Monsanto Owns General Hydroponics?!

[iwltfum]

I'm I just late on realizing this or are they keeping it quiet on purpose?

I couldn't believe it when I heard it, but it looks like its true... (By the way: hawthorne gardening company is the newly marketed name for MONSANTO, they just can't call it that anymore, because everyone knows they are an evil corporation)
The Hawthorne Gardening Company Acquires General Hydroponics and Bio-Organic Solutions


Ouch. Looks like I'm in the market for a new line of nutrients.

Way to ruin everything good monsanto.

 

[Weaselcracker]

re: Monsanto owns GH?!

Crap- I was considering trying GH. I will never support those bastards. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[morrum]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

To late already invested in GH, hope we don't run into problems with nutes did you get yours dialed in for your babies? Have just put seeds in rapid rooter. Using distilled water with CaliMag, (well water), hope to keep Crown Royale girls on happy plan. Thanks to all who post we still doing research, learning what not to do lol

 

[iwltfum]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

To late already invested in GH, hope we don't run into problems with nutes did you get yours dialed in for your babies? Have just put seeds in rapid rooter. Using distilled water with CaliMag, (well water), hope to keep Crown Royale girls on happy plan. Thanks to all who post we still doing research, learning what not to do lol

I've been using gh for years. Had everything dialed in perfectly, but I refuse to buy products controlled by monsanto. I have gallons of the stuff still so I might do a couple more rounds with it, but I'm not buying anymore of it. Plus, I heard they were planning on changing the FloraDuo formula, so I'm assuming they will eventually change the Nova three part formula as well.

 

[morrum]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

I agree about monsanto, control food and water and you control the people. Got seeds (CR Fem) in RR not sure I care for tray needs dome will DIY make some thing different. Will keep close eye on GH nutes this time change for next grow. Got fingers crossed 1st grow with new nutes equipment and seeds. Wish us luck.

 

[OldMedUser]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

It's actually Scott's Miracle Grow that bought GH and their affiliate, "Bio-Organic Solutions" that markets products under the Vermicrop label.

L8r




Scotts Miracle-Gro Buys General Hydroponics
By Nigel Salazar

The hydroponics industry and marijuana growers are reacting with worry and outrage at the news that Scotts Miracle-Gro (an admitted corporate criminal that sells low-end fertilizers, Monsanto's Round-Up, and other poisons), has purchased hydroponics nutrients manufacturer General Hydroponics.

Scotts Miracle-Gro also purchased General Hydroponics affiliate "Bio-Organic Solutions" that markets products under the Vermicrop label.

The purchase was made by a Scotts Miracle-Gro front company called "Hawthorne Gardening Company," a wholly-owned Scotts subsidiary formed in 2014.

Hawthorne is managed by Chris Hagedorn, the oldest son of Scotts CEO Jim Hagedorn, but in public statements made by General Hydroponics and Hawthorne spokespersons, the Scotts Miracle-Gro connection has been omitted... most likely because Scotts is universally scorned by the marijuana growing and organic gardening communities.

As detailed in this hard-hitting article, Scotts Miracle-Gro is a corporate felon, allied with chemical and GMO giant Monsanto, and a partner in the drug war.

General Hydroponics: Shuns Marijuana Growers, Embraces Weed Killer Manufacturer

General Hydroponics (GH), founded nearly four decades ago in California, is tied with Advanced Nutrients as the top-selling hydroponics nutrients manufacturer.

In media reports about the Scotts takeover of General Hydroponics, GH founder Larry Brooke was described as a "medical marijuana proponent."

In actual fact, Brooke has long been an influential member of a powerful anti-marijuana cadre in the hydroponics gardening industry.

The cadre, led by Brooke and Maximum Yield hydroponics magazine, has a total ban on even mentioning legal medical marijuana at Maximum Yield hydroponics gardening events.

As you can read here, when marijuana growers call General Hydroponics to ask about GH product problems, they get hung up on.

The anti-marijuana faction of the hydroponics industry creates ruthless censorship and other hardships to attack honest businesspeople who openly make products for marijuana growers or advocate marijuana legalization.

The blatant hypocrisy, self-censorship, and double-talk that Brooke and many others in the hydroponics industry engage in regarding marijuana was on full display in an article about the Scotts-General Hydroponics deal published in California's The Press Democrat newspaper.

