Older wiser and going organic!!!

Prodigygrower · Mar 29, 2019

Hello family!!! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a thread or even had a garden but here we are. Finally I get to do what I love once again. I’ve always been a coco guy running my own mix of different things from advanced to botanicare. That has all changed. Your boy is going all amended just add water organic.

This change has not gone without serious contemplation because let’s be honest I’ve never used soil for anything except maybe back in the day to help my dear grandmother with her roses. I guess I can contribute this change in growing style to a few different reasons ease of use and a few of the people on here I respect the most. I remember talking the phillthy back in the day and he told me that one of the reasons he grew with the just add water style was simply because he didn’t have the time to fool with a bunch of different nutrients. I didn’t understand that at the time because we’ll i was just a kid with no job or responsibilities but the my garden. Now being older I completely understand what he ment. There just are not enough hours in a day. Plus the man always grew the chronic. So based on that and the success I’ve seen others have especially dank.frank I’ve decided this is the path for me now.

I wanna give a special thanks to dank.frank who has been very helpful in starting my journey into organics.

Well now down to Busniess the room is 10x 7x 6.5 I’ll be running 3k using large adjustawings. I could squeeze 4 in there but I like to have my space to work.

The soil mix is Phillthys base mix or as close to it as possible with a lil variation and dank.franks amendment list or as close to it as possible.

1 bale of pro mix hp cc which is just like bx but with more coco (old habits die hard I guess) and 2 bags of ffof.
The amendments are
Ewc
Fish bone meal
Kelp meal
Alfalfa meal
Oyster shell
Granular humid acids
Blood meal
Azomite
Sul.Po.mag
Dolomite lime
Sea bird guano
Azoz
Mykos

I couldn’t find gypsum or dry molasses but I won’t be mixing this for a few more days when the room is finished so maybe I can track it down.

The genetics are prolific coast seeds fotia
Fire og x wifi3(Scott’s og x Casper og)
Oni seed co Tropicana haze bx5

Well there is the run down I’ll get some pics up as it comes along still a work in progress.

big315smooth · Mar 29, 2019

organic all the way

nickman · Mar 29, 2019

Nice man, I love the Down to Earth stuff...

Prodigygrower · Mar 29, 2019

Thanks guys pull up a seat all good vibes welcome. I’m a Lil nervous but I’m confident that I will figure it out. That’s half the fun of this anyway. Pushing yourself trying new things.

troutman · Mar 29, 2019

Organic is the best. :tiphat:

You can get molasses at food stores in the cooking ingredient section.

Prodigygrower · Mar 29, 2019

troutman said:
Organic is the best.

You can get molasses at food stores in the cooking ingredient section.

Thanks broski I appreciate it.

Cvh · Mar 29, 2019

You won't regret making the switch.

I switched from growing synthetic in Coco to Organic in soil a couple years ago.
I don't think I will ever go back to synthetic fertilizers.

Best of luck!

dank.frank · Mar 29, 2019

Stockade brand dry molasses. Check with local farm supply stores. It's used as a fattener/sweetener for dairy cows and as part of "sweet feed blends" - whole oats and molasses - for horses and goats. My application for soil usage is my own adaptation, which many brands picked up on.

Even the Stockade brand now carries a product labeled for soil usage now. That was never the case 10+ years ago when I started utilizing it.

Gypsum should be available at any Tractor Supply Co as well. Usually around lawn care and grass seed. Might set you back $3-7 for a 40-50# bag.

Looking forward to the thread. If you need any pointers, I'll be right here. :tiphat:

dank.Frank

dank.frank · Mar 29, 2019

A couple posts I want to highlight from my current thread though. When I started the thread, I made a brand new soil mix and throughout make several compare and contrast statements...

These two posts stick out as being highly relevant, without sending you down the rabbit hole, especially since you are looking at working with the basic amendment recipe I posted about 6 years ago.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8447292&postcount=109

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8447461&postcount=111

The take away I want you to see here is the potential lack of potassium in the basic amendment recipe. This is usually a non issue and most people prefer to add potassium as a top feed as needed, simply because it's a rather mobile elements in soil systems and in plants, so you see it's deficiency in OLDER leaves first.

However, with using a blend of time released materials, I've learned how to better address this over the years.

dank.Frank

Zeez · Mar 29, 2019

I'm in a similar situation to Prodigy transitioning from hydro.

Is there a middle ground into organic with a potting soil product that is fairly complete with amendments?

Prodigygrower · Mar 29, 2019

dank.frank said:
A couple posts I want to highlight from my current thread though. When I started the thread, I made a brand new soil mix and throughout make several compare and contrast statements...

