Cannabis plants have quite a specific diet, and three of the most important nutrients that they need are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are fundamental for your plants to grow properly and develop its flowers. The combination of these three nutrients is incredibly important when it comes to growing cannabis in its different stages; today we’re going to have a closer look at PK nutrients, which are needed most during the flowering period.
PK is an acronym given to two chemical elements, Phosphorus and Potassium, which are the two main nutrients needed when it comes to fattening cannabis buds.
Phosphorus is involved in resin yield and seed production during the flowering period, although during the growth period it’s used in the photosynthetic process. PK nutrients tend to contain high amounts of phosphorus in order to improve your plants’ metabolism.
On the other hand, potassium allows your plants to grow their roots out during the growth period, as well as growing thicker stems and branches. During the flowering period it increases terpene and essential oil yield, which increases flavor intensity in your cannabis plants.
When should you start using PK nutrients?
Knowing exactly when you should use your PK nutrients is a question that growers come to us with almost daily. If you can figure out when the best time is to start using these products, you can increase your yield quite a lot, as well as resin and terpenes.
You should start using these additives once your plants begin to form their first flowers during the flowering period. Your plants will stop growing upwards and start paying more attention to creating brand new flowers and fattening them up. You’ll need to have fed your plants properly during the growth period in order for them to flower healthily, however. The stronger the plant structure, the heftier and larger its buds can grow.
If you want us to give you an exact week or day that you’ll need to start using PK nutrients, you’re out of luck. This strictly depends on the product used and the amount of PK in each product. Generally, we start using PK from the second flowering week onwards, as well as the rest of your necessary additives and stimulants. Although, if the PK product that you plan on using is highly concentrated, you should probably use it further on, towards the end of the flowering stage.
These fattening products are perfect if you want to harvest delicious, thick, aromatic and resinous flowers from your cannabis plants.
Types of PK nutrients:
There are an incredible amount of fertilizer brands on the market that have spent a lot of time developing products that increase yield from cannabis plants. There are two types of PK nutrients:
- Chemical
- Organic
The first type, chemical fertilizers, are mineral in origin and are mainly made by the fertilizer industry. These products come in both solid and liquid format, and are generally used by beginner growers that are looking to get amazing results right from the get-go. They’re also used quite a lot by growers that want to produce a lot of flowers for commercial reasons, as they can thicken up buds in no time. One of our most sold chemical products is Big Boom PK 52-34, which is the highest concentration of phosphorus and potassium, allowing you to double the size of your flowers.
When it comes to organic products, they usually come from plant extracts or animal extracts. They’re the most sold nutrients when it comes to home-growers. They’re usually full of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, as well as smaller trace elements. These nutrients are used to stimulate your plants to generate more terpenes and sugars, which increases the size of your buds while keeping them proportionately dense. We have products such as Bio Bloom by Biobizz and Top Bud by Top Crop, two natural fertilizers used to fatten buds with 100% organic results.
How to use PK nutrients
Fattening products for cannabis plants, like we said before, are generally used at the start of the flowering period. This can vary from the 2nd to the 4th week depending on the manufacturer and the PK content of the product being used.
In order to use these products correctly you should follow the manufacturer’s instructions, although generally speaking PK products are used once a week. This is due to the fact that they’re highly concentrated and your plants need time to metabolize their ingredients – in some cases you can use the product more than once, but only if the manufacturer specifies it.
Not all PK products on the market provide the same results for all growers, however. The amount of experience you have growing is incredibly important, as you need to be capable of picking the right substrate, as well as monitoring pH and EC – this is especially true when it comes to Big boom, which requires you to run a tight ship.
Also, you should keep in mind that you should always flush your plants’ roots before harvesting, around 1-2 weeks before harvesting; your plant will accumulate salts that you’ll need to remove by washing the roots out using just water or a product made specifically for this purpose.
What are the best PK nutrients?
If you do a quick search you’ll see that there are an incredible amount of PK nutrients on the market, and we’ve written an article that deals with what we consider to be the best organic and mineral PK products on the market; How to Grow Bigger Buds on Cannabis Plants.
Some of the most sold PK products on GB The Green Brand are Big Boom PK 52-43 , Super Bloom and Monster Bloom. These three chemical fertilizers have incredibly high amounts of phosphorus and potassium that’ll absolutely explode your plants’ flowers.
When it comes to organic fertilizers, our customer-favorites are Bio Bloom by Biobizz and Top Bud by Top Crop, as well as Guano by Guanokalong and Bio PK 5-8 by Bio tabs. All of these organic products also give your plants a little extra boost in as far as flavor and aroma thanks to their 100% organic ingredients.
Which one is better, though, organic or mineral? I guess that’s up to you, whichever one gives you the results that you’re looking for. Experience is key.