Product Evaluation.

[oldtimer1]

One of the good things about my part at uk420, is I get offers of products to test and evaluate, if I’m interested, I take them, but only on the bases that I can say exactly what I find with no holds barred.

For this topic I am trying, two new to me organic fertilisers, a pre release soil/compost inoculant and finally a prototype mini Grostar quad parabolic reflector.

For many years most of the staff at uk420 have recommended BioBizz as the best buy organic liquid fertiliser, it produces good results time after time and sweet tasting smoke. Hundreds of you, our members have reaffirmed our conclusions. I have recently been offered two relative newcomers to the organic fertiliser market to try/test.

They are GHE’s biosevia Organic Grow and Bloom and B.A.C. Organic Grow and Bloom. I thought it was time to see how well these products compare to the BioBizz products really that the main purpose of this topic.

The fertilisers:-

I will be using a small 4 ft x 4 ft grow area with a mix of known clones, 36 in all, I know exactly how they grow and perform with Biobizz even so I will feed a third [12] with each fertiliser. Lighting is from a 600w Ventronic ballast, for veg a 600w sunmaster halide, early flower 600w sunmaster hps final 3 or 4 weeks back to the halide.

Compost is Westlands hanging basket and container + JI with a little rock dust mixed in and a new inoculant I’m trying from RootMagic, I already tried one grow with this inoculant and it performed very well for me. No its not on the market yet but I’m reliably informed it will be soon.

A quick run through of potting into final containers.

Plants in 1.1 litre pots ready to go into final Pots:-

A healthy root ball:-

A good dust of inoculant in the planting hole:-

Below is a pic of the prototype mini Grostar quad parabolic reflector, though mini is a bit of a misnomer as at 28 inches square its hardly small, You can see the Grostar and the plants below it two days after going into their final 6.5 litre pots.

Finally up to date a pic, 3 days after transplanting into final pots showing these plants have no transplant shock, in fact a couple are already showing roots at the drainage holes. From taking the cuttings to now they have only had water, no feeds suppliments, just tap water as it comes.

[Guest]

As usual,

great stuff OT1

especially looking forward to hearing how the 'RootMagic' goes,

Thanks,

redgrotto

[Guest nav182]

Ho OT1

Nice to see your detailed as always, I'm interested in one of thos parabolic reflectors so interested to see how your results turn out.

Nav

[Muppet]

<pulls up a pew>

Shall watch this with intrest!

[Hipgnosis]

I've been thinking about treating myself to a couple of the bigger Grostar shades in a month or 2

so i'll be watchin with interest OT. Any initial impressions?

[oldtimer1]

Ok a few facts and figures, it is often said fertilisers cost a lot, I’m not sure about that so I decided to do a few sums

BioBizz bloom 1Ltr costs about £9 at the maximum recommended use of 4ml per litre, it makes 250 litres of rtu feed at 3.6p per litre.

Bio Sevia Bloom 1Ltr costs about £13.99p at the maximum recommended use of 2 ml per litre, it makes 500 litres of rtu feed at 2.8p a litre

B.A.C. Organic Grow 1Ltr £14.45p, at the maximum recommended use of 3ml per litre, it makes 333 litres of rtu feed at 4.34p a litre

Taking them against chase organic tomato feed at £7.95p a litre, at the maximum recommended use of 6.7ml per litre, it make 150 litres of rtu feed at 5.3p a litre.

That make the comparable garden centre organic liquid feed nearly twice as dear as the cheapest and still costs more than dearest cannabis organic feeds I'm testing.

I tend to use the cannabis fertilisers at a lower rate than the maximum recommended by the manufacturers with what I consider great results, so they go a lot further for me.

Ok comments on the mini Grostar, first its not on the market yet, as I said its a prototype, not sure when it will be for sale, I’ll ask if you like.

This is the first time I’ve used it from vegging cuttings for a full grow cycle, I have used it over the last 4 weeks of flowering and for vegging cutting to move on.

Impressions; It does have slightly brighter pools of light in places, the corners as an instants, not enough to cause hot spots or any damage, it has the best spread of light of any reflector I have used to date. I’ll try and show what I mean with a pic when I go to hps, the camera does not show what the eyes can see with a mh lamp.

It gave me the best results from the plants in the corners of the room to date. Somehow corner plants always seem to come out below average.

I want to see how it does with a full grow, I won’t really be able to answer fully on this until late June.

[Guest Tmontana]

ill be following this one closely, am also intereseted to see how your 600w sunmaster digi ballast performs OT1 compared to a standard ballast, should be interesting to see how this turns out because your using less than the 50w per square foot recommended lighting

good work fella

monty

[webby]

Them shades look wickid ot1 Don't look very carrying into premises tho Do you know if the manufacturer may be making fold down ones or is it hard to do due to the metals used??

[dantawn]

honoured to see you at work, ot1. Im sure many of us will be following closely!

[redeyes420]

ill be pulling up a chair for this one if thats ok ot1

[johnyblaze]

Hi ot1 , cheers for sharing this mate . just wondering if the new reflector your testing has the lamp vertical ?

[pushprocess]

Very Intresting Ot1 as always!

Will be looking in with great intrest!

Just wish you would write more for us as your topics are so informative! I think i have read all your topics on this board!

OT1 ROCKS! ()

[oldtimer1]

Tmontana the 50w per square foot recommended for lighting is IMHO totally wrong as a blanket figure or even as a rough guide. The amount of light you get from a 250w hid at 50w per sq ft is way less than the light per sq ft from a 400w and a 400w produces a lot less than a 600w lamp at 50w per sq ft.

I do know how the plants being used perform with the same 600w lamps useing a proultra at 50w per sq ft, so far the Grostar is looking on par or slightly ahead with only 37.5w a sq ft.

Webby the whole thing is its formed from one sheet, it is bulky but it was wrapped in black plastic, it did not look suss taking it from the car to the house.

johnyblaze yep its vertical.

pushprocess, I would love to write more, but to be honest I just don’t have the time.

Hazy biosevia make mineral salt hydro fertilisers as well.

Final note just to say the final pots were rooted out last night so it took less than 5 days so I have switched to 12/12 and hps.

[johnyblaze]

interesting ot1 , always thought it d be more effecient to have the lamp hanging vertical , just couldn t find a good quality reflector . look forward to these becoming available .

[oldtimer1]

Hazy sorry I was wrong, I was thinking of the BAC products, but saying that BioBizz also say the same thing so do, Earth Juice.

To be quite honest hydroponic growing goes against all organic principles and its banned by all the uk certification bodies and so it should be.