Aptus - CaMg-Boost

An organo-mineral calcium and magnesium supplement with organic nitrogen and L-amino acids. Unlike most Cal-Mag products this one is for a phase rather than for your water: 1 in 2000, from the third week of flowering.

This is not a water correction but a flowering product

Most bottles on this shelf correct your water. Run on reverse osmosis water and you top up what was stripped out, from the first day to the last. The question is how soft your water is.

This product is built differently. Aptus bring it in from the third week of flowering or fruit set, continuously through to the final flush week. That is not a water question but a crop question, and it shifts in precisely those weeks.

The reason lies in where the calcium has to go. While the plant is making leaf, calcium travels with the transpiration stream to the leaf, because that is where the water evaporates. Once flowers or fruit are on it, calcium also has to reach tissue that barely transpires at all. That tissue is at the back of the queue, exactly in the weeks it is growing hardest. A supplement that accounts for that arrives when the demand does, not when the cycle starts.

Organo-mineral: there is more in it than the two elements

The formula is organo-mineral rather than purely mineral. Alongside calcium and magnesium it carries organic nitrogen and left-handed L-amino acids.

Left-handed is the relevant word. Amino acids occur in two mirror-image forms, and plants and animals build their proteins exclusively from the left-handed one. A preparation supplying that form supplies building blocks that are directly usable, rather than material that has to be converted first.

What that means in practice is more modest than any brand's leaflet suggests, and it is fairer to say so: you are adding a small amount of directly usable organic material alongside your mineral supplement. It is not a replacement for your base feed and it is not the reason a harvest works or fails.

Dosing and mixing order

The ratio is 1 in 2000: 5 ml per 10 litres of water, or 50 ml per 100 litres. Feed it from the third week of the flowering cycle continuously through to the final flush week before harvest.

Add CaMg-Boost first to the clean reservoir where possible, and make sure it does not meet other concentrated fertilisers undiluted. Concentrated calcium beside a sulphate- or phosphate-bearing concentrate produces a precipitate, and that precipitate does not go back into solution.

Available sizes

Technical Specifications:

• Type: concentrated organo-mineral calcium and magnesium supplement
• Manufacturer: Aptus
• Additional: organic nitrogen and left-handed L-amino acids
• Dose: 1 in 2000, which is 5 ml per 10 litres or 50 ml per 100 litres
• Period: from the third week of flowering or fruit set to the final flush week
• Mixing order: first into the clean reservoir, never undiluted beside other concentrates
• Substrate: all substrates and irrigation systems

Frequently asked questions

Why only from week 3 of flowering?
Because calcium demand shifts then to flower and fruit tissue, which barely transpires and therefore has more trouble getting calcium.

Does this replace my normal Cal-Mag on RO water?
Not entirely. A water correction runs from day one; this product targets a phase. On RO water you still need something during vegetative growth.

What are left-handed amino acids?
Amino acids exist in two mirror-image forms. Plants build their proteins from the left-handed one, so that form is directly usable.

Can it go in the jerrycan with my other concentrates?
No. Undiluted calcium beside a sulphate or phosphate concentrate precipitates. Always into the clean reservoir first.

How long do I keep feeding it?
Through to the final flush week before harvest.