should i use bennes?

[HUGE]

i am running E/F all hydroton plenty of light and CO2at 1500. my nutes are

PBP bloom
karma
silica blast
calmag plus
sweet
& koolbloom powder as a pk booster

with good results but im still new and have been reading alot so i want some expert opinions.

should i add either some beneficial bacteria and some enzymes? or should i use some other conditioner like clean slate or h2o2?
or should i ditch the whole PBP thing and go GH?


another piece of info thats hanging me up is i fill up a 40 gal res and 7 days later im down to 15 and i just wastw whats left and make a fresh batch. would this changing of the res weekly negate any bennes?

 

[grapeman]

I'm no expert but why wouldn't you use them? Make your own EWC tea.

 

[HUGE]

cuz im new and i wasent sure if tossing my res every week would affect them being active or whatever they do. so im guessing your saying that after the first time i add them they will always be alive in the rootzone? or do they live in the res? what enzymes should i use to keep from root zone issues. i use clean slate now and it says it will kill benes so should i switch to the bennes and enzyms or leave cleanslate? do you now see my question.

 

[grapeman]

There are a couple of threads on this subject. Some folks run their hydro with pure synthetic nutrients and love it. Another group of folks love adding benes to their hydro grow via "earthworm casting Teas" and other benes. I think there is a thread called "organic hydro" so you can search and find it. Others here swear by the Lucas formula. You can search for that thread also, keyword lucas.

Me, I am liking the use of teas combined with organic nutrients.
Use the search function and check out the many threads on the subject.

I do believe that the use of benes (ewc teas) will help keep any bad microbes at bay in your hydro buckets, especially if you do not have a water chiller.

If you do go with the benes, I think it would be good for you to brew a new batch weekly.

 

[HUGE]

I have been reading the organic hydro thread constantly for several months now. I have what I have cuz it was recomended. However I wasn't recomended bennes. I rea about benes here and it seems that using the cleanslate would negate them. Also the frequent res changes made me think they would be a waste. So I'm looking for what someone has actually used. I was gonna switch form the cleanslate to EA/EN and cannazyme or hygrozyme. Then was nervous about slime from not properly culturing the bacteria. Or shoul I stick with cleanslate, should I step up to H2o2 or totally switch to chem? I have tons of data from reading I want anyone who ha ran a similar setup ie hydroton,E&F, & PBP to tell me what they have used and what's better.

 

[grapeman]

I have been reading the organic hydro thread constantly for several months now. I have what I have cuz it was recomended. However I wasn't recomended bennes. I rea about benes here and it seems that using the cleanslate would negate them. Also the frequent res changes made me think they would be a waste. So I'm looking for what someone has actually used. I was gonna switch form the cleanslate to EA/EN and cannazyme or hygrozyme. Then was nervous about slime from not properly culturing the bacteria. Or shoul I stick with cleanslate, should I step up to H2o2 or totally switch to chem? I have tons of data from reading I want anyone who ha ran a similar setup ie hydroton,E&F, & PBP to tell me what they have used and what's better.

I seem to be the only one responding here. I personally prefer the use of bennes to the use of h2o2 or other products. The use of these products kills bennes and bad molecules alike. It is simple to make EWC tea once a week and add several cups to your rez. IMO, the use of bennes from EWC tea goes far beyond the products you can buy off the shelf. I have a batch brewing at all times, it is that simple.

 

[magicmaker]

i will concur the use of bennes. I use mycorrhizal fungus (AN pirahna) and also some nitrogren fixing bacteria (AN voodoo juice) and I also use hygrozyme every other week or if it looks like it needs it. I never used h202; i just do a flush with GH florakleen every 2 - 4 weeks, depending.

I have also used AN tarantula, but i got lots of black gunk in my reservoir from that stuff, not that it was bad, i just didn't like having all the gunk in my res. I generally only use the beneficial fungi the first two weeks of veg because after that the rhizosphere has been inoculated and they will thrive if given some food.

I am not big on putting anything not sterile in my res, so doing home made EWC teas is not my thing, but i will agree that if you have beneficial fungus and other bacteria growing in the rhizosphere, then it definitely helps ward off any harmful or parasitic fungus and bacteria. Did you know that a foliar spray of mycorrhizal is great to beat down powdery mold/mildew?

as far as wasting the beneficial stuff on a reservoir change, you gotta realize the bennes inoculate in the root system of the plant and thrive there, so changing the reservoir doesn't eliminate the beneficial fungus or bacteria but maybe it does remove the beneficial enzymes; i am not sure. The benes and supplements i add are pretty much time dependent on where the plants are in their growth cycle.

 

[rrog]

When I did chem drip I started using SubCulture, molasses and hygrozyme. Now doing a coco hydro of sorts (OBBT) and really ramped up the ol' micro-herd. Myco Madness. No Hygrozyme as I don't think it's needed with such a complex microlife. I believe Hygrozyme's role involves the breakdown of dead cells, but no need for that (my understanding...) with such complex micro-life.

Although I had some amount of microlife in my chem res, never was sure how much.

 

[Lazyman]

Mycorrhizae bacteria cannot survive in flowering nutes, in fact that ALL die at 32PPM of P or less. Only worth using on clones/early veg, past that you're throwing money down the drain.

 

[jammie]

hey all- last grow (5gall/dwc) i tried mycos that were supposedly formulated for use in hydro solutions but didn't see any real benefit. from everything i read they are better for longer term crops were they can build huge networks. for hydro i really liked subculture and plan to return to it on my next grow. bennies help plants in hydro absorb nutrients that may otherwise be locked out due to changes in ph.

 

[rrog]

LayZ: Mycorrhizae is fungus, not bacteria. At least a few varieties of Myco seem "effective" at 100 to 133 ppm. "Mycorrhizal relationships were
found to be the greatest when soil phosphorus levels were at 50 mg kg -1 (50 ppm)" Just googled that quick, but you sure raise an interesting thought. I'll have to read up more on this. Thanks for that.

jammie: My grow had heavy strands of colonies that looked like fuzz. They are very fragile and love the air I pump into the medium.

 

[Lazyman]

Yeah you're right, I was just paraphrasing from the link in my sig, good thread in organics on it, but the net result is don't spend money on Myco, even trichoderma can only stand about 140ppm which is usually breached in flower.

 

[jammie]

hey there rrog- i never saw any indication of anything on the air lines or bottom of the net pots so probably i had a bad batch. with subculture, a tsp of molasses caused the outer rim of the bucket to foam up. i've been playing around with lacto and may try using subculture in half my buckets and lacto in the other aand compare. lacto doesn't seem to have that same foaming action so it hard to judge how active it is.

 

[rrog]

That's a great idea. And a bit of molasses for carb source for LactoB.

 

[rrog]

Yeah you're right, I was just paraphrasing from the link in my sig, good thread in organics on it, but the net result is don't spend money on Myco, even trichoderma can only stand about 140ppm which is usually breached in flower.

That thread in your sig looks like it headed to hell in a handbasket. Too bad, really. After reading that and some other linked information, it would seem that the AM Fungus isn't useless or a waste, but rather the heavy supplementation of P may be the waste.

I have a thread going to ask this question, but it seems that the AM Fungus provides all the P a plant can use, and very high levels of P can inhibit AM Fungus activity.

My question on the other thread is simply: "If you have robust AM Fungal activity, and sufficient raw amendments (bone meal, etc) is supplementation with inorganic P sources necessary at all?"

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=156087