Jack's 321 . . . should I switch?

Nutrients
1

I’ve been growing a while now and I’ve been using GH Flora trio since the early 90’s. I slowly added to the nutrient program until I am now at 10-12 bottles every mixing.

I have read a lot about Jack’s 321, and people seem to swear by it, so I’ve been giving the switch some thought. I have constantly read that Jack’s is fed at the same ratio from seedling to harvest and to be honest, that doesn’t make sense to me, although it would be wonderful if it performs. However, unless I read the Jack’s nutrition schedule wrong, you don’t actually use the same nutrient solution from seedling to finish, they list using 6 different parts rather than 3. And if I need to use additional supplements and boosters I’ll stick with what I know.

Anyway, either:
(1) Jack’s 321 nutrients automatically sense the plant’s growth stage and adjusts the contents and ratios of the nutrient solution accordingly.
-OR-
(2) There is no need to provide cannabis plants with any specialized nutrients, bloom boosters, etc. based on stage of growth.

As Jack’s 321 is a general “blend of nutrients for growing almost any controlled environment crop”, how is it more cannabis specific than granular Miracle-Gro? I know, the dreaded “M” word, but there’s a lot more to their products than pre-charged soils (which we all know suck). I guess that technically, all the nutrients I use are Miracle-gro products, they own General Hydroponics too.

I was always taught that a plant in veg needed more nitrogen than flowering plants . . . how can a single solution of Jack’s 321 provide one plant with extra nitrogen without flooding the next plant with excess nitrogen?

I’m not trying to put down Jack’s . . . just to understand what I’ve been reading. Seems like I’ve spent years learning that I needed to adjust my nutrient solution ratios/contents every week or two for optimum growth and yield. And then along comes the old Peter’s Pro folks saying this is all you need start to finish. Getting senile I guess because I just can’t wrap my head around it . . .

I’m lazy and looking to simplify my process/trips downstairs . . . bad knee and basement grow are a pain, literally. I’ve looked at Jack’s nutrients every time I’ve ordered a gallon of FloraMicro, Koolbloom, Diamond Nectar, etc. for the past year but can’t talk myself into it.

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2

Someone posted “Jack’s is stupid simple” once and I said that’s for me. It’s cheap and simple. Can’t say it’s the best but in my opinion it’s definitely simple. I haven’t had any deficiencies or issues since starting using it. I am more than satisfied with results. You can use it in soil, Coco or Hydro. Here’s a couple of videos to help understand how it works and how to use it.

This one is a good one to watch to understand how it works. It covers some info you may already know, but it is a good one for new growers.

This one is a short one on how to mix.

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A one horse feed program is not all that uncommon. Dr. Bugbee is renowned for his knowledge of growing cannabis at Utah State Univ. He is also a founder of Apogee Instruments. Not a bad resume.
He keeps his feed schedule even simpler by using 20-10-20 peters special peat blend
Well worth watching

I back off a bit during early seedling stage. Also, using hydro or a medium like coco with perlite with good runoff plays a role. I also use Jack’s in autopots with coco.

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4

Like you I was using FFT for the past 2 years doing the flushing every 4 weeks ( what a pain in the butt). I have been toying with the idea of using Jacks and last week I noticed I was running low on FFT so I pulled the trigger and ordered a 6 # kit. So now we will see.

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5

I have used jacke 321 through 5 harvest now. I grow in coco although did use soil 1 time and the soil grow produced 1/2 what the coco did. Last two? Harvests I did add some molasses and I’m not sure it was helpful or not and this time I’ve decided to add some p-k supplement in attempt to increase trichrome production. Otherwise my last 2 gg4 in coco using jacks 321 only gave me 24 oz each. My journals show some nice results w jacks. I have 3 gallons of gh trio I’m going to give away with some clones I’ve started.

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If you have been using gh for 20+ years you are probably familiar with Lucas formula? Jacks 321 recipe is pretty much the same principle. The feed charts put out by them aren’t the same as old school method. Long story here, that’s not worth getting into. But the same hydroponic blend that Jr Peter’s has sold for something like 50+ years had recipe on bag. 3 parts hydroponic blend, 1 part magnesium sulfate, 2 parts calcium nitrate, in that order. The bag recipe was listed per 100 gallons, but scaled to 1 gallon is 3.6 grams hydroponic blend, 1.2 grams magnesium sulfate, and 2.4 grams calcium nitrate.

You can certainly tweak and tune recipe, and may even be necessary at some point. But you’ll have a good complete nutrient solution with reasonable npk for cannabis.

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That is true, can feed same Jacks ratio from seedling to harvest.

We are only using 3 parts but Jacks makes more nutes that we are not using.

