to get it through veg, especially decent size pots with autos. The soil itself is regular multipurpose compoost with vermiculite and either with or without FBB, but I dig a hole in that and then put seedling soil into the hole so that as the plant grows out of being a seedling it's roots grow out of the seedling soil and into the richer soil.

The top two are dreamberry and the bottom two are gorilla glue. This is now late veg for all 4 plants... On the right I have no added nutes, on the left I have FBB in the soil.

[CaptainWiese91]

Big difference I must say. More nutrients are not always meant to get bigger plants.
I have a soil which I don’t use any kind of nutrients the first 10 weeks. The whole veg period and I only use a small amount of bloom booster throughout the 8 weeks of bloom.
So more nutrients doesn’t have to mean faster and bigger plants.

[qpwoeiruty]

Any recommendation on which bloom nutes to use? I've got a bottle of vitalink pk, but I think I'd rather use something off recommendation or at least something that is specific to weed... I think the vitalink stuff is cannabis specific but it does not say anything like that anywhere on the pack and I am not 100% sure why I thought it was cannabis specific.

[CaptainWiese91]

I’m using CANNA PK 13/14, and I love it. It’s the best product I ever used on my plants.
Almost all my supplements and nutrients I have is from CANNA.

[9fingerleafs]

Great experiment

[qpwoeiruty]

It's kind of an experiment gone wrong... The test was initially to see if the cannabis specific nutes were worth the hype, I haven't even got to that point. The FBB was the "control". What nutes do you use for bloom (in soil)? Are you happy with them? Do they affect the pH much? Anything else you can tell me about them?

[9fingerleafs]

I grow in coco but had great results in the past using soil and botanicare pure line. Now for coco i need something with micro nutrients (usually already present in soils) so i use general hydroponics, the flora bloom could work but if i were you id go with botanicare, it has humic acids and ph buffered

[qpwoeiruty]

Moving on, one of the topics with the least concensus (because there are so many brands)... What nutes do other soil people recommend for flowering? Just trying to get something i can order on ebay or amazon that doesn't throw the ph miles out of whack and has good results. Ideally a single bottle of something good rather than a bloom nutes with a separate bloom boost which I don't like the idea of, if they've really got something that boosts your bloom then why wouldn't they just put the appropriate amount into the mix with the bloom nutes. Sounds like a marketing ploy.

[SoOrbudgal]

All true i congratulate you for thinking about what the plant is taking in from the outside we don't really have to use what's promoted choose wisely.

[Rwise]

Interesting results
I use "Roots Organics Uprising Bloom" (Grow and base can be used as well). It is a dry food that I give before watering, can be added to the soil before planting as well.
I used a banana tea, I wont do that inside again, also it's aciic, the smell was OMG!
Wood ashes are good for flowers also, they are alkaline and help me get the PH stable in the range we need (PH crashed to 4.0-5.8, I blame the perlite)
Sulfur promotes stinky buds, but makes sulfuric acid in the soil which drops the PH
Dolomite to help with calcium and buffer that sulfuric acid (alkaline)
Potash (liquid, canned) helps flowers as well and is a PH up (alkaline)
I am getting the perlite out after this grow, and going back to earth worms which the sharp edges on the perlite killed.

Recently I have had to use some tap water, killed the chloramine with lemon juice, then let it set 12 hours until the PH went back to 7.1 and added black strap to it for 6.5 PH let it set 12 hours and it was still 6.5! Anyone else seen this? Seems the black strap made the PH stable.

[quirk]

$24 a gallon. One ounce per gallon, once a week. Believe it or not, the cannabis or tomato plant have no idea it wasn't made specifically for them. Because guess what. They're plants.

[qpwoeiruty]

Follow up... The plants with FBB rocketed later on in the grow and produced bigger plants with much bigger yields!