Sorry Ben but you are wrong. What you just posted doesn't back up your opinion or back up your opinion about Dyna-Gro formulations. They simply imply that they are basing their formulations on the fact that nothing in the way of nutrients is considered being supplied by the soil when they are formulating their fertilizers. They say that over time any soil cam be depleted of some nutrients so they are supplying all of them. They are implying that they have studied hydroponics over the years so know all the elements needed by the plants so they supply all these elements in all their products because soil can become depleted over time.
Their advertising can be a bit deceiving but careful reading of their marketing hype just means they consider the media no matter what as being nutritionally inert. This is simply away of saying they consider their fertilizer formulations as universal. It does not really work that way in reality. Close as they added chloro ine to kill all soil or water borne beneficial bacteria, enzymes and such but still not the same.
You seem to be trying to say a fertilizer that is not designed for growing outdoors in a mineral powder soil (with natural humus is not a soil fertilizer but a hydroponic fertilizer. That just isn't the case anymore with quality formulated nutrients. Then you seem to be disregarding quality indoor soil fertilizers that nearly always contain nearly all nutrients that are supplied in hydroponic formulas. They typically only leave out the calcium and sulfur as most people add a little dolomitic lime to their potting soils. A few for some strange reason leave out sulfur. Go figure. Therefore what you just wrote is either wrong or an unsubstantiated opinion at the most.
Better said is a formula that has over 15% nitrogen as ammoniacal nitrogen is not a principally hydroponic formula for a recirculating hydroponic system no matter what the manufacturers marketers seem to say. For a drain to waste the butt load of ammoniacal nitrogen does not matter but it definitely is far from a
recommended maximum for hydroponics. Say what ever you wish about the total number of elements Ben but too much ammoniacal nitrogen is
too much ammoniacal nitrogen. It is nice that you have you opinions set in concrete if they work for you Ben but they do not necessarily care much weight. I have been formulating and mixing both soil and hydroponic formulations for several decades and use 12 elements for hydroponics and thirteen elements for soil not counting the ammoniac nitrogen. Providing the extra elements to a soil grow is just consider waste full IF they are already present through a separate addition.
I think if you checked with Dyna-Gro you would find that two of the three extra "elements" (sodium, cobalt) that are in the formulation are not intentionally added as nutrients but are trace contaminants or a result of using a cheaper fertilizer salt such as sodium molybdate rather than ammonium molybdate as a source of molybdenum. The third, chlorine is not a nutrient but an oxidizer. If the said chloride then it would be a result of using calcium chloride or potassium chloride fertilizers salts but chlorine would have had to have been added as something like adding sodium hypochlorite. This isn't even a sign that the Foliage-Pro is hydroponic and not soil fertilizer as all their fertilizers that are soluble fertilizers have chlorine.
If you just read the Dyna -Gro adds and look at the types you can plainly see that they consider the foods as water soluble fertilizers to use for both soil and hydro and even foliar with The Foliage Pro. Non of their formulations are strictly Hydro and nowhere does it even hint that they make a formulation that is exclusively formulated for just hydro. The fact that the lowest ammoniacal percentage of any of their formulations (Bloom 3-12-16) contains over 30% of its nitrogen as ammoniacal nitrogen clearly indicates all the formulations are principally designed for plants growing in a soil media. Will the Foliage-Pro work well with MJ grows. Yes it will work very well, but in recirculating hydroponic grows there will be a daily low pH problem during most of the budding cycle do to the extremely high levels of ammoniacal nitrogen in all their formulations. Depending on lighting intensities pH might even be a daily problem during the veg cycle.
The typical minerals and metal salts in both soil and hydro are:
Major nutrients
1) Nitrogen (with hydroponics no separate ammoniacal nitrogen is usually added as sufficient amounts are added as a result of adding the other purposely added fertilizers and salts)
2) Phosphorus
3) Potassium
Secondary Nutrients
4) Calcium
5) Magnesium
6) Sulfur
Trace nutrients
7) Iron
Manganese
9) Zinc
10) Boron
11) Copper
12) Molybdenum
It should be noted, that among the 110 or so known elements, that they believe that the following elements, many more are likely to be implicated in plant growth. Nickel, cobalt, chromium, titanium, selenium, lithium and numerous others have been reported to have some function in some species of plants, and many certainly have roles in animal and human nutrition.
Some manufacturers leave many things out of for formulations for soil grows. Most commonly calcium and magnesium is left out. But that is not because it is already present in soil but because it is added as dolomitic lime powder. Many add no trace elements saying they are present already in the soil. maybe that is true in minerals soils full of humus. There are things in such soils that work as natural chelate's that can make these the metals available to the roots. However, Dyna-Gro formulations kill these things my adding chlorine so they add the complete line of trace nutrients available. Then consider a great percentage of growers use a media that is mainly peat moss. this does not have the trace Crow that a mineral soil contains so Dyna-Gro supplies all trace elements for these soil grows.
So the easiest way to describe Dyna-Gro products is that they seem to be designed principally for soil media grows, but some will work with hydro-ponics in inert medias with careful watching of the pH. with soil grow this will not be an issue nor will it be an issue with drain to waste hydro.
It would truly be nice for those hydro growers using a nutrient recirculation system of feeding if they made the same Foliage-Pro with about 3 to 5% percent ammoniacal nitrogen rather than 32%.
About the only thing that keeps me from saying all the Dyna-Gro products are only formulated for soils grows is they do not contain urea so this shows that they are with intent trying to make a universal product where all nutrients are supplied by their soluble fertilizers. Basically it is a product where they are trying to say "you can have your cake and eat it too."
