Tutorial Organics for Beginners

[The Hummus Monk]

Maxicrop Cal-Sea-Feed also provides Calcium, Magnesium and many trace elements and works as a ph buffer. It is sustainably farmed now too.

I'm currently looking in to a new soilcoir mix based on 2 new products (new to me).

30% Moorland Gold (alternative to peat derived from silt build up)
30% BioChar Compost (Coir, biochar, seaweed, EWC, Mycro**** fungi, trace elements)
10% extra EWC
10% Perlite (the compost is supposedly very airy and light)

To this I will be adding some more seaweed, lime, neem, bone, and blood/fish/bone.

Possibly also will add organic potash 2-2-20.

 

[The Hummus Monk]

Looking at it I'll probably reduce the top 2 to 25% and 25% and then add 10% topsoil.

 

[Snype]

 

[MEDICINE MAN FL]

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!

 

[SirKaos]

Greetings all
I need good advice on the following.

Well I have started my first organic grow using Biobizz and hopefully when they finish I would be ready to avoid buying nutrients altogether and use natural fertilizers that are produced locally.

My main concern now is: How to lower my water ph organically.

My soil pack read ph of 6 and I have already mixed some BVB soil from Holland which is two types of peat moss.
What I want to do is use the same soil for the coming grows and not have to spend money on buying soil for every grow.
I also want to care for the soil biology and the microorganisms in their, so using anything that would effect that or kill them is a NO NO.

So my soil is 6 but my water ph is 8!

Before this grow, I was using phosphoric acid to lower water PH but some say phosphoric is not organic and that it would effect my soil biology. pls confirm that and provide answers on maintaining the perfect soil/water ph balance, even if that would take some time to bring it down.

thank you

 

[vonforne]

Citric acid

 

[MileHighGuy]

Greetings all
I need good advice on the following.

Well I have started my first organic grow using Biobizz and hopefully when they finish I would be ready to avoid buying nutrients altogether and use natural fertilizers that are produced locally.

My main concern now is: How to lower my water ph organically.

My soil pack read ph of 6 and I have already mixed some BVB soil from Holland which is two types of peat moss.
What I want to do is use the same soil for the coming grows and not have to spend money on buying soil for every grow.
I also want to care for the soil biology and the microorganisms in their, so using anything that would effect that or kill them is a NO NO.

So my soil is 6 but my water ph is 8!

Before this grow, I was using phosphoric acid to lower water PH but some say phosphoric is not organic and that it would effect my soil biology. pls confirm that and provide answers on maintaining the perfect soil/water ph balance, even if that would take some time to bring it down.

thank you

EDIT: I though you were currently using BioBizz Soil and not using any bottles.... my bad. I'll go smoke a bowl now

Don't treat PH of the water the same as the soil. There is much more going on with the actual CEC of the soil.... then when you are adding bottled nutrients to a solution.

Your soil PH sounds great. How did you determine the pH? Anyways, if the soil is built properly the PH should settle around 6 - 6.5 and that's cool.

The PH of your soil is very closely related to the Cation Exchange Capacity and not as much to the water you are running through it.

It's like Freaking magic. When your soil is alive and well it has the ability to buffer itself and correct PH issues. Just water properly and don't worry about the PH of the water.

Obviously better water is always ideal, but growing organically you just can't worry about it so much, especially when you up your container size.

In Fact, I would bet that you would notice absolutely ZERO difference in a side by side grow test where you altered PH of one water and not the other.

Either way you go, you'll be fine.

If it helps, I know that SOTF420 would use Grapefruit juice to lower the PH for soaking his seeds and watering his cuttings..... but that seems a little eccentric.

Anyone care to talk more about this, I could absolutely be more specific.... but not everyone gets as excited as I do about CEC.

 

[VortexPower420]

MHG- Im excited about CEC... but im a dirt nerd so I am easily amused. I really live debunking pH and its effect in soils and how CEC works.

pH is the expression of the concentration of H ions in solution or attached to colloids of clay or humus. Albrecth ratios are this
65%-75% Ca, 15%-20% Mg, about 5% for k and 10% for H

According to this ratio the more H you have the less Ca or Mg you will have on the colloid so the pH will express lower. The more Ca or Mg you have the less H you have so the pH will go up. Albrecht always spoke of liming not to fight acidity but to fight low fertility. As a plant grows it it gives up H ions for the other plant nutrient cations, there for depleting the colloid reserve of Ca and exchanging for H making the soil more acidic.

