Does anyone use Gen Hydro's FloraNova Grow?

[marc108]

This stuff matches Haifa's recommendations for soiless tomato fertilization almost exactly. Has anyone used it, if so how has it gone?

[Ricky Shaw]

I'm currently using it and chem-gro on seedlings, and will be using both in the garden this year. Have had outstanding results on pepper seedlings and will use it exclusively on peppers and trial several container tomatoes.

The FloraNova Grow also matches similarly with the Chem-Gro pepper formula.

[Ricky Shaw]

Five week from seed Giant Marconi, FloraNova 1000ppm since third week.

[Gerardo]

Beautiful leaves, very happy peppers.

Looking at the pdf, it seems it's about 5 ml per gallon. Not bad at all.

[Ricky Shaw]

Very concentrated and very cheap,even in the quart size cost comes to around 7 cents a gallon for adult strength. For tomatoes, I can see an addition of cal and mag will be needed, not certain that will be necessary with the peppers.

To add: No HPS or halide, the peppers in the pic have only been under T-8's and T-5's

[marc108]

Originally Posted by Ricky Shaw

Five week from seed Giant Marconi, FloraNova 1000ppm since third week.

That's what, 3 tsp per gallon? What medium are you using? Peppers look great, but I'm interested to know why you're using such a high dose?

[marc108]

Originally Posted by Ricky Shaw

The FloraNova Grow also matches similarly with the Chem-Gro pepper formula.

I considered that as well but it's a little lacking. Too much P, N:K ratio is a little too high, no Ca or Mg. But if you added 1lb Calcium Nitrate that would bring it up to 26.5-11-40, rounded down it 7.5-3-11.5 which is almost identical to FloraGrow's 7-4-10. I actually might do that after I run out of FloraGrow.

[Ricky Shaw]

That's what, 3 tsp per gallon?

I'm getting an EC/mhos 2.0 and ppm 1000 from about 6 teaspoons per 5 gallon. I use a kitchen measuring spoon, so not the most accurate.

Why the high dose?

A little high I suppose, I see recommendations in the 600-1000 range and have gone as high as 1600ppm on 3wk seedlings tomatoes with good results. I've actually been tweaking doses down to see how low I can go and get these results. I might be a little early with the higher doses too, but they take off better compared with others at lower doses. Could be all in my head about them doing better. Anyway, I'm astonished by it all.

edit to add: source water is 60ppm and media is promix hp

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[marc108]

Originally Posted by Ricky Shaw

A little high I suppose, I see recommendations in the 600-1000 range and have gone as high as 1600ppm on 3wk seedlings tomatoes with good results. I've actually been tweaking doses down to see how low I can go and get these results. I might be a little early with the higher doses too, but they take off better compared with others at lower doses. Could be all in my head about them doing better. Anyway, I'm astonished by it all.

I'm also using ProMix-HP, but outdoors. Good stuff. Haifas recommendations for tomatoes work out to be ~600ppm through to ripening, 750 ppm from ripening through harvest. For peppers, 450 ppm through first flower, 750 ppm after first flower.

FloraNova Grow is about 300ppm per teaspoonI believe. I would imagine you could increase the ppm super high but the plants would only be able to uptake X ppm. Never know though, I'm sure those numbers vary dependent on light, variety, etc. I plan to feed both my peppers and tomatoes 600ppm through flower, 900ppm after.

[Ricky Shaw]

I would love to go that low and get good results, this is great info. They make no EC or ppm recommendations on the FloraNova bottle or their site, so I went with the Chem-Gro EC range of 1.6 to 2.3 mhos

I'll stay in touch with the thread, thank you.

[marc108]

Originally Posted by Ricky Shaw

I would love to go that low and get good results, this is great info. They make no EC or ppm recommendations on the FloraNova bottle or their site, so I went with the Chem-Gro EC range of 1.6 to 2.3 mhos

I'll stay in touch with the thread, thank you.

Welcome. Haifa's website has TON of researched based recommendations for soil/soiless/hydro... it's a great resource if you don't mind doing math like converting hectacres to square feet. They also have a cool website that will do some of the math for you. I ended up there after figuring out that the composition of pretty much every fertilizer was made up randomly, and not based on any sort of research.

[AKmark]

I recommend adding Cal- Mag with Flora Nova after your first truss of tomatoes ripens, I used to use it a lot. You may also see some Magnesium deficiencies, and I think the P and K ratios could be better for tomatoes or peppers. Haifa, also recommends much more K as does HG.
All in all it works well, and can be used as a one part, but I have got better results using other NPK ratios.

[BigVanVader]

Dang dude my peppers are still way little and we started about same time. Very beautiful pepper plants.

[Ricky Shaw]

Thanks on the compliments. I can turn out some wicked mean seedlings, but I have a nagging fear this container growing adventure and measured nutrient thing is going to blow up fantastically when I go real time.

[marc108]

Originally Posted by AKmark

...

My plan was to hit it with calcium nitrate at fruit set and foliar spray of potassium sulfate every week or two after that. Will that work or do I need additional calcium? What NPK are you using?