Question on 'Cooking' soil
- Thread starter love2gro
- Start date
No is the simple answer. Healthy soil / compost should be in a healthy state.
Remember,, while 'cooking soil' kills all unwanted harmful bacteria and pests... it also destroys the beneficial ones. Sterilization leaves the soil substrate like a level playing field that healthy and harmful bacteria and insects can invade.
Maybe try and experiment by 'cooking' a planters worth of soil at 62c for 20mins in the oven and use this as a test alongside soil that has not been sterilized ,,, and observe the results
Hope this helps
Remember,, while 'cooking soil' kills all unwanted harmful bacteria and pests... it also destroys the beneficial ones. Sterilization leaves the soil substrate like a level playing field that healthy and harmful bacteria and insects can invade.
Maybe try and experiment by 'cooking' a planters worth of soil at 62c for 20mins in the oven and use this as a test alongside soil that has not been sterilized ,,, and observe the results
Hope this helps
It's possible to see deficiencies if you did not give your soil some time, it is possible to burn your plants as well, but is it normal? I'm less sure of that. My one attempt to use soil right after mixing it, turned out allright. But each grow has different variables, so why take the chance? scrappy
I would suggest letting the soil balance out before planting in it even though I seldom never do so......but pay the price later because things that balance ph and deliver nutes/ferts are so out of tune with the soil web that lockout and ph problems usually occur in some pots,in my case about 10%. It balances out within a week or two after a good ACT application,but that's a week or two of lost positive growth and playing catch up to the one to two weeks of growth that could have been.
Thank you all for your replies..the reason im asking is because i mixed up some soil with black gold organic soil and added ewc, blood and bone meal, kelp, azomite, and lime. The soil probably wasnt living because it was stored in freezing weather. I am getting some micro-nute defs, but like you said Capt, it should straighten out here in a week or 2. Next time I will let my soil sit before use.
depends what's in it really. i often dont have chance to let it cook but i use some aged components in the mix- like mushroom compost - that hopefully contain the right biology to give it a kick start. i also have N guano in there that is available pretty quick. the P guano takes longer to break down but i dont really want high P in the first couple weeks of flower anyway as it encourages stretch.
a bit of liquid seaweed should sort out any micro nute def in the short term
VG
a bit of liquid seaweed should sort out any micro nute def in the short term
VG
