A+B Fertilisers, or Why Aren't They in One Bottle?
Beginning growers often ask how these two-part fertilisers work and why they must be kept separate. Today’s article summarises the answers, focusing on basic plant nutrition, which is always produced in two bottles.
Quality two-part fertilisers represent a truly nutritious cocktail of essential nutrients, minerals and other substances that help plants develop quickly and healthily. They are available for use in soil, coco and also for hydroponics.
The high concentration of beneficial substances is reflected not only in the matter of dosing, where it is necessary to follow certain limits and procedures, but also in the fact that some substances would create undesirable reactions together in a concentrated bottle, after which some essential substances for the plant, present in smaller proportions, would literally be absorbed by other dominant substances.
Another reason why two-part fertilisers are most often sold in two bottles is soil life. A healthy and beautifully branched root system of the plant, as a basic prerequisite for a rich harvest, represents a complex ecosystem in which various microorganisms play a key role. Their representation should also be as balanced as possible. Small predators have their irreplaceable place here, just as peaceful strains do. In the micro-world, that is, in soil or a similar growing medium (soil mixes), where your plants grow, exactly the same rules apply in this respect as in nature as a whole.
If we were to place these elements, which the plant needs for its development, into one bottle, the results of even the best fertilising would not be worth mentioning, because after some time a significant part of the beneficial substances in one bottle would simply disappear in favour of some dominant substance. Such is the law of nature, and fertiliser manufacturers must respect it. An ideal example from “big nature” is the African savannah, where giraffes, elephants, lions, goats, zebras and monkeys live side by side. Such an ecosystem has been stable and functional since time immemorial. We can map a certain food chain, but it is part of the ecosystem, and the individual species exist in it naturally and permanently side by side. But what happens if you leave a pride of lions together in one large cage with other species? The answer is obvious to everyone. Soon only the lions will remain. And that is, of course, an undesirable reaction.
That is why it is necessary already during production to sufficiently separate dominant substances and microorganisms in plant nutrition products from the others, and that is therefore also the reason why we have basic fertilisers for growth, referred to as GROW, available in one bottle, and fertilisers for flowering, referred to as BLOOM, in the second bottle, even though they are applied at the same time and many growers therefore quite logically ask, especially at the beginning: “Why not just put it all into one?”.
If the different elements are supplied to the growing medium separately in the form of A + B bottles, they can live side by side and support the plant in its growth through their action.
The same applies to various additives, whether they are flower boosters, growth and root stimulators, enzymatic preparations or, for example, soil improvers:
- They are not always dosed in the same way.
- They cannot always be mixed with the base fertiliser.
- The content of certain substances contained in quality additives would disproportionately increase the price of the base product.
- The proportions of individual bottles differ with regard to the plant’s developmental stage, so they can be adjusted accordingly.
A safe bet when applying individual plant nutrition products are the procedures and dosing tables recommended directly by the manufacturer.
Our TIP: Get a practical Starter Kit / Starter pack - complete fertiliser sets contain everything you need during the growing cycle, from seed to a rich harvest! For example, try the bestseller in the fertiliser set range from the brand Advanced Hydroponics, the Dutch fertiliser set BioNova AutoFlower Supermix for autoflowering varieties, and very popular among our customers is also the basic set of Czech-made fertilisers.
We also recommend these products:
- Atami B´cuzz Soil A+B (from CZK 239) professional mineral fertiliser for growing in soil.
- Plagron Cocos A+B (from CZK 329) biomineral fertiliser for growing in coco.
- BioNova Coco Forte A+B (from CZK 549) top-quality Dutch organic nutrition for growing in coco.
- Plagron hydro A+B (from CZK 339) biomineral fertiliser for hydroponics.
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