If you have rock dust or liming materials in your soil that are yet to be broken down the acidity from the exchange will help free minerals and the soil colloids will absorb them for later use by the plant, thus equalizing the whole process.

If you have a high CEC you can hold more cations (Ca, Mg, K, Na, H), This is why many people have problems with bottled nutrients and conventional grow mediums. Not enough CEC sites so alot of the nutrients are still in solution and have no when to bind to making a toxic enviroment and causing chemical reactions.

So... if you have a low CEC soil and you add to much Ca, you will have flooded the CEC sites with Ca. This will raise the pH and cause all sorts of problems such as P bonding with Ca and making them both unavailable, and because you have little acidity to break the Ca bond the plant suffers.

If you start to increase the CEC your buffer zone will increase and what you add has less of an effect and you can have a lot more stored , plant available fertility.

We should look more at what ratios the cations should be for plants needs rather then thinking about acidity. We should worry about the pCa, pMg and pK.

This is just the chemistry side, start getting into biology and things get weird......

Timbuktu

 

[MileHighGuy]

MHG- Im excited about CEC... but im a dirt nerd so I am easily amused. I really live debunking pH and its effect in soils and how CEC works.

pH is the expression of the concentration of H ions in solution or attached to colloids of clay or humus. Albrecth ratios are this
65%-75% Ca, 15%-20% Mg, about 5% for k and 10% for H

According to this ratio the more H you have the less Ca or Mg you will have on the colloid so the pH will express lower. The more Ca or Mg you have the less H you have so the pH will go up. Albrecht always spoke of liming not to fight acidity but to fight low fertility. As a plant grows it it gives up H ions for the other plant nutrient cations, there for depleting the colloid reserve of Ca and exchanging for H making the soil more acidic.

If you have rock dust or liming materials in your soil that are yet to be broken down the acidity from the exchange will help free minerals and the soil colloids will absorb them for later use by the plant, thus equalizing the whole process.

If you have a high CEC you can hold more cations (Ca, Mg, K, Na, H), This is why many people have problems with bottled nutrients and conventional grow mediums. Not enough CEC sites so alot of the nutrients are still in solution and have no when to bind to making a toxic enviroment and causing chemical reactions.

So... if you have a low CEC soil and you add to much Ca, you will have flooded the CEC sites with Ca. This will raise the pH and cause all sorts of problems such as P bonding with Ca and making them both unavailable, and because you have little acidity to break the Ca bond the plant suffers.

If you start to increase the CEC your buffer zone will increase and what you add has less of an effect and you can have a lot more stored , plant available fertility.

We should look more at what ratios the cations should be for plants needs rather then thinking about acidity. We should worry about the pCa, pMg and pK.

This is just the chemistry side, start getting into biology and things get weird......

Timbuktu

Exactly.....

But when I consult with farmers on their alfalfa fields, corn crops etc. We rarely if at all consider the PH of the Irrigation water.... not saying that perfect water wouldn't help, but It's been a non issue for me unless the water is just ridiculously bad.

What are your thoughts on PH'ing the water? Cause I sure don't.

 

[The Hummus Monk]

About to try some pelleted organic potash 2-2-20 which is a by-product of the sugar beet industry.

Sounds promising. And sweet!

 

[VortexPower420]

Well high pH water mean a lot of carbonates in solution either it is Ca, Mg or any other cation but those are the main ones

I feel that if you have a low CEC soil and are relaying on the solubility of bottle nutes, having 7 water would be more important.

But when you start to add quality humus, microlife and have a high clay soil with a high CEC it does not matter as much, and if you have high Ca water you will actually be doing good as Ca is the king of all nutrients in a biological system.

I am still unsure what effect adding a acid to the high pH water does exactly but I know adding a quality humus source (wormcastings, humic acid) will add CEC to the solution and cleat alot of the free cations and help to buffer the root zone.

Adding a quality humic substance to chlorinated and chloradimide water will fix the problem instantly and allow you to water instantly.

Hummus monk- you should just watch out using sugar beet by product. Most of the sugar beets grown in the US are GMO and a big NO NO in my garden. The potential genetic crossover and the persestiant chems they use on the plants should be a concern, there is evidence to back up genetic crossover.

