Heavy 16 Nutrients – Heavy 16 Bud A&B Reviews

I have been reading a lot of really positive Heavy 16 nutrients reviews online and thought it would be a good idea to give Heavy 16 base nutes a try. I will only be using their Bud A&B nutes this round and not their whole lineup.

I am very happy with my Dutch Master A&B but it never hurts to see if there’s something better out there. One thing that I like about Heavy 16 is the fact it is made in California. That means my money stays here in the US instead of going overseas. Dutch Master is an Australian company and while there is nothing wrong with that I like the idea of buying American made.

Update On My Nutes

Dutch Master Gold is gone. I hear they were bought out and they are dropping the Gold Line so I am without my go to nute brand. I am now growing in coco and can use the full Heavy 16 line so I will be doing a full Heavy 16 in coco review soon.

One thing that impressed me right off the bat was Heavy 16 owner Bryce Patterson. He has a degree in Agricultural/Horticultural Science and has been involved in growing for some time. He set out to create a hype free line of nutrients that uses cutting edge technology but yet doesn’t require a ton of overpriced additives. He also makes himself available to his customers and answers their questions personally which is quite rare in any business.

I wanted to try the whole line actually but since I grow with aeroponics I had concerns about how my system would react to his various brews. So I decided to contact Bryce and here is that conversation:

Me:

Been reading some really good reviews about Heavy 16 and Prime really sounds like a great product. I would like to try it. But I grow with aeroponics which is a different animal entirely. Currently I am using Dutch Master with good results but will be testing your base nutes in my next grow.

I would like to use Prime also but I am concerned that it might clog my misters. Also since roots hang in the air would all those extracts be beneficial without any growing medium. Would Prime be OK in an aeroponic system?

Hello Steve,

Your apprehension is warranted.  PRIME is a very dynamic product that is used as an organic acid pH adjuster, microbial feed, fulvic-humic-kelp-molasses type product..  With the heightened levels of oxygen and agitation in an aero system, you may simply volatilize these organics too quickly and have pH levels rise along with it.  I have seen some growers use PRIME in an aero system with success, but it was intermittent spray blasts and they had larger orifice sprayers.  You could try an experiment to use possibly ¼ mL per gallon of PRIME to see how it functions for you.  I cannot guarantee it will not clog, yet you could get the benefits with the efficiency of the aero system.  Everything else I make would be fine to run in the system though. I definitely incorporate the “LIGHT” feed schedule off of our nutrient calculator online if using Aeroponics.

Well it looks like Prime is not going to work for my system and I am guessing not Fire either. I don’t have any agitation at all in my system so things would probably settle out and as the roots are already hanging in air air stones in the res seem redundant and may actually do more harm than good. Do you think I would be OK just using the base nutes in my aeroponic system? I do really like the idea of supplying multiple forms of an element. Either way I wish you the best because it seems you have really created a great product.

Bryce

Yes actually I would use just my base with ROOTS at 1-2 mL per gallon.  The ROOTS has the same phosphorous forms as FIRE just in a lessened rate, with other organic stimulants and a drip-clean like water conditioner.

I was pretty impressed by this interaction and was tempted to try the prime anyway because I have really good filtration. It might produce really killer results with an aeroponic system. But in the end I decided to only test the base nutrients.

Heavy 16 Vs Dutch Master – What’s In The Bottle?

I did some comparisons between labels on these 2 nute brands. If you add up both bottles the Dutch Master works out to 5-8-9 and they Heavy 16 comes out at 3-3-9 so it would appear the DM is more concentrated but most bloom formulas provide excess P anyway. I actually think the Heavy is a more balanced formula. The DM uses a mix of ammonium and nitrate nitrogen while the Heavy uses only the nitrate form. I believe this form is more available for plants to use which may explain its lower nitrogen level.

Both formulas provide ample trace elements but Heavy 16 provides 4% calcium while Dutch master has only 1.5 percent. Heavy also uses multiple calcium sources and has a lot of zinc. It’s not on the label though, but it was found when they submitted samples to the state to register their product. It has twice the sulfur, more iron and nickel which is not in the DM. The only thing I found missing from its formula was boron.

