I have some plants I am hardening off now and for nutrients I used to buy Miracle Gro. But now I've been doing research and started with Dyna Gro for nutrients. As my plants become bigger should I use the miracle gro? I figured the 7-9-5 was good for the beginning stages and now im stumped on what to continue to use.
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Miracle Gro or Dyna Gro 7-9-5?
- Thread starter bangbangchabooky
- Start date
Dyna gro all the way. Either the grow or foliage pro. It's considered a complete nutrient and you can use it through the entire life of the plant. It has all the micro and macro nutrients you plant needs. Miracle gro will work but it doesn't even come close to the quality of dyna gro in my opinion. I've been using dyna gro for about 8 years now. Great stuff
Edmick said:
Thanks for validating everything for me! And man 8 years is quite some time!
Edmick said:
What about the Bloom by Dyna Gro? Which one of the 2 should I be using?
You can certainly give it the bloom once the plant is at that stage but you can also use the grow formula for bloom. I've used grow for all stages and had amazing results. It just simplifies it a little for me sticking to one product only through the entire life but give the bloom a try if you want. The reason I mentioned the foliage pro (a complete nutrient also) is because some people say it's even better than the grow. My local hydro shop doesn't stock it otherwise I would try it but i'm totally happy with the grow.bangbangchabooky said:
Edmick said:
Forgive me as I am very new to this hobby but, when is the "right stage" to apply bloom? My plants are about 7-8" tall now and have not flowered yet. They are getting some sun now outside and are in some fabric 5 gallon pots.
Theres a hundred different answers to that. Some people will dose grow and bloom together in low doses from a very young age and some people will start dosing bloom when the plant starts to produce pods. I don't even mess with the bloom formula at all. My way of thinking is if it's not broke, don't fix it. Last year I did all my peppers organic with worm castings and kelp with good results. But that's a whole other topic in itself.
bangbangchabooky said:
Bloom boosters are a waste of money- a balanced ratio of 9-3-6 or 7-9-5 should do you right. IMO grow is too high in phosphorus which has deleterious effects on beneficial fungi and adds needless salt build up. If you are growing in soil the high P could be useful in cases where the soil composition sequesters phosphorus and makes it unavailable to plants. in commercial hydroponic production of tomatoes bloom boosters are used briefly to assist in production uniformity. if you are growing in a soil less mixture like pro-mix, coco or 5-1-1 a lower P would be beneficial because you get less buildup of salts in the media. there will never be a case in a plants life where if being given a balanced ratio of nutrients the plant will be taking up more phosphorus than N or K- they just don't need that much.
During fruiting tomatoes and peppers require more K and in some instances if nitrogen is being supplied in gross excess flower drop can occur. I recommend taking dyna-gro foliage pro or grow and following the instructions for production (5mL/gal/week). If you suspect you are losing buds to high N and its not due to high/low temps, overwatering or pests simply use 3-4mL/gal/week. Another approach to using complete nutrients is using even less but fertilizing at every watering so if you watered 3x a week you would use (~1.5mL/gal/watering) this is much preferred by the plants and is my personal preference. Getting back to fruit production- increasing the ratio of K will help with overall yield. Dyna-gro makes a product called protekt which is 0-0-3 I use 1.5mL foliage pro and protekt at every watering. I increase the protekt a little further during fruit set to get the nutrient ratio somewhere like 9-3-12. The other advantage of dyna-gro products is that they are nicely pH balanced as well. If your tap pH is around 7 adding protekt and dyna-gro fertilizers end up around the ideal pH for plant uptake. protekt also contains silica which makes your plants more resilient to abiotic stress and physically makes stems stronger.
THAT being said. You can also just use grow or foliage pro throughout the entire growth cycle and have excellent results and that will be aligned with the K.I.S.S. approach (keep it simple stupid).
I'll give another vote for the the 3-1-2 ratio Foliage-Pro. It has been years since I used it but it is simple and effective. The directions seemed like a chinese person trying to translate chinese to english if I remember correctly. They might have fixed that by now.
