Hello,

My name is Dennis. I am the developer of the eacygrow app and today I would like to tell you how eacygrow came about.
Since my youth I have been passionate about cannabis, but above all I love and appreciate the culture and the people.

Years ago, I wanted to give it another try and started growing again after a break of about 15 years. I quickly realized that a lot had changed over the years.
So I just started, even though I already knew what it could cost me (cannabis wasn't legal in Germany yet). Today I can say that everything went well.
Except for the grow.

So, let's start from the very beginning.

I bought the equipment—the tent, the exhaust fan, and the HPS lamp—because it was cheap and included everything I needed. Fertilizer? No clue. So I googled which fertilizer is best for cannabis.
I somehow ended up using Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect because I don't have to adjust the pH level myself. I liked that.
I think I also added Big Bud and Overdrive or Bud Candy. I'm not entirely sure anymore.
Only afterwards did I find out what mineral and organic fertilizers are and what the differences are. Beginner, eh?

So far, so good; I always mixed and poured the nutrient solution according to the manufacturer's instructions. I NEVER measured the EC value.
My automatic plants grew enormously and almost reached the ceiling of the tent (2 m). Controlled cultivation was out of the question.
Unfortunately, I can't find any more photos. I'll add them when they turn up.
The weed wasn't good. Period. No, it was actually bad. Okay, it was my first grow, and I wasn't discouraged. In the meantime, I've read and learned a lot about growing and wanted to put that into practice with my next grow.

Said and done.

I bought EC and pH meters. I always watered with runoff, kept records, and after a while realized that something was wrong.
When I fertilized my plants according to the manufacturer's instructions, they became severely over-fertilized. The EC values ​​of the runoff rose sharply. Even when I halved or quartered the amount of fertilizer, I never achieved the optimum. Then there were signs of deficiencies here and there, nutrient burn.

How does that fit together?

The manufacturers say: Give us this and that, and you'll get perfect plants and top-shelf grass.

The grow wasn't that great either. It was better, but still far from what I had imagined.
But I learned a lot again, and the problem with the inaccurate fertilization schedules continued to bother me, so for the first time I thought about how I could solve it.

The third grow.

They say the third grow is the first grow.
Yes, I agree. Growing is simply a matter of experience. In the first two grow cycles, you learn the basics, depending on the growing style you use. I don't like to make things difficult for myself, but I do deliberately complicate things because I always have high expectations of myself and my work.

The cultivation started well, and I calculated my nutrient solution manually. That worked well, but it was time-consuming. So I developed my first calculator in spreadsheets (the beginning of what is now NutS Calc. ). With this calculator, I could mix a nutrient solution with the desired EC value. That was really cool. It also saved me a lot of time compared to manual calculations.
However, that brought me to the next problem.

For example: If I pour in a nutrient solution with an EC value of 2 at the top and an EC value of 2.2 comes out at the bottom, and the next target EC value should be 2.4.
What should the EC value of the next nutrient solution be?

We're all familiar with this rule-of-thumb calculation, which in my experience doesn't work very well. Especially after repeated use, the actual EC values ​​deviate too much from the expected EC values.
Therefore, this is not a real solution.

Well, one night, as I was pondering this again, an idea suddenly came to me. Bam, the next computer was born.
The EC Calculator.
Now I could accurately calculate the required EC value of my next nutrient solution and then use NutS Calc to mix the nutrient solution with the desired EC value. Brilliant.

The grow went much better than the first two times. I was satisfied, but not completely happy. The more I learned and used the calculators, the more questions I had, but this in turn helped me learn how to best combine the different fertilizers and additives.
I learned which fertilizers were unnecessary and could be omitted, and what I still needed, e.g., monomagnesium.
My product range now includes a total of 13 fertilizers and additives, and without these calculators it would be impossible for me to mix the optimal nutrient solution.

The fourth grow.

Wow, WTF!? How do they run? Unbelievable, what a difference.
The first time, I simply relied on the "app" (back then it wasn't a real app yet) and it worked.
Not only are the EC values ​​correct, but the plants also look great. Healthy, strong, potent.

In the meantime, I've expanded the calculators to include additional functions, such as NPK ratios and Cal/Mag amounts and ratios. The question arose: Am I actually providing the correct proportions of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium? And what about calcium and magnesium?
And what can I say, at the end of the grow I was happy.

Firstly, the weed met my requirements, although there's still room for improvement, and secondly, the "app" works. Yes, there were a few nutrient burns, but that's only because I'm pushing the plants to their limits. I was fully motivated for the next grow.

The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, etc.

I can only report continuous improvements. The app has changed everything for me.
I've been using and expanding it for about a year and a half now. It has a few other features, such as grouping plants, individual EC value predictions (the darn thing can see into the future! :-)), and recommended Cal/Mag values ​​in relation to the desired EC value.
New calculators like the Clean Water Calc . are useful because I use reverse osmosis water and it calculates how much regular water I need to add to reach the desired starting EC value.

The weed is getting better and better.
Through the “app” I learned so much about the optimal composition of the nutrient solution in the different growth phases.
If defects occurred, which was only occasionally, I could easily correct them with a simple, quick adjustment in the NutS Calculator .

Up until then, eacygrow was far from being an app; it was merely a Google Sheets file, which was complex but also complicated to use.
This wasn't a problem for me, as I had developed it and knew where everything was located, but I essentially had to give my friends a PowerPoint presentation to explain where they had to do what. :-)
Once they understood, everything was fine.

They also quickly saw improvements in their plants and in themselves in terms of their learning curve. They were the ones who pushed me to package the whole thing into a clearer, more user-friendly form as an app.
"Guys, how do you imagine this working? I'm not a programmer and I don't have the money for it."

Almost a year passed in which we all used the "app" and were satisfied with the results, but I could understand the growers.
It wasn't very user-friendly, and eventually I had a bit more time to get back into "programming" and actually managed to develop the app into a real app using " Open as App ," a no-code platform. Many thanks again to " Open as App ," who host eacygrow and, as a reliable partner, handle the "bureaucracy" behind the app for me.

Sure, the implementation took a while, but today I am proud to present eacygrow to you.
Basically, the app is a must-have for every grower. I personally save 63% on fertilizers and additives, and therefore also on the associated costs.

Love goes out

Dennis