Rock Nutrients

The Rock Nutrients Invasion

Rock is Here to Stay…

If you are a grower in North America, it’s a good bet that you have been hearing about, or even experiencing the Rock Nutrients invasion that has touched down and taken root over the last year or so. While on this side of the pond Rock Nutrients is fast becoming a familiar name associated with high quality hydroponics and horticultural crop production, growers in Australia have been running with Rock Nutrients-in fact, this year marks their 20th Anniversary.

Rock Nutrients has it’s origins in Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide and much of Australia has been savvy to commercial hydroponics production, and on a very large scale, for a very long time compared to North America. NFT strawberries, lettuce and other high value hydroponics crops are grown on an acre or hectare scale. This is serious growing, where results count. Crop failure can put you out of business when you grow like this.

Above: Click IMG to enlarge and see how Rock performed.

This means there’s a lot of practical and University level know how in the Aussie hydro-pool, and some of the more leading edge technologies that have evolved and emerged have been further refined and developed by the chief chemist and co-founder of Rock Nutrients. In an established marketplace products HAVE to work, and half kidding half true, an Aussie is more likely to show up at your front door than anybody if they are dissatisfied with how your product lives up to it’s claims.

EASY, Affordble & Effective: Fusion One Step Hydro Formula

Besides having to work as claimed, there is a lot of competition in the Australian marketplace, so to stay in business for 20 years you simply must have products that offer more value. This means things like supplying multiple benefits with each bottle you offer growers for their reservoir, rather than breaking up the same formula, for example, into 3 or 4 different products.

This recipe for success has been the keystone in Rock Nutrients obvious success in breaking into and establishing themselves as a top-shelf hydroponics fertilizer and nutrient company in North America. This year Rock Nutrients Int.’l under the drive of Ash Day, has simultaneously entered and gained acceptance in The United States, Spain, the U.K. and very pleased to announce: Canada too, eh!

If you aren’t familiar with how the hydropopnics marketplace works, this is no small feat!

There are plenty of brands on your favourite hydroponic vendor’s website or shelf already, all with their claims to fame and boasts of benefits. To get picked up by a leading distributor like HydroFarm Supply and get some of the best reps in their respective fields behind your product full force and into retail hydroponics shops and grow rooms across a nation means that people can SEE your nutrient delivers results.

This means things like supplying multiple benefits with each bottle you offer growers for their reservoir, rather than breaking up the same formula, for example, into 3 or 4 different products.

We caught up with Ash Day-who you can find on Instagram as “Rock Nutrients”-to ask him some questions about the hard to ignore success Rock has been having advancing into global markets.

Rock Nutrients Road Crew

GZ-Ash, we have tried your nutrients, as you know, and we love them! Great product. We didn’t expect to be so amazed by the results. Thanks for the samples you forwarded us about a year or so back.

Ash Day-My pleasure….that’s been one of the key elements to our success into coming over to North America. We are results driven, and seeing is believing. Other companies down under learned that the hard way—you have to offer exceptional results and good value. It’s not enough to offer simple fertilizers, people expect more when they shop for their crops at hydroponics shops.

GZ-As a nutrient manufacturer with your roots outside of the USA, you must have a lot of confidence in what you have to offer to try your luck in global markets, given the competitive nature of the existing hydroponics fertilizer companies that are already established.

Ash Day-We like to think that we as a company, like our products, can get along with just about anything else in harmony. It is my hope that we add something to the markets we choose to offer our brand of nutrients in-we aren’t out to take anything away and the thought of coexisting with other established companies is what we are about. Also, I should add, as sales increase, we move closer to manufacturing here in the USA. A very positive step we look forward to making soon.

GZ-We can see what you mean by that with our experience in using Resinator (RSN8), your bloom additive. It went side by side in addition to an existing program that was giving our test garden consistently good results. It “got along” great with the other stuff from different companies we were already using-and as you know, we have used it extensively since.

We don’t mind telling you we have actually used it to replace a couple of other items we had been using-it’s just easier to mix a reservoir with less parts.

Ash Day-I certainly don’t mind hearing that either! This is what we mean: we have to be able to offer something above and beyond what you already have. This is foundational for us at Rock, and has been for over 20 years now-it’s why we are where we are.

GZ-Besides your formulas, what else would you say has been instrumental to your success in getting established as a manufacturer in global markets?

Ash Day-Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s good people. We know what we have is good stuff, but without the people we work with, we are just an idea. It’s our reps, distributors and other team members that really help bring us to life in the eyes of growers. Essentially it is our love for the plant and the results and simplicity with which they are delivered.

Social media has really helped us drive this point across too: we are real people with a real love for growing-not stuffed shirts pretending to understand what it’s like to be a grower. Besides understanding the needs of a real world grower, it’s been critical for us to conduct ourselves in a manner that is professional, with integrity while being true to our roots.

Rock ‘Till You Drop!

GZ-That’s right you were a career grower before Rock…

Ash Day-Ha, ha…yes, correct. I always have said “if you can’t beat them, join them”. I tried just about everything under the sun for grow products in my day, and I could never do better than with Rock; it also happened to be easier to use too. The original founders in Australia, Shane and Tyler, were friends long before we thought about working together…and the rest as they say, is history.

GZ-Thanks for the inside scoop, Ash. We wish you continued success-AND-happy trails on your V-ROD this summer.

EB Note:Ash lives and breathes Rock-seriously one of the hardest working members in the hydroponic industry. He might be one of the most humble too.

The Rock Nutrients Family of Products (#rockfamilia):

The Rock Sheet:

Tags: hydroponic nutrients, Hydroponics, rock nutrients

Erik Biksa
Erik Biksa has been writing about and discussing hydroponics growing, related technologies and cropping methods since 1999 in a variety of professional publications and platforms globally Erik has travelled the world learning and teaching modern growing techniques and technologies and is appreciated by many growers for his informative yet hands on approaches. Presently, he is the Editor at Grozine Hydroponics Mag.