Help me make an organic mix-in for bloom only

[thesloppy]

Hey y'all. Here's my conundrum:

I'm looking to give dry organic mix-in nutes a try, so I can move to just feeding water, but all the recipes I can find are for the plant's full lifecycle. I run a SOG from clones currently, so I'd like to find a mix for the bloom cycle only that I can transplant the clones into when I move them into flower.

I grow in 2-liter pots, and I'll probably use a 50/50 mix of Black Gold Organic Potting Soil and Botanicare's Cocotek as a base, because that's what I've got lying around. Most of my strains are centered around 9-10 weeks flowering time. Lemme know if any other info would be of use.

Anybody got any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

 

[They]

From my limited knowledge, the plant determines what it wants from the herd and remaining food sources are left. So one really feeds the microbes to feed the plants. So a well balanced soil with lots of life and food sources will work in all stages of growth.

 

[Scrappy4]

Hey y'all. Here's my conundrum:

I'm looking to give dry organic mix-in nutes a try, so I can move to just feeding water, but all the recipes I can find are for the plant's full lifecycle. I run a SOG from clones currently, so I'd like to find a mix for the bloom cycle only that I can transplant the clones into when I move them into flower.

I grow in 2-liter pots, and I'll probably use a 50/50 mix of Black Gold Organic Potting Soil and Botanicare's Cocotek as a base, because that's what I've got lying around. Most of my strains are centered around 9-10 weeks flowering time. Lemme know if any other info would be of use.

Anybody got any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Thesloppy, cool handle by the way. In organic soil growing we rely on the plants and the soil microbes to determine what they need and when they need it. All you really have to do is provide a diverse range of nutrients and the plants and soil do with it as they want.

This may involve some rethinking the old NPK paradyme but once you get it, things become much easier. I no longer think in terms of NPK or veg vrs bloom formulas at all. To do otherwise is chasing a hunch, it can work, or it can leave you wanting.

Looking at your potting mix, I don't see any microbe source for processing nutrients. This is a key part of organic growing, too big to ignore IMHO.

In your case your going with short cycles in small pots. I would add EWC to your soil mix and water with organic teas. Since you seem to prefer dry organic nutrients in your soil that is fine and you can supplement with the same dry fertilizer bubbled for a day or two. Just remember in organic growing, less is more, so go easy in those small pots......scrappy

 

[MileHighGuy]

^^^ This!

Especially if you will only be flowering in this mix.

Those microbes that the Earth Worm Castings add will be an absolute must have to convert all the nutrients into a form that is available to the plants.

One recommendation I might add here. And please anyone else chime in on this.

Add some Mycorrhiza at transplant. I think this is a must in your situation.

The Mycorrhiza produce phosphatases which break off phosphate clusters from molecules they are bound to.... which makes the Phosphorus available to the plant.

 

[DuckDuckGoose]

i wonder if it's the 'Rev' or Subwhatever that started the stacking and layering of the soil or spiking or something like that? i get confused by that stuff so i ignore it. the methods in these forums for living soil seem so much more logical i recommend reading some of the threads to get the 'Rev' out.
i have a sea of green going right now, 24 plants under a 1000 watt so it's packed. although i have a less than great store bought potting soil(hadn't found this thread when i started, now i feel dumb), i have top dressed with quality EWC and made a kelp/alfalfa tea when the plants looked like they were yellowing off too early and that helped. listen to Scrappy dude...do the teas with EWC and add some microbial life and hopefully things will sort themselves out in the rhizosphere. try to leave a little bit of space at the top of the pot so there is room for a healthy top dress. i've washed out some precious EWC by not having enough room.

 

[thesloppy]

Thanks for all the insight, guys! I already use Myco (and Azomite), and a commercial coco mix heavy with EWC (Black Gold's Waterhold, not the regular potting soil, I miswrote), for whatever that's worth to you. I'll keep reading up!

 

[OrganicOzarks]

Feed compost tea twice per week soil drench, and foliar fed with a little guano, and you will get large frosty bitches.
Easy, Peasy, Japaneasy.

 

[Hank Hemp]

You sure didn't look real hard did you?
Soul's Guano Tea Method

I feed with tea at EVERY watering of my plants & since they're flowered in 2-gallon containers - that's usually every day!

The teas are made by soaking a "tea bag" (got mine at Worm's Way) in a 5-gallon bucket of pH = 6.2 water. Agitate and manipulate the bag a LOT to release as much of the "goodies" as possible - the water looks like it came from a mud puddle when you've got it right. I do one thing I've never heard other growers mention doing - I measure the ppm of my tea. Here are the contents of the tea bag, depending on growth stage:

Vegetative:
1/2 cup each of PSG & worm castings.
1/2 cup of Maxi-Crop liquid seaweed,
2 Tablespoons of Alaska fish emulsion to the water. (I shoot for a ppm = 1000)

Flowering (weeks 0-4)
1/2 cup each of PSG & High Phosphorus bat guano
1/2 cup of Maxi-Crop to the water. (ppm 1250 - 1500 )
Flowering (weeks 4-7)
1/2 cup each High Phosphorus bat guano and worm castings. (shifting ppm from 1500 -> 1000)
Final week of flowering,
many folks choose to use plain, pH-adjusted water for "clearing" but I don't. I haven't noticed any difference between when I have & when I haven't "cleared". This seems reasonable when growing organically - why clear? Clear WHAT? They're living in the medium in which they've evolved for millions of years!

