|
|
Making sense of some of the less obvious products a person can purchase at a Grow Store can be a rabbit hole of confusion. Such is the case with the product types chosen for Grow Store 105, aptly subtitled “The Other Stuff,” a term I have previously used to describe the numerous compounds contained in organic nutrients. The reason I use this term so interchangeably is because of the essential meaning I give to it, being “that which is too complex to talk about.”
Continue reading Grow Store 105 – The Other Stuff, And Then Some
You have terraformed a new world and now you must engineer and maintain the conditions necessary to promote thriving and productive populations of your chosen species. In order to succeed there must be equilibrium within the environment, food sources for your population, and fresh water supplies. You have access to a supply ship with numerous sensors, meters, stats, and monitors to be installed in various locations around your world, as well as devices to make automatic adjustments to parameters that may fluctuate. Each section in this guide contains data on the various instruments to measure values, followed by the automated controllers used to adjust or correct those values.
There’s a sort of principal of mutual correspondence in the limiting factors of a plants productivity, and these factors can be loosely grouped quite naturally by their functions. For example the question of “how much carbon dioxide should I use” has the functional group of photosynthesis containing the factors ‘CO2+Light+Heat+Nutrient‘, as well as being loosely factored to functions such as plant health, maturity, pests, et al. As a writer it is a peripheral goal to convey ideas in a sensible linear train as they relate to each other, but incidentally the products of topic herein were inspired by the not-entirely random contents of a grow store shelf. We have discussed base nutes and boosters so far, so let’s continue with the buffers that calibrate the devices that we monitor nutrients with.
Continue reading Grow Store 103 – Bennies and Bugs and Buffers (oh my!)
If ever there is a mountain made of a mole hill in the indoor gardening industry, where the logic of 1+1=3 is reasonable and ten products can be justified from two elements – I think bloom boosters fit the bill. In contrast to field-crop agriculture, horticultural nutrient companies often recommend combining base nutrients with various bloom boosters in the early, mid, and near-end of the flowering cycle. To the inquiring hobbyist grower redundancy can seem like an understatement since similar minerals are present in various boosters; and, in contrast, the science they’re founded on might seem as hypothetical as opinion when the grower seeks clarification on the reasoning behind their differences. In the end, to some, it seems surety is abandoned for a faith-based trust in nutrient companies to provide us with bigger, better, and more profitable yields. Are bloom boosters based on science or snake oil? Let’s take a look at a few products that hopefully serve to represent the numerous boosters available.
Continue reading Grow Store 102 – Bloom Boosters and Stimulants
spacer
To all the consumers who find the sheer magnitude of the plethora of plant products bewildering – I feel your pain. To know nothing is sheer abysmal confusion, yet to know more does not seem to make product choice easier. When I see people in a blank gaze I can watch the mental process block, the over-whelming yet exciting stimulus flashing at them from numerous illegible colored bottles, and a mix of both confusion and of skepticism. We think in terms of ‘real or bullshit’ when really they all are of use in some or other application, it’s a matter of finding whats useful to you.
|
|
Grow Store 100 Faves