The myth of bottled nutes and TLO

I see a whole lot of people on here swearing that any bottled nutrients are terrible for microbial life

I was hoping to shed a little light on this.

Because a nutrient source comes in a bottle, it does not make it inherently bad practice to use. The hang up lies in the subtleties.

Any fertilizer that has been broken down with chelations (organic or synthetic acids used to break down non soluble organic matter into its soluble form)as well as anything with a high npk will hinder your microbial life just like adding synthetics.

Synthetics: Two main reasons to avoid any synthetic fert and the main reason bottled nutes get their bad name .
1, it has been broken down into soluble form for the plant already. This means the plant has access to readily useable npk, and has no use to keep producing root exudates which is what attracts fungus and bacteria to your root system in the first place.Without a exudates (fungus' source of carbon) and some non soluble organics your micro life will starve.
2, synthetic fertilizers have high salt counts. The higher salt levels will create osmotic shock to bacteria as it leaches its moisture out of the cell walls into the higher concentrations of salts. This will kill the soil web real quick.

Bottled organics: This is where things turn a lil more grey. Bottled organic nutrients are NOT inherently bad, and if used correctly they can actually up your TLO game from water only in regards to final product. Again, anything that contains chelation, organic or not, is going to be bad. Essentially its the same effect as synthetic #1. Too much soluble food and the symbiosis of root/microbes is hindered.
However, there are liquid ferts out there that will enhance your biomass rather than deter it. Makes sure you use very low phospherous count. We want to feed the microbes, not hinder. High phospherous in soluble form is very bad for fungus and mycoryzhae. The key here is using your bottles in low doses for teas and allowing things to cook. The added npk in your teas are for the microbes, not your plant. I use a .2-.3-.7 liquid organic additive for my tea. Works wonders especially in longer flowering girls.

Conclusion: dont let those water only snobs form your opinion for you When feeding your microbes, a little goes a long ways... plenty of fantastic additives in dry and liquid form out there, it may take some time and research to figure out what will compliment your mix.

ANYTHING HMRI listed is a good start. After that contacting companies to find out if any chelation (key-lay-shun) has been used. If so, this is not a great product for TLO organics and your soil food web.

Any input from reputable sources welcome

I think organic bottled nutrients should be in case of EMergency only! Even then better of top dressing and remedying with TLO friendly methods. Why not make a good tea. Or bios soil correctly so everything the plant needs is there waiting to be used when the plant needs it. Idk. I see to think like ya but I gues I've become one of the snobs! Water only and aact.

green_machine_two9er said:

I think organic bottled nutrients should be in case of EMergency only! Even then better of top dressing and remedying with TLO friendly methods. Why not make a good tea. Or bios soil correctly so everything the plant needs is there waiting to be used when the plant needs it. Idk. I see to think like ya but I gues I've become one of the snobs! Water only and aact.

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If your making a well rounded aact then its not 'needed'

I am not saying water only is superior or inferior, just that people saying nutrient additives will kill your soil web in all circumstances are wrong

I personally like very long flowering girls. A tiny bit of additives will provide night and day differences in a 18 week sativa


Ps. You certainly are a snob

green_machine_two9er said:

I think organic bottled nutrients should be in case of EMergency only! Even then better of top dressing and remedying with TLO friendly methods. Why not make a good tea. Or bios soil correctly so everything the plant needs is there waiting to be used when the plant needs it. Idk. I see to think like ya but I gues I've become one of the snobs! Water only and aact.

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I dont think adding bottled nuted directly to the medium is best practice. I do believe they can do wonders to assist in beefing up any aact. Key is to compost in the tea itself. Feeding microbes and delivering a little extra organic matter into the rhyzosphere.

Why use bottled organics when there are worm castings, a gift from nature... You can make your own with a simple bin full of red worms... It won't burn your plant, you don't need to flush, no need to calculate ppm nor ph. Compost tea from worm casting gives wonderful results as well. Most genetics will not need anything else, but if the plant shows any deficiency during late flowering, then you can use some extra fertilizer to cover that up...