Dyna - gro 
I called Dyna Gro last week because I had some questions regarding it's use in coir (my first year using coir) and the lady that answered the phone was obviously in another country. I called back today (because no one called me back) and was able to get some very good information from the lady that answered my call. Too much information to list here but their customer service seems to be pretty knowledgeable.Pr0digal_son said:
Have anyone tested this product for chili growing:
https://dyna-gro.com/product/all-pro-7-7-7-v/
NPK:
7-7-7.
https://dyna-gro.com/product/all-pro-7-7-7-v/
NPK:
7-7-7.
I was wondering about how many PPMs thefish was talking about in their recommendation, just because I've seen other charts that put fertilizer concentrations in terms other than ml per gallon. In case anyone else was wondering, here's what I did.
1.5 mL (of anything close to water) = 1.5 grams (g)
1 Gallon (G) = 3.8 L
1.5 g / 3.8 L = .395 g / L
.395 g / L * 1000 mg / g = 395 mg / L
1mg / L = 1 ppm
so thefish is adding 395 ppm of nutrient. Since it's dynagro foliage pro which is 9% Nitrogen, this means:
395 ppm * .09 = 35.55 ppm of N
This is super useful to me, because now I can take nutrients from different brands and sources with different % of nutrients and use different amounts (g, mg, ml) to reach a good, non-harmful nutrient concentration.
Although since I'm new there are probably other things I could do to grow better before messing with perfect nutrient concentrations lol
Thanks for the info anyway thefish!
1.5 mL (of anything close to water) = 1.5 grams (g)
1 Gallon (G) = 3.8 L
1.5 g / 3.8 L = .395 g / L
.395 g / L * 1000 mg / g = 395 mg / L
1mg / L = 1 ppm
so thefish is adding 395 ppm of nutrient. Since it's dynagro foliage pro which is 9% Nitrogen, this means:
395 ppm * .09 = 35.55 ppm of N
This is super useful to me, because now I can take nutrients from different brands and sources with different % of nutrients and use different amounts (g, mg, ml) to reach a good, non-harmful nutrient concentration.
Although since I'm new there are probably other things I could do to grow better before messing with perfect nutrient concentrations lol
Thanks for the info anyway thefish!
Arthropods said:
keep in mind you want to figure out your watering schedule before you determine your PPM at watering. if you were watering 2 x per week you would want to double it and if you're only able to water once per week then you just keep it to the once a week labeling. the more you can water without drowning the roots the more you'll be able to fertigate and the faster the growth the extreme end of this methodology would be hydroponics. I also don't have to use as much ppm N as well because I use a microbial innoculant called inocucor which reduces the amount of fertilizer you need by increasing nutrient uptake efficiency, using this product has been shown to increase yield by 20-30% and decreases fertilizer requirements by about that much as well.
https://www.inocucor.com/our-microbial-products-for-growers/field-reports-and-application-notes/
7-9-5 is my all around best nute for my hydroponic grow and starts.
I use less than they reccomend,but use it weak everytime I water.
Every so often I water a couple days with just water and toss out the water that runs through my starter pots.
Use it in my outdoor pots or to water the stuff that is on the lot I live on.
It/water rinse , cleans out the salts/nutes that could build up...
I never check PH or whatever,in my hydro grow ,I just replace the nutes every week to 2 weeks.
I use fish emultion (only Alaska Brand)and seaweed extract outside in my bark based soil mix.
I use less than they reccomend,but use it weak everytime I water.
Every so often I water a couple days with just water and toss out the water that runs through my starter pots.
Use it in my outdoor pots or to water the stuff that is on the lot I live on.
It/water rinse , cleans out the salts/nutes that could build up...
I never check PH or whatever,in my hydro grow ,I just replace the nutes every week to 2 weeks.
I use fish emultion (only Alaska Brand)and seaweed extract outside in my bark based soil mix.
Very well said!thefish said:
Regards,
-Tristan
So jealous of your one part KISS formula... My brain gets wracked every time it's feeding time with the 3 part nute system.. I've grown errrm other things with simple fox farms duo grow big and tiger bloom and did well with organic amendments in the soil-really makes me rethink all this specialized different ratios when we have so many plants that are different and in different stages!Edmick said:
Regards,
-Tristan