"I buy DynaGro 1 gallon at a time ($55) and to make this an apples-to-apples comparison I’ll be comparing DG’s 1 gallon to MegaCrop’s 2500g size @ $32.69 (includes shipping). They mix up a similar amount of reservoirs but the gallon of DG will last about 5 weeks longer.
So the first thing that I want to address is the inaccuracy printed on the bags of Megacrop. They claim that 4gs of their product into a gallon of water equals 1.2EC (840 ppm). I measured 4 different times out of 2 different MC bags with a freshly calibrated EC pen. The best I came up with is that 4gs of MegaCrop into a gallon of water equals 0.87EC (610 ppm) which means MegaCrop is over-stating their potency by nearly 38%. I also checked out MC's website some months ago and they had a lot of misleading information about the cost of comparable products on the market.
For instance, they calculated their own cost of use at a feeding strength of 1.0 EC but when they calculated the cost of a competitor's product they did so at feeding levels sometimes well over 2.0 EC. That's shady as hell and it's the same thing AN used to pull when attacking their competitors in the market. That bit on their website has since been taken down but used to be here: (
https://greenleafnutrients.com/product-comparison/?v=b457452c21b1).
In the defense of MegaCrop, and let me be clear here,
they do lie on their bags, however, those recommendations are safe for your average idiot grower who doesn't own a ppm/EC pen and blindly follows the manufacturers recommendations. Even feeding at their high end of 6gs/gal, you're still safe. Compare that to many other feeding charts, DynaGro's included, and following them to a T will absolutely scorch your plants.
So let’s figure out the real cost of MC in my 18 gallon reservoir. I’ll be feeding at around 1.1 EC from start to finish which means MC (90g each week into the reservoir) is going to cost $10.59 for this 9 week flowering period. DynaGro at the same feeding level costs $15.12 (115mls each week into the reservoir). Now this is a difference of $4.53 over a 2 month period. Obviously the difference in price increases with the scale of the grow and at some level the price difference between the two products could outweigh the inconvenience of dealing with dusty dry foods that need pH-adjustments every few days. Yield would be a factor too. If MC is more of a pain to deal with but yields more then obviously that’s something to consider too. Generally speaking in my life, time is the most important commodity so naturally I’d always be leaning towards the liquid foods in any wet vs dry plant food comparison.
Full disclosure here: I do use a couple other additives along with DG. They're not necessary but they are beneficial and I believe these products are already included in the MC dry mix that I'm currently using. So with DG, the money that I'm not spending on pH-up and down could easily be negated by the couple additives that I use.
So it looks like Mega Crop did not take down the cost comparison that I saw on their site. It can be found here (
https://greenleafnutrients.com/product/mega-crop/?v=7516fd43adaa#!/NPK).
So what rubs me the wrong way is that they are comparing their own cost of use at 4.1g servings which equals 633 ppm (0.9EC) to 10ml/gal servings with DynaGro which equals 1150ppm (1.64 EC). That's not an apple-to-apples comparison and when calculating cost at these very different feeding levels it becomes VERY misleading.
Let's looks at the Aqua Flakes Comparison too. I've used Aqua Flakes in the past and I actually really liked it. It's a 2-part food and you use equal parts from start to finish. Super easy! So MC is claiming that this is THE most expensive plant food option on their list. They're saying that 40L of Aqua Flakes only makes 587 gallons. That means that users are feeding their plants with a total of 68.1 mls/gal! If I recall the potency of Aqua Flakes correctly, that's a feeding level of 5451ppm (7.78 EC). I'm thinking someone forgot to carry a 1 or something? If shooting for 1.1 EC, Aqua Flakes users only need about 4.5mls/gal of each part. At that feeding rate, 40L of food makes 4444 gallons of food.
So as you can see MC is not doing apples-to-apples comparisons here which I think is shady and misleading. So far it looks like MC is a good product and they shouldn't be resorting to these lies to sell their plant foods."