The Cannabis friendly Jacks mix that many of us use is called Jacks 321 and consists of 3 parts:

amazon.com

Amazon.com : Jacks Hydroponic 5-12-26 Part A Fertilizer : Garden & Outdoor

Amazon.com : Jacks Hydroponic 5-12-26 Part A Fertilizer : Garden & Outdoor

amazon.com

Amazon.com : Jack’s 15-0-0 Calcium Nitrate 25 lb. Fertilizer - Part B (1) :…

Amazon.com : Jack’s 15-0-0 Calcium Nitrate 25 lb. Fertilizer - Part B (1) : Garden & Outdoor

amazon.com

Amazon.com : Magnesium Sulfate 100% Water Soluble (10 Pounds) : Garden &…

Amazon.com : Magnesium Sulfate 100% Water Soluble (10 Pounds) : Garden & Outdoor

That one is true, none of that extra stuff is needed to grow nice healthy cannabis and most growers give too many nutes and supplements that are not needed but think it’ll help in some way.

Yeah we were taught a lot of things that just aren’t true, dealing mostly with bro science or fertilizer company marketing than actual science. Now that things are getting legal and being studied, we are starting to get some actual science in cannabis growing and finding out that a lot of things we did and do is wrong or not needed.

I used one of the more expensive nutes for many years (Advanced Nutrients) with like 20 bottles of extra supplements before switching to Jacks 321 and the simple and cheap Jacks mix grew cannabis plants just as good as the much more expensive nutes.

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8

I’m new to this and I’m using Jacks 1-2-3 in coco/perlite.

Jacks has added seedling, bloom, and finish fertilizers to their 1-2-3 recommendations. I’ve never read anyone swear using the seedling, bloom, or finish have improved their results.

I love it. I mix 5 gallons at a time, verify the ppm, drop a pump in for 3x a day watering, and shop vac the runoff once a day. I’ve been giving some of the runoff to my house plants and trees outside.

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9

What? A few grams of three dry ingredients is easier to use and qualitatively just good as using 20 different bottles of nutrients and supplements. I never reached twenty but I was well on my way. :beers:

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Yeah this isn’t even all of the ones I used, left a few bottles out of the pic. Don’t miss those days of all that mixing, also was paying like $750 a year on those nutes and now less than $50 a year on Jacks.

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Bet you don’t miss those days holy what the f that must’ve been a ton of work and $ to boot. God bless Jack’s

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If u want to do the switch go down to earth products get there bat guano and kelp meal and alfalfa meal fish bone meal and sea bird guano and use worm castings you can top dress with these and u can use them to make a tea aswell

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13

Jacks 321 all the way
You won’t regret it

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14

Jacks shows just how simple and little is actually needed to have good harvests…

GH trio for example. I’ve used it with nothing else but cal-mag fir a while. My smoke is just as potent and yeilds the same as others that use 15-20 bottles…
If your not careful you will be supplementing the jacks to before its over… .
Just my 2 cents, less is more :grin:

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Thanks to all for the information, comments and opinions.

I’m still on the fence about the switch, but I may drop all the extras, go back to the Flora Trio and cal-mag first. That was all I used until recently. I just started adding to that over the past 2-3 years . . . when I found out about internet sites like this and got to reading.

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You can definitely do that too. I am one of those who went from Fox Farms liquid trio to Jacks - no real need for CalMag with the Part A/Part B/Epsom mix. Just one less thing to worry about. I also use monopotassium phosphate once flowering begins - not sure it does anything, but it makes me feel better to add it in (like it’s doing more work somehow even if it isn’t). Honestly price is the reason I went to Jacks. A 25 pound bag of A and B was $120 (it’s cheaper now than that) and I get Epsom salts free from work. I’ve been using jacks since late august and run maybe 18 plants now with it from start to “finish” (in many cases that ended up being 2-3 weeks into 12/12 because they Hermed or were males). I’ve used maybe 3 pounds of Part A and 1.5-2 pounds of Part B. It’ll last probably well into next year even at the rate that I’m growing.

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I myself started with gh trio and alot of additive bottles also. Since then have moved to jacks and a few additives now being big bud. Bud candy bud ignitor recharge and tribus other than it’s basically a jacks run from start to finish. Love it. It is easy to use super super cheap vs other nute lines and like bdog said I have yet to really experience any problems since the start of using it. Certain plants will require u to use less nitrogen part but super super simple using it so far

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I’m still not sold on it either, the more I read about 321 the more it’s becoming 321+this + that. I’m comfortable with GH, just have a couple of issues to work out with my root zone.

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19

I have noticed that myself
I use silica and jacks 321 that’s it
I bump jacks down to jacks 222 and 1.2 of mkp for the first 3 weeks of lights flip ton12/12 then after 3 weeks back to silica and jacks 321
I have had zero issues since I switched.
Buds are nice and frosty stinky dense and potent

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Now i dig that recipe :metal: I’ma save it, write it down and screenshot it and just maybe I’ll be able to find this when the time comes :+1: thanks buddy

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