If you have a bin, reddish water dripping down the bin turns dead plants alive, I've seen that many times

there no such thing as bottled organics. Its impossible to keep those microbes alive in those bottles


chelation will in no way cause any harm to microbes. This is a thread by a nutrient company making up bullshit.

chelation is basically breaking down nonsoluble material. Molasses, fish hydroslate, fulvic acid, coconut water, seed sprout tea's are all chelating agents and yet they improve microbial life.

synthetics and chems will definitely kill off microbes. In organics we dont use high npk. We don't even use npk.

if you are going to make bold claims like these at least show some university studies to back them up. I can find 100's of studied to back up what I stated

Microbes are only one reason why not to use bottled nutrients. Us 'Organic Snobs' also think about the environment. I know it's crazy talk, but I don't think it's sustainable, or good for our environment to ship a bunch of bottles across the world that are 98% water, and then take all the packaging and add it to our landfills. Not to mention the marketing bs, prices and quality of products in those bottles.

hydroMD said:

I am not saying water only is superior or inferior, just that people saying nutrient additives will kill your soil web in all circumstances are wrong

I personally like very long flowering girls. A tiny bit of additives will provide night and day differences in a 18 week sativa

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Would you care to describe what you would consider an additive? Because I can bubble a little kelp meal and alfalfa and get the job done better and cheaper than the crap on the hydrostore shelves.

I'm all ears,

P-

I knew this was gonna be a controversial thing to put in the organic section, especially in conjunction with the term "organic snobs"

hydroMD said:

I dont think adding bottled nuted directly to the medium is best practice. I do believe they can do wonders to assist in beefing up any aact. Key is to compost in the tea itself. Feeding microbes and delivering a little extra organic matter into the rhyzosphere.

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you are right here, but that's kinda contradicting your initial post.
I just don't see the point of paying for bottled stuff, after all, how much of that is water anyways?
Metal content? Etc.
I'll take the snob comment with a grain of salt, after all I probably am a bit of a snob, hell i gave away some
freebie" herb that the clubs gave me with my seed purchase..
I ain't smoking some chem-weed... sorry.

Pattahabi said:

Microbes are only one reason why not to use bottled nutrients. Us 'Organic Snobs' also think about the environment. I know it's crazy talk, but I don't think it's sustainable, or good for our environment to ship a bunch of bottles across the world that are 98% water, and then take all the packaging and add it to our landfills. Not to mention the marketing bs, prices and quality of products in those bottles.


Would you care to describe what you would consider an additive? Because I can bubble a little kelp meal and alfalfa and get the job done better and cheaper than the crap on the hydrostore shelves.

I'm all ears,

P-

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not to mention i'd be eager to see ANY bottled shit that has all the micronutrients and other goodies that alfalfa and kelp bring to the table...

Pattahabi said:

Microbes are only one reason why not to use bottled nutrients. Us 'Organic Snobs' also think about the environment. I know it's crazy talk, but I don't think it's sustainable, or good for our environment to ship a bunch of bottles across the world that are 98% water, and then take all the packaging and add it to our landfills. Not to mention the marketing bs, prices and quality of products in those bottles.


Would you care to describe what you would consider an additive? Because I can bubble a little kelp meal and alfalfa and get the job done better and cheaper than the crap on the hydrostore shelves.

I'm all ears,

P-

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You must be referring to synthetics when your refer to microbes being the reason not to add bottled nutes

As long as your npk is very low liquid organic ferts do the same thing as your meals. I am not saying it is more cost effective here, just stating that it is plausible to use liquid form for teas with just as good results without negatively affecting your soil web
(Added to meals, not replacing) edit
As long as there are no chelations in the nutrient (many organic liquids contain them for soup style organics) your good to go. Any sub 1-1-1 organic fertilizer should work great

Fox farm big bloom is a recommended product for ewc tea additive along with your meals. Anything with a similar npk should work fine

hyroot said:

there no such thing as bottled organics. Its impossible to keep those microbes alive in those bottles


chelation will in no way cause any harm to microbes. This is a thread by a nutrient company making up bullshit.

chelation is basically breaking down nonsoluble material. Molasses, fish hydroslate, fulvic acid, coconut water, seed sprout tea's are all chelating agents and yet they improve microbial life.

synthetics and chems will definitely kill off microbes. In organics we dont use high npk. We don't even use npk.

if you are going to make bold claims like these at least show some university studies to back them up. I can find 100's of studied to back up what I stated

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Hyroot, I expected you to know a lil more about this brotha!

Chelations absolutely affect your microbes. They are added to take the place of microbes in bottled nutrients. Thus their presence cuts the need for a symbiotic relationship between your roots and microbes because your rots have soluble nutrients available (cutting down exudate production)

Fungus cannot survive without exudates as this is their source of carbon. Once chelations are introduced, their food source stops being excreted because the plant has no need to produce exudates to help with breaking down insoluble organic matter

greasemonkeymann said:

not to mention i'd be eager to see ANY bottled shit that has all the micronutrients and other goodies that alfalfa and kelp bring to the table...