Here's an excerpt of the article about the sale of General Hydroponics:

"Word of the sale has been circulating for several weeks, said Chad Russell, owner of Santa Rosa's Hydroponics Warehouse. General Hydroponics products are strong sellers because they are effective and local, he said.

Russell said he doesn't ask what kinds of crops people are growing with General Hydroponics products with names like BioThrive, BioBud and BioWeed, but he doesn't doubt many of his customers are growing marijuana.

"Everyone knows what's going on and are silent about it," Russell said.

The company's rapid growth in recent years has mirrored the boom in the medical marijuana industry. But Brooke stressed that he has taken pains not to cater to any particular crop.

"For the many years I've run GH I've been very careful that I didn't cross any lines about allowing the identity of my company to be associated with medical cannabis," he said." [emphasis added]

Harm to the Hydroponics Industry and Hydroponics Marijuana Growers

Hydroponics retailers, and distributors of General Hydroponics fertilizers such as Sunlight Supply, are reportedly worried that Scotts and Hawthorne will bypass hydroponics retailers and sell General Hydroponics products in "big box stores" such as Lowes, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot.

Hydroponics nutrients manufacturer Botanicare sent out a written message to hydroponics retailers expressing concern about Scotts harming the hydroponics industry by selling nutrients at discount stores.

Botanicare also noted that Scotts Miracle-Gro "has a history of business practices that do not align with the values and beliefs of many who are dedicated and passionately involved in our industry."

Hydroponics marijuana growers are concerned that Scotts Miracle-Gro and Hawthorne will dilute or otherwise ruin General Hydroponics products.

Scotts has been trying to penetrate the marijuana fertilizer industry for at least 7 years, most notably by having paid shills on marijuana gardening forums and in YouTube videos who falsely claim you can use Miracle-Gro fertilizers and Scotts soils to grow good marijuana.

But el cheapo Scotts fertilizers and soils are too harsh and inferior for growing connoisseur marijuana. Scotts soils are widely reported to have on-board pests.

Growers thought they were saving money using Scotts fertilizers and soils, only to discover that Miracle-Gro products ruin their cannabis crops.

"Scotts Miracle-Gro decided the best thing was to purchase an existing hydroponics fertilizer brand that had good market share, rather than trying to create 'Scotts Miracle-Marijuana Gro.' They created their front company called Hawthorne, and went after General Hydroponics. What blows me away is General Hydroponics would get in bed with Scotts. Scotts Miracle-Gro is a nasty corporation, a front for Monsanto, and it goes against everything the hydroponics marijuana community believes in," a hydroponics industry analyst noted.

The analyst says if Scotts Miracle-Gro and Hawthorne Gardening Company start selling General Hydroponics outside of regular hydroponics retail channels, it will create significant financial losses for hydroponics distributors and retailers.

A General Hydroponics manager, speaking anonymously, claimed that Scotts and Hawthorne Gardening won't change General Hydroponics as a company, its product line, or how GH products are distributed or sold.

"The benefit to General Hydroponics is we're owned by a subsidiary of a company that has $3 billion in worldwide sales," the spokesperson said.

Michael Straumietis, founder and owner of hydroponics nutrients company Advanced Nutrients, says the Scotts takeover of General Hydroponics justifies his many years of vehement criticism of General Hydroponics and the anti-marijuana segment of the hydroponics gardening industry.

Straumietis has long been the only hydroponics nutrients inventor and entrepreneur who has expertise in growing marijuana, and whose company employes scientists to study marijuana's unique nutritional needs and make products that boost marijuana growth rate, yield, potency, and purity.

For more than a decade, Straumietis has waged a public war of words with General Hydroponics and its allies in the hydroponics industry, reminding them that marijuana growers are the mainstay of the industry who are "ill-served" by industry censorship and by being sold products that don't fuel optimized performance in marijuana plants.

"As Larry Brooke admits now that he's sold his company to Scotts, he never made products for marijuana growers and he never wanted his company to even be 'associated with medical cannabis.' It has always been a big insult to our marijuana growing community that Larry Brooke and his allies are happy to take growers' money, but ashamed to stand up for growers or even be associated with them!"
Marijuana Growers Push Back Against GH & Scotts Miracle-Gro

If Hawthorne, Scotts, and Brooke believed that the marijuana grower community would welcome the General Hydroponics takeover news, they've been rudely surprised.

