Time To Change To Dry Ferts?

I think that last time I went through this I just gave up.
But broadly speaking there is no secret magic formula to growing plants, even the pretty ones you see in the gardens of people with time and patience. Much less for people growing green weeds in glass boxes.
NPK + Trace elements pretty much cover it. There are some cool things to look out for, amino acids, and various hormones, is it worth using these if you harvest your crop and send it to market (or for personal use :unsure: ) - most definitely - is it worth it if you pull out hand fulls of weed every week and flog it on eBay or in the classified section? Not so much.....

Will Tropica hand over their formula? They only hand over as much as the fertiliser laws ask for - these were put in place to stop the sales men convincing farmers that there was magic pixie dust in the formula, most caught on pretty fast, the general public - not so much.

Pick up a bottle of any plant fertiliser and it will tell you what's in it. If it doesn't, put it back on the shelf.

It. Is. Water.

To take your point on replicating the Trace side of it, they do use both HEEDTA and DTPA as chelates and that isn't something you might find in all trace mixes. It's not impossible though.

Besides, beyond them obeying fertiliser laws, or even them just being all round nice guys and truthful about what's in a product so you don't put it back on the shelf as water - It won't escape the spectrum analyser anyway, so it would be silly to lie about it for fear of being found out.

IMO

It's a good job plants can't read - Alan Titchmarsh
 
To go even beyond what SO19 just said, which I agree with, there is an aspect of marketing that goes beyond hiding the ingredients in this sort of product, particularly when legislation has made them reveal the general mix and to not sell the pixie dust, which is to start to boast about concentration (think seachem prime which many of us love for being more concentrated than many) or the good old "our product has more nitrogen than your product" boast. Once they get into this sort of category the marketing department will be more than happy to reveal the secrets of their formula.

How they get it to mix and what base chemicals they're making it out of so they can make a profit, now that's a different matter entirely.
 

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