Just saying.

Timbuktu

 

[MileHighGuy]

Nice Vortex. I came to the same conclusions in my head.... nice to hear it processed by someone else's brain though.

When I'm lazy I toss worm castings into my bucket o hose water and stir it up, then water.... I hate chlorine, and I really don't have much in my water, i'm lucky where I live.

And... I also agree on the Beets being in the same category with cotton, soy etc.

 

[The Hummus Monk]

Ooh ok. Well it's certified organic...

I'll give it a bash anyways.

How about sulphate of potash 0-0-48!

 

[MileHighGuy]

Depends on what you require?

Sounds like you are about to build a new mix and based on coco.

I don't like Coco... but that wasn't the question.... But remember Coco is Naturally high in K and Mg. and low in Calcium.

Do not add lime to this mix (assuming you mean dolomite), Dolomite is only used peat based mixes to raise the low PH. The other challenge with Dolomite is that there is too much Mg. in it to create a good soil.

Add 4-5 cups per cubic foot of Gypsum for the Calcium and Sulfur.

Add kelp meal... this has K in it also... Ditch the Maxicrop.

If you really really want the Potassium Sulfate.... go for it, but use it sparingly and certainly don't use K-Mag if you are using Coco.

There are only two 'liquid seaweed' products from around the world - KELPAK which is based in South Africa and KelpGrow out of British Columbia. Period.That's it.

The rest are hydrated seaweed extracts including, and especially, Maxicrop.

Kelp Meal is way better.

EDIT: I also see your adding Bone and Blood etc. You won't be needing the sulfate of potash in my opinion.

 

[VortexPower420]

MHG- These are tough concepts to understand. I am still just wrapping my mind around alot of this stuff and I have been a student of the soil for 7 years. Not full time but i'm a dirt nerd, some dudes bathrooms are porn, mine are Acres from the past year and soil books. I just recently felt real comfortable posting such things. I love this shit.

So the way I look at liming peat is this, it is not to raise the pH it is to add Ca, Mg, K.

The pH is only low because it has a CEC of about 100 and most of it is filled with H.

There are many "liming" agents Gypsum, limestone, dolo, K-mag and anything that supplys a cation other then H.

I like Gypsum as well for my Ca and S, two very important and S is easily leached nutrients.

Timbuktu

 

[The Hummus Monk]

I have maxicrop seaweed meal. Is this the same as kelp meal..?

I'm growing in soil:

Peat, perlite, ewc

With the following:

Cal-Sea-Feed, seaweed meal, dolomite lime, blood fish
And bone (6-6-6), neem seed meal, extra bonemeal and some of the organic potash.

The aim being that there's enough N for the stretch but plenty of PK for the bud stage.

I'm on my 3rd run with this mix...it's a winner for me. This latest grow will be the first with added organic potash. I'm also recycling this time to try and figure out dosage more clearly .

Thanks for your input guys.

H

 

[SirKaos]

EDIT: I though you were currently using BioBizz Soil and not using any bottles.... my bad. I'll go smoke a bowl now

Don't treat PH of the water the same as the soil. There is much more going on with the actual CEC of the soil.... then when you are adding bottled nutrients to a solution.

Your soil PH sounds great. How did you determine the pH? Anyways, if the soil is built properly the PH should settle around 6 - 6.5 and that's cool.

The PH of your soil is very closely related to the Cation Exchange Capacity and not as much to the water you are running through it.

It's like Freaking magic. When your soil is alive and well it has the ability to buffer itself and correct PH issues. Just water properly and don't worry about the PH of the water.

Obviously better water is always ideal, but growing organically you just can't worry about it so much, especially when you up your container size.

In Fact, I would bet that you would notice absolutely ZERO difference in a side by side grow test where you altered PH of one water and not the other.

Either way you go, you'll be fine.

If it helps, I know that SOTF420 would use Grapefruit juice to lower the PH for soaking his seeds and watering his cuttings..... but that seems a little eccentric.

Anyone care to talk more about this, I could absolutely be more specific.... but not everyone gets as excited as I do about CEC.

thank you for your input.
Actually I'm quite happy with all the replies since I'm a total newbie to organics yet taking everything very carefully. I have already made my pots double the size they are by joining 2 of the same type pot together with screws in the middle and waterproof insulation at the joining parts. So instead of 30L i have 60L.



