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frogman1_gw

Pepper Nutrients

frogman1
14 years ago

Hello, Has anyone ever used a Nutrient called Chile Focus. And If so could you give me you in put on how good or bad it was? I was thinking of ordering some as I was told it worked great. If you have used it Please let me know if it was used in soil or hydro? Thanks

Comments (7)

  • kylle221
    14 years ago

    I went to the website to check it out because ot sounded like a good idea. All that I read seemed great. I did read one site that said a pure hydroponic fertilizer would be better (i guess it is both for soil and hydro). Let us now how it is if you get some?
    Also I didnt see the NKP on it.

  • bricks1962
    14 years ago

    Chili Focus NPK 2-1-4 as i read from another forum. seems pepper does not like too much phosporous.

  • bilberrybrian
    14 years ago

    Chili Focus is mixed by the same people that make orchid focus and ionic. That would be Hydrodynamics in North America, Growth Technology in the EU and possibly a third party down in Australia.

    If you like peppers it might be worth a try. It's basically a hydroponic nutrient + humic acid and claims to be ideal for peppers. Whether or not this is true, i.e. chili focus would clearly outperform a standard hydroponic nutrient + humic acid supplement, would be a worthy question to explore. One claim I read on the manufacturer website was that Chili Focus is optimized for peppers since it doesn't contain urea. That's a rather superfluous claim considering that most hydroponic nutrients wouldn't contain any urea to begin with.

    Chili Focus is likely a solid hydroponic nutrient. The real question is whether or not it's better (i.e. more cost effective) than a general purpose nutrient and humic acid supplement by virtue of the specific NPK. My assumption is that it costs more to use than the equivalent general purpose nutrients and I'm always skeptical that a premium price is justified through product marketing rather than research.

    Makes me feel like performing an experiment.

  • bilberrybrian
    14 years ago

    Read a little more. The product label seems to push for it being used in soil, though it doesn't state it explicitly. My interpretation of the formulation is that it could be used hydroponically as well.

    If anyone can find a high-resolution scan of the European product label, which has a better guaranteed analysis than the North American counterpart, please link to it here.

  • jean-luc
    14 years ago

    Since pepper growing becomes more and more popular, manufacturers put their "special blends" for chilies on the market, one by one. But oddly enough that most products and formulas differ largely from each other, manufactures do not have (or do not publish) any scientific background to prove the effectiveness or the justification for what they actually offer.

    There is one product from a German company as well, and there was some guy (in another forum) that ran in trouble using it to grow Chili seedlings in coco media. I got curious and had a look at their formula which ended up to be quite wired. I then contacted the manufacturere to inquire about the why of the composition and formula. I got an answer from their product manager (not a Chemist) and he simply claimed that their product is the result of a 5 years cooperation with hobby chili growers!

    He did not answer any of my technical questions, though. The extremely high magnesium content, the total lack of calcium, the relatively high nitrogen content (compared to any other chili formula I know of) wasn't justified.

    Also the question if the product was suitable for growing seedlings and/or hydroponics, was not answered. The question if there was (besides the "soft water" version) a hard water version available, was ignored as well. It needs a little more to convince me of the seriousness and the effectiveness of such a product, you bet!

    If NPK 2-1-4 (and some humic acid content) is all what I get to know of a product like "Chili Focus", or any other, - I am not even considering it.

    As long as most consumers actually have no clue about fertilizers and formulas, all manufacturers are able to sell what ever they think will pull. The second psychologic effect they use, is that probably 80-90% of the buyers will not admit that there was no difference with standard products, even if there was any. They payed a plus and most likely tend to tell that the product is a good thing to buy and use.

  • bilberrybrian
    14 years ago

    Those are all really good points Jean-Luc.

    I used to work at a hydroponic retail store at the same time as a factory that bottled nutrients. There was a push at the retail end for the manufacturer to produce as many products for as many applications as possible. For example, rather than having a general purpose grow nutrient include special directions for growing something like lettuce it would have been preferable for the retailer to carry a second product that had a picture of lettuce on the bottle, even if it was really just a watered down grow nutrient.

    If I were to take a stab at the reason for the nonexistent calcium in the nutrient you mentioned it would be that they couldn't figure out how to bottle it into a one part formula without the calcium precipitating out with the phosphate and sulfate. I watched a video on youtube a couple months ago where the guys from Humboldt Nutrients were saying that their one part fertilizer didn't have calcium for that very reason.

    Chilli/Chile focus is very similar to Ionic bloom for soil/coco. Both contain 0.25% humic acid, Bloom is a 1-1-3 where chili is a 2-1-4. I'm inclined to think the micro levels are identical between the two but I could be wrong. Interestingly a quart of Chile Focus is actually a dollar cheaper, at least where I looked, than a quart of bloom coco/soil.

  • jean-luc
    14 years ago

    Hi Brian,

    Well, we have to be fair in some way. The growing customer demand for "special nutrients" plays a major role here. Manufacturers cannot fulfill such demand in no time. Extensive research and reliable "intel" is expensive and takes a lot of time. If a concurrent is intrepid enough to put his first guess composition to the market, others may simply follow with something similar or even intentionally different. It is not creating an offer but actually and offer to a real demand. I am not giving any excuse or justification here, but a sceptic can still try to understand the situation, right!? ;-)

    You are absolutely right about the missing calcium. Though the actual problem may be to extract calcium trough a simple and inexpensive process. Some manufacturers may think (what other reason could it be) that two component nutrients were to tricky to handle for half of the customers. Anyway, some of the concepts of the "fertilizer industry" are a bit archaic and old school. The branch is kinda self-sufficient and not very innovative.

    The German manufacturer I was talking about, claims their product as organic and extracts all components from natural sources. Magnesium for example is extracted from Magnesium Carbonate, as the product manager told me. But having 200 PPM of Mg @ EC 1.6 while there is 0 PPM of Sulfur and no calcium either (as mentioned before), simply makes no sense at all! They probably didn't figure out how to extract water soluble Sulfur from a natural sources either, and had to drop it too! Their Nitrogen apparently provides from Amino Acids, fine,- but why do they need to clearly exaggerate the Nitrogen content with 160 PPM to 106 PPM of K - which doesn't rime with any Chili formula I know of!?

    Other nutrients that claim to be organic, and are also extracted from natural sources, seem to have a even more wired and bizzare formulas. Honestly it looks to me as if the attitude is fine and the intentions good, but the outcome rather random. Why can't they just leave it, when realizing that it is not possible or too expensive (yet) to get to a decent product and formula that is appropriate for Hydroponics? Tsk, tsk, tsk....

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