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Im not in any way saying to replace your tea ingredients with bottles. I am stating they have their uses and if cooked in teas, do not inhibit microbes!

I suppose a sarcasm button would have helped the snob comment go over a lil easier

hydroMD said:

You must be referring to synthetics when your refer to microbes being the reason not to add bottled nutes

As long as your npk is very low liquid organic ferts do the same thing as your meals. I am not saying it is more cost effective here, just stating that it is plausible to use liquid form for teas with just as good results without negatively affecting your soil web

As long as there are no chelations in the nutrient (many organic liquids contain them for soup style organics) your good to go. Any sub 1-1-1 organic fertilizer should work great

Fox farm big bloom is a recommended product for ewc tea additive along with your meals. Anything with a similar npk should work fine

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Or the chemicals they put in the bottles to stop microbial action while they sit on the shelves. How about some preservatives in your organic food? Why would you not skip the middle man, and just throw some alfalfa and kelp in a bucket, bubble it, and water? This isn't rocket science.

FF Big Bloom? Does this really have an organic certification? Hell no, not in my garden! Why would you add this crap? Sodium Chloride? This is salt, how does that help microbes again?


P-

Pattahabi said:

Or the chemicals they put in the bottles to stop microbial action while they sit on the shelves. How about some preservatives in your organic food? Why would you not skip the middle man, and just throw some alfalfa and kelp in a bucket, bubble it, and water? This isn't rocket science.

FF Big Bloom? Does this really have an organic certification? Hell no, not in my garden! Why would you add this crap? Sodium Chloride? This is salt, how does that help microbes again?


P-

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The salts break down after cooking as I understand it, and these salt levels are so low that it happens within 24 hours of cooking with your meals. Adding your microbes after this reaction occurs is key. Again, I only ise Hmri listed but I live in an agricultural mecca with plenty of options. I regurgitated fox farms from literature on the subject.

And as far as salts are concerned, they are in every tlo system at they not? The only difference is they are formed through natural chelations produced by bacterial and fungal enzymes. Nitrates produced by bacteria are technically salts eh?

hydroMD said:

The salts break down after cooking as I understand it, and these salt levels are so low that it happens within 24 hours of cooking with your meals. Adding your microbes after this reaction occurs is key. Again, I only ise Hmri listed but I live in an agricultural mecca with plenty of options. I regurgitated fox farms from literature on the subject.

And as far as salts are concerned, they are in every tlo system at they not? The only difference is they are formed through natural chelations produced by bacterial and fungal enzymes. Nitrates produced by bacteria are technically salts eh?

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And what exactly does Sodium Chloride break down into? and after 24 hours it's ok to add microbes to broken down Sodium Chloride?

What's a tlo system?

Hold on, let me get my notepad...

P-

Pattahabi said:

Or the chemicals they put in the bottles to stop microbial action while they sit on the shelves. How about some preservatives in your organic food? Why would you not skip the middle man, and just throw some alfalfa and kelp in a bucket, bubble it, and water? This isn't rocket science.

FF Big Bloom? Does this really have an organic certification? Hell no, not in my garden! Why would you add this crap? Sodium Chloride? This is salt, how does that help microbes again?


P-

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That's a good question, I can't seem to understand why salt would be added?
Last I heard salt can impeded potassium uptake...
That's baaad... mmkay

greasemonkeymann said:

That's a good question, I can't seem to understand why salt would be added?
Last I heard salt can impeded potassium uptake...
That's baaad... mmkay

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Lets get off the fox farms for a second, im obviously not familiar enough with it to recommend use. Like I said, I personally do not use it so I wasn't aware it isn't hmri listed. I have read about people using Iit with good results, but I agree on the why use it if it contains synthetics stance.

Pattahabi said:

And what exactly does Sodium Chloride break down into? and after 24 hours it's ok to add microbes to broken down Sodium Chloride?

What's a tlo system?

Hold on, let me get my notepad...

P-

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The positive area of water molecules surround the negative chloride ions. The negative are of water molecules surround the positive chloride ions. As the attractions from water molecules and their motion pulls the ions apart, the sodium chloride c hrystals completely dissolve.


Hope you add this to your notepad

greasemonkeymann said:

That's a good question, I can't seem to understand why salt would be added?
Last I heard salt can impeded potassium uptake...
That's baaad... mmkay

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Please read above post. Good questions pose good answers