The soil that I used has a ph of 6.0 and I added some organic nutrients with micro nutrients and humic acid. The mix also has some leftover peat moss and I added some various kinds of crushed rocks from the Himalayas!

I would like to comment regarding the grapfruit technique. Well i read on the net that black grapes can be used to lower the ph, so I decided to check if it is true. I simply juiced some black grapes and checked the ph and it read exactly 4.0. I mixed one shot of it in a standard cup using my tap water that has a ph of 7.77-8.0 and the ph read 6.4!
Now I'm not sure if black grapes or grapefruit juice will keep the ph steady while I store my water in gallons for next watering, but taking your input regarding the soil being the perfect buffer and not worrying much about the ph then this is a good step to take I assume.

I'm taking my soil reading using one of those inaccurate soil meters which read 6.9 although the soil pack reads 6.0.
So I poured some water with grapes into one pot which has the meter there for a week now (no plants yet) just to see of something happens. Today morning the soil ph has dropped by 1 point.
I will look further into this and not jump into conclusions yet since I am waiting for the hot days to pass to start with my grow.

 

[MileHighGuy]

Sirkaos - Just throw that little meter away.

Pretend you never heard that ph was important, and then start over.

You'll be just fine from that point on

 

[2tm23]

Hi Burn1 and anyone helping in that great thread. I try to read it all but its 286 pages and i know its going to take like a month to read it all through. Also Burn1 thanks for your patience towards people knowing less and for sharing your knowledge with others.

So im using this soil to start seeds ang go with it through entire gro http://www.greenshorticulture.co.uk/categories/Growing-Media/Premium-Soils/Plagron-Light-Mix-50L/
3 months ago ive added to it about 5% of coco and perlite (although it contained some already but you cant go wrong with perlite can you?) i havent used any mineral ferts growing skunk#1 (sensi seeds) but used Myco Madness (Humboldt), Root Excelurator (H&G), and Medi-one, Massive and Finisher and some zyme caps (all by Green Planet) all organic. Now im about to recycle that soil using recipe #4

40 gallons used soil
4 cups alfalfa meal
4 cups bone meal
4 cups kelp meal
4 cups powdered dolomite lime
30 pound bag of earthworm castings . . .
That’s the basic recipe . . .
However we also like to use
4 cups of Greensand
4 cups of Rock Phosphate
4 cups of diatomaceous earth

as im not in USA some of the products are not available in my area so this is what i`ve got:

alfalfa meal fertilizer granules (the only alfalfa meal ive found in uk) NPK 2,5-1-7
bone meal 3,5-18,5-0
kelp meal (not sure waiting for info)
powdered dolomite lime
earthworm castings NPK 2-0-4

Green Sand - not available in uk so got Sulphate of Potash 0-0-50 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170777375585?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
Rock Phosphate 0-27-0
diatomaceous earth

Im also planning to add is:
Lava dust
Humic Acid http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160942224600?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649 - not sure how much per gallon of soil recommended with watering is 250g/5L (8.81oz/1.32gal) of water to make "fertilizer" and than dilute it 12ml/L (0,4fl oz/0.26gallon) of water (sorry for the convertion)

My questions are:

As my soil will be resting for at least 2 months can i use compost worms in my soil instead of throwing in EWC? If so how many of them for 100 gallons of soil with roots left in it to make a replacement for EWC? Do i have to feed worms to give me enough EWC?

As you can see i cant get Greensand in my country so i bought sulphate of potash? is good and at what ratio should i use it? recommended dose for it is 30-60gramms/m2

All of ammendments have recommended dose at max 100gr/m2 but i assume i should follow your recipe right?

My plan for next grow is Super Skunk 60 days of flowering period. Im going to start seeds in Light Mix i still got fresh, about two weeks of veg.

Thanks

 

[BurnOne]

2tm23-
That will work. Don't worry about the greensand, rock phosphate and DE. They are very slow release and de is not plant food.
Germinate and grow seedlings with just the soil mix (peat, perlite, worm castings and dolomite). Start your Recipe #4 the same time you germinate your seeds. By the time the new seedlings (or clones) need food (about two weeks), the mix will be ready and you can transplant into it.
Good luck,
Burn1