how many times can you reuse dirt?
- Thread starter berbes
- Start date
I have reused my dirt for 3 grows now(3 different strains in the same soil with added supplements after it's composting for 1 month). I have supplemented with fresh sunshine mix#1 like a 5 to 1 ratio. No problems. I don't think it will ever go bad your basically composting your old soil.
FRANKENBLUNT420
me blunt is like, wicked yo!! owight
i plan to just keep my soil mix and use it indefinitely or until i experience a problem that cant be fixed. since its pretty much a soiless mix, i dont foresee me giving it up other than nuclear fallout.
spaceghost22
Member
I was just reading something on this just lastnight. This lady was describing how she made sure to remove all the roots from the soil first. I saw a video on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTzm0If33HE) where a different person took his plant and removed ALL of the soil to use it in a hydro setup by dipping it in water. Anyhow, the lady I referred to made sure to re-enrich the soil with ferts. I believe she went organic to avoid salt build-up. Here's a discussion on reusing soil (http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/frugal/msg051914434495.html).
This should help.
This should help.
I reuse soil most of the time. However I also add fresh soil to the used soil. I have a new bag of soil that's unopened that I plan to mix with the used soil. The only time I got rid of soil was when I took some soil from the sunflower planter we had going in the back yard. The soil gave me an insect problem and the only way I thought to solve it was to get rid of it.
Unless you use heavy amount of fertilizer or constantly overdose the plants, the soil shouldn't cause any issues. You could have two batches of soil that can be alternated every 90 days. Like someone said above. You need to compost it and let it cook for a month or so.
For a while I would toss the soil from male plants and only keep and use the soil from female plants. So every time I started a grow, the soil I was using had already produced female plants. The theory was that if the soil used produced a female plant, the the soil was female soil and would produce female plant.
The theory was shot down my last grow when I started 10 seeds and ended up with one female. So it's plausible that if soil can be male or female with the bits of root that remain, it would produce plants of the opposite sex in a quest to reproduce. I know sounds stupid, but I was getting a high ratio of female plants for a while.
Unless you use heavy amount of fertilizer or constantly overdose the plants, the soil shouldn't cause any issues. You could have two batches of soil that can be alternated every 90 days. Like someone said above. You need to compost it and let it cook for a month or so.
For a while I would toss the soil from male plants and only keep and use the soil from female plants. So every time I started a grow, the soil I was using had already produced female plants. The theory was that if the soil used produced a female plant, the the soil was female soil and would produce female plant.
The theory was shot down my last grow when I started 10 seeds and ended up with one female. So it's plausible that if soil can be male or female with the bits of root that remain, it would produce plants of the opposite sex in a quest to reproduce. I know sounds stupid, but I was getting a high ratio of female plants for a while.
something for you to read should find this very helpfulberbes said:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=35452
Even if you do just flush it. You need to do this anyway before you harvest. This should rinse all nutirent solutions from the SOIL
excalibud7
Active member
i have used the same soil for over a year now and what i do is i just put all the soil in a big tub and stir it around pull out roots(as much as i can)then i put the soil in pots or bags and flush 1x then i only give water no nutes until maybe 1month into flower or until the plant tells you it needs yout assistance
new-n-scured
Member
the only problem i see is making some hot dirt. if your plants grow all the way out and the use the nutes they need they still leave some and if you dont set the dirt back to 0 or whatever mix your using then your mix is off or "hot". this also happened to me when i mixed up a whole bunch of dirt and used 50% right away but the other 50% i let sit around in the trash can for like 4 months and something with the nitrogen shifting or whatever basically it threw my nutes and my ph way off making my dirt worthless the whole point of this story is. ITS ALOT EZIER TO ADJUST YOUR DIRT IN A TRASH CAN WHILE YOUR MIXING IT THAT IT IS FIXING A PLANT WITH DIFFICIENCYS. it aint gold mix new dirt it just cuzs out so many variables that could go wrong
celluloidheros
New member
Hello, It is possible to to take a look at the EC value of your soil. This measures salts and fertilizers but not organics that well. if salt builkd-up is an issue with your plants/ferts then rinsing/flushing periodically may be neccessary. there are certain things like greensand, blood meal or maybe bone meal that take a long time to break down so soild reuse is good.
as far as roots go there are those beneficialk microbes that build up but I still put the dirt through a screen. I also use some Coir, water crystals, greensand etc.. in my all organicmix. look at you grams/watt output and taste. When it starts to suffer then change your soil.
Voo Doo juice rules for roots.
Take Care, CH
as far as roots go there are those beneficialk microbes that build up but I still put the dirt through a screen. I also use some Coir, water crystals, greensand etc.. in my all organicmix. look at you grams/watt output and taste. When it starts to suffer then change your soil.
Voo Doo juice rules for roots.
Take Care, CH