 

[Blue Socks]

You have to add some sort of food for the microbiology you're trying to cultivate. Everything HH adds to his tea is fine but make sure you put some type of sugar in your water so everything will have food. You absolutely need EWC and molasses or some kind of simple syrup in your tea, anything else above that is extra.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

TheSloppy- The EWC in your Black Gold soil is likely to be of very poor quality. It likely makes up very little of your overall soil. Allow coco to take up no more than 20% of your mix. Add EWC or good compost and some aeration amendments as well.

Hank Hemp- Have you ever wondered why guanos are not used in commercial agriculture? Have you wondered why liquid seaweed is about to lose it's status as being an organic fertilizer in CA and OR? Alaska Fish was bought by Lily Miller a few years back, they now use a deodorizer which makes this product NOT organic.
Maybe it's time for someone to look a little harder into Real Living Organic Soils.

We can agree on one thing, regardless of terminology, neither of us flush at the end.
RD

 

[OrganicOzarks]

TheSloppy- The EWC in your Black Gold soil is likely to be of very poor quality. It likely makes up very little of your overall soil. Allow coco to take up no more than 20% of your mix. Add EWC or good compost and some aeration amendments as well.

Hank Hemp- Have you ever wondered why guanos are not used in commercial agriculture? Have you wondered why liquid seaweed is about to lose it's status as being an organic fertilizer in CA and OR? Alaska Fish was bought by Lily Miller a few years back, they now use a deodorizer which makes this product NOT organic.
Maybe it's time for someone to look a little harder into Real Living Organic Soils.

We can agree on one thing, regardless of terminology, neither of us flush at the end.
RD

Guanos are not used in commercial agriculture because of price.

I feel guano makes the end product a better product. I use it on all of my food, and smoke.

It is just an opinion though. As we all have our own.

 

[jerry111165]

Yo Hank Hemp - Im curious as to why you check the PPM of your tea, and if its not where you want it, do you either dilute or let it soak further?

I also noticed you use different teas for veg and flower. Why is that?

Thanks in advance.

j

 

[SeaMaiden]

You have to add some sort of food for the microbiology you're trying to cultivate. Everything HH adds to his tea is fine but make sure you put some type of sugar in your water so everything will have food. You absolutely need EWC and molasses or some kind of simple syrup in your tea, anything else above that is extra.

That's IF your goal is to culture microbes. Teas can be useful in and of themselves as extracts--think "tea" as in what we might drink, in the same manner. Many quick teas, such as alfalfa tea (I make mine from hay), offer very little in the way of microbes but quite a bit in the way of secondary plant metabolites (those that are water soluble, at least).

TheSloppy- The EWC in your Black Gold soil is likely to be of very poor quality. It likely makes up very little of your overall soil. Allow coco to take up no more than 20% of your mix. Add EWC or good compost and some aeration amendments as well.

Hank Hemp- Have you ever wondered why guanos are not used in commercial agriculture? Have you wondered why liquid seaweed is about to lose it's status as being an organic fertilizer in CA and OR? Alaska Fish was bought by Lily Miller a few years back, they now use a deodorizer which makes this product NOT organic.
Maybe it's time for someone to look a little harder into Real Living Organic Soils.

We can agree on one thing, regardless of terminology, neither of us flush at the end.
RD

All liquid seaweed is about to lose status? I haven't read anything (in the publications I'm subscribed to) about that. I have read that Oregon Tilth and CCOF are not going to get married, as it were. Perhaps I'm a month or so behind on my reading. What about dried kelp meals? Is it related to species of algae being used, or methods of concoction?

Care to expand on the "Real Living Organic Soils" thing? Just curious what you mean, exactly.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

Have you wondered why liquid seaweed is about to lose it's status as being an organic fertilizer in CA and OR?

A long time coming and it is USDA NOP Rule 205.601(j)(1) that brought it to a head. Long, long overdue.

CC

 

[Ziggaro]

I am not sure about liquid seaweed but kelp is definitely a source of food in teas, and I believe fish emulsions and guano are foods for microbes as well.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

CC- So I was wrong about liquid seaweed losing it's organic status in CA and OR? It's simply going to lose its status in the U.S. altogether?

Sea- Real living organic soil is a thread where we do not promote the use of Non-organic amendments.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

RanchoDeluxe

Here's how the organic certification works in the USA

USDA NOP (National Organic Program) issues their rules and standards at the national level. The problem with this is that USDA is another political sh*t hole so the industry suppliers pretty much have things their way. However, since most of the organic certifiers in the USA pre-date the NOP by almost 30 years, most of these are approved by USDA to set their own standards as long as the new rules do not expand the use of Product A or Product B.

Some of the certifiers include Oregon Tilth, California Certified Organic Farmers, Demeter Group (Biodynamic group based in Germany) and a handful of others. I believe it's about 9 organizations and OMRI is not one of them.

Here's how it works: Sodium or Potassium Bicarbonate is allowed under USDA for any reason under any circumstance. Under Oregon Tilth the use is limited as a fungicide which isn't anything new [cite]. So an authorized organic certifier can limit a rule but cannot expand it.

That does not mean that an organic farmer in Oregon can't use it at his farm if that farm is certified by USDA, IOW just because the location is in Oregon you're not required to adhere to Oregon Tilth rules if you sought and received certification direct from USDA NOP or one of the other certifiers.

Not all Oregon Tilth Certified Organic (OTCO) farms are in Oregon or even the USA. Because OT existed long before NOP when there was no national standards, farmers in other states and countries could apply for and receive OTCO certification. Same with CCOF - I could apply for their certification for a farm in Oregon. I could have both certifications or any other from an authorized certifier - Demeter, Organic Trade Association (OTA), etc.

HTH

CC