I only use bloom formula in my grows with Dutch Master so I felt the best comparison would be to use the Heavy 16 Bud A&B alone with nothing else. I will be growing C99 or Sugar Punch again because I know these plants. I wish I could do side by side grows but unfortunately I just don’t have the space.

I will be finishing my current C99 and Sugar Punch Scrog up and in about 2 weeks I will be starting a new grow with Heavy 16. Right now I want to try something new so it is looking like I will be growing some Hells Angel OG and a few c99.

I may get brave and add some agitation to my res and try the Prime on a later grow. I think my filtration will likely prevent clogs as anything larger than 10 microns will stay in the reservoir so it’s just a matter of preventing settling of its ingredients.

Heavy 16 Bud A&B – Some Early pH Observations

I have just started using the Heavy 16 bloom nutrients and although I have not been using it long enough to totally evaluate it I can say this stuff is definitely different than any nutes I have used before.

Most nutes that I have used are pretty acidic and I have almost always needed to raise my pH. I use tap water because mine is only 30 ppm so it is essentially RO water plus chlorine. It runs at a pH of about 9 and I still have almost always needed to use some pH Up. Less with Dutch Master and much more with others I have used.

But with the Heavy 16 it’s exactly the opposite. I am now having to use pH down because my mix is running in the upper 6s. I am still at lower concentrations since I have young plants and am only at about 700 ppm. I think when I get up around 1200 ppm I may not need to add anything though.

Heavy 16 – Final Verdict

I pulled the plug on Heavy 16 Bud A&B about two weeks into my grow. I think these would be excellent for soil, coco or other soiless mixes.But at least for aeroponics in my situation they did not perform well.

Unfortunately the pH was nearly impossible to keep below 6 and my plants were suffering because of it. It looked like they were experiencing lock out because of high pH. Plants were a yellow green and were not growing well.

I know these nutes are supposed to be used with other products from the heavy 16 line like Prime and Fire. But again most of the line simply was not compatible with my growing style. I had serious concerns about settling and clogging. The flower formula was fine and mixed clean and easy but the others have added teas and micros that just wont work for aeroponics.

So with a very limited trial I would have to say Heavy 16 should not be used for aeroponics and possibly not in other recirculating hydro systems. If you don’t try something new you will never learn anything new so experimenting is good even if you don’t get the results you wanted.

However, if you are growing in a soil,coco or soiless mix type of media it should work really well for you and I know some folks are getting amazing results with the Heavy 16 line.

Looking back, and comparing notes with other growers, the Biker Kush strain is a difficult one to get through veg and early flower without issues. So I may have over reacted on pulling the Heavy 16. I will be doing a new grow with this strain in coco and will give the Heavy 16/Aptus Fasilitor combo a try again.

Updated Review

I ran these again in a second grow with the Biker Kush from clones and the Heavy 16 did very well.  My yield was 1.25 # which is pretty good for OG without co2. My only complaint is that pH wanted to stay around 6.2 and I was constantly trying to bring it down. No lock outs or problems in spite of the higher pH though. Unfortunately I was not able to test the full line because of my drip system.

I am going back to growing aeroponic weed. I just get better results but if you are growing in soil I think Heavy 16 nutrients are a top quality product are a good choice. You would also be able to try the whole line of additives, especially the Fire without worrying about clogs.

Since that time I developed pythium in my aeroponic units. I was unable to get rid of it entirely and my grows suffered.

So this year I made the decision to go back to coco. It took quite a while to get new cuts of my genetics healthy again but so far there have not been any problems with pythium root rot.
I am currently testing Cyco nutrients I am using the Cyco Platinum Pro Starter Kit. There are a lot of bottles to it but I feel to evaluate any nute line it is important to run the whole line without other companies additives.

I plan on running Heavy 16 again after that batch of nutes are gone. I like the Cyco but I want to run several nute lines to find the best for my system. So Heavy 16 will be up next.