Many marijuana growers dislike Scotts because they know Scotts is a major player in the genetic modification (GM) industry, via close partnerships and other business relationships with Monsanto and Sanford Scientific.

Scotts manufactures genetically modified grasses and ornamental plants, and is the sole licensed distributor for some Monsanto herbicides and pesticides in North America, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Austria.

The Scotts genetic modification program is controversial— Scotts used regulatory loopholes to put potentially-risky GM products into the marketplace with little if any safety oversight.

In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Scotts was being fined $4 million for multiple, severe violations of federal insecticide, fungicide, and rodenticide laws.

Scotts pled guilty to illegally applying insecticides to bird food, falsifying documents, misleading consumers about pesticide use and safety, and distributing unregistered pesticides.

The EPA also announced that Scotts Miracle-Grow had to pay another $8 million in fines, penalties, and mitigation related to other violations.

"The misuse or mislabeling of pesticide products can cause serious illness in humans and be toxic to wildlife," said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "Today's sentence and unprecedented civil settlement hold Scotts accountable for widespread company noncompliance with pesticide laws, which put products into the hands of consumers without the proper authorization or warning labels."

The greed and corruption at the heart of companies like Scotts and Monsanto was easy to see when Scotts admitted in its EPA plea agreement that it had knowingly applied toxic chemicals to bird food, contrary to EPA directives, even after lower-level Scotts employees told top management of the violations.

Scotts also admitted it submitted false documents to EPA and state regulators in a deliberate attempt to deceive the regulators, and similarly falsified product labels to mislead the public.

Marijuana growers say Larry Brooke and General Hydroponics are totally wrong to be involved with Scotts Miracle-Gro.

On the General Hydroponics Facebook page, growers say they're giving up on General Hydroponics because it's involved with Scotts and Monsanto:

"I have been using your products for over 10 years with great and REPEATABLE results. I am saddened to say I will NO LONGER be supporting this company due to the recent sale to a company that makes profits off of poisoning the earth and its peoples! SHAME ON YOU Gen hydro for supporting monsanto and its quest to ruin the planet!"

Hydroponics stores report customers are abandoning General Hydroponics and switching to Advanced Nutrients and other hydroponics nutrients brands that aren't affiliated with a corporate criminal like Scotts.

"Growers are offended that Larry Brooke dissed the marijuana growing industry. When he said that his products are made for veggies, ornamentals, and houseplants, not for marijuana, the growers woke up to the fact they've been getting ripped off by GH," a California hydroponics store owner explained.

Typical of the reaction from marijuana growers is this from a legal marijuana grower based in Colorado:

"I've only stayed with General Hydroponics because I'm familiar with using their three-part base. It's not like I think they're the best nutrients," explained John, a Denver marijuana grower. "But I'm going to stop using General Hydroponics. No way do I want my money going to Scotts Miracle-Gro."

 

[iwltfum]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

Hawthorne Gardening is run by monsanto owners. They just made it public as Scott's trade because they could and because monsanto has about the worst reputation in the gardening business. That's the shady part of this whole thing - They don't want anyone to know that Monsanto own's GH and vermi now.

 

[morrum]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

Thanks for info they won't get anymore of my retirement lol

 

[lexort420]

Re: Monsanto owns GH?!

Ya i had found this out right after I had ordered the GH flora series 3 part. Thought I was stepping it up from MG nutes but apparently not

 

[tetraidiol]

What are others changing to? I'm going to finish up what i have of GH for this grow and switch to something else. Been looking at other nutrients but it gets expensive with more than just base nutrients.

 

[brotherbuddz]

I normally use botanicare it serves my needs...having said that i have heard really good reviews about Remo Nutrients

 

[guido420]

Yepper. They bought it. I believe they own Verigrow and rumor is they are eyeing Botanicaire. All in the name of money money money.

Its kind of like Philip Morris buying up ecig companies.....follow the money.

It is a sign of the possibiltiy of finally legalizing our sweet mary and putting it all in Wally World and Targets nationwide. Funny thing is wally world has been selling hydro for years....on the dark dirty web.

Good thing i support smaller companies rooted in our herb.

Peace

Sent from my SPH-L710 using 420