These two posts stick out as being highly relevant, without sending you down the rabbit hole, especially since you are looking at working with the basic amendment recipe I posted about 6 years ago.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8447292&postcount=109

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8447461&postcount=111

The take away I want you to see here is the potential lack of potassium in the basic amendment recipe. This is usually a non issue and most people prefer to add potassium as a top feed as needed, simply because it's a rather mobile elements in soil systems and in plants, so you see it's deficiency in OLDER leaves first.

However, with using a blend of time released materials, I've learned how to better address this over the years.

dank.Frank

Thanks buddy. I’ll be in farm country for work today so imma stop by a couple of places and see if I can find those things. I wanted to add some Jamaican and Peruvian bat guano as well among other things. I just don’t have a very firm grasp of the breaking down the dry amendments put into the soil to reach the desired npk ratios. So I’ve been pouring over your threads trying to get a better grasp of the subject. Since this is my first go around I didn’t want to go to crazy and get overwhelmed.

My main focus with this grow is getting my environment dialed in as best I can and come to a understanding of the basics. If I’m being honest this will be a trap sort of grow. Which will do until I get my other place together in the next 6 or 8 months. This allows me to select some keeper phenos and knock off the ring rust from being out of the game for so long.

As always your help and the help of the community here is appreciated more than words can describe. I believe this is the point where I go from being able to cultivate this plant to a point in which I’m able to really understand and appreciate organic gardening at its fullest and all the benefits it has not only with cannabis but gardening as a whole. If that makes any sense lol.

Any way I’ll let you know what I can track down today nothing like getting paid on the clock to stop by a couple of farm and gardening stores to track down some stuff to grow with :woohoo:

dank.frank · Mar 29, 2019

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8361340&postcount=14

^^ pounds per acre is how a soil test is generally listed. Those inputs and numbers are useless to a degree without a cannabis specific NPK profile to have as a target number to achieve when amending.

If you already have Seabird - I'd skip the other bat guanos entirely. I ran out of seabird and that's the only reason my current mix has bat instead. That will change, fwiw.

The only reason I'd say otherwise, is if you just planned on making specific stage of growth nutrient teas later along your journey, then that's another story. I don't make teas because it's messy and it stinks. And can defeat your very reason you're going organic, time consumption.

With regards to the rest - yes, you are correct. If you learn about organic soil, instead of learning how to grow "weed" ... you absolutely can apply that knowledge to grow anything. It's the foundation of creating a healthy productive ecosystem for plants to thrive in. Learning to scale such systems comes with time.

Bio-availability is related to three things, primarily. Hardness of the object. (egg shells are an 8, for example, while diamonds are a 10) Particle size of the material, which directly relates to how rapidly/easily it can be utilized within the ecosystem. The 3rd is biological activity and health of the fungi and bacteria. A more biologically active ecosystem is going to digest organic matter faster resulting in more rapid bio-availability of the ionic nutrition the plants want.

CEC comes into play here so that those ions are being held in place and bound into the soil particles and readily available for the plants upon command. Plants, via roots exudates, control the behavior of the bacterial and fungal colonies, and therefore, are truly in command of the entire process.

This is why I always stress, as growers, all we can do is introduce stimuli into the environment and measure response. If we control the environment, we control the genetic response.

At least if the plants diet is a result of it's own choosing, then by default, it has to be a truer genetic representation of what that plant is supposed to be...good or bad. This means, weaker plants, aren't indirectly fed more to beef them up for better yields, and then passed off as elites that fail to perform in any other system for anyone else.

It means the plants that stand out above the crowd are more legitimate keepers to begin with because they are truly the superior genetic expression, rising to the top.

Sorry to rant - but there are many reasons to grow organic, outside of the ease. You, like many others, will find out, it's always been true what the organic growers say -"my plants just seem like they keep getting better and better"...

Don't hesitate to get some great advice on worms from Weird and Lapides. Those guys run great organic systems as well - and they're not nearly as long winded as I am.

:tiphat:

dank.Frank

Prodigygrower · Mar 29, 2019

dank.frank said:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8361340&postcount=14

^^ pounds per acre is how a soil test is generally listed. Those inputs and numbers are useless to a degree without a cannabis specific NPK profile to have as a target number to achieve when amending.

If you already have Seabird - I'd skip the other bat guanos entirely. I ran out of seabird and that's the only reason my current mix has bat instead. That will change, fwiw.

The only reason I'd say otherwise, is if you just planned on making specific stage of growth nutrient teas later along your journey, then that's another story. I don't make teas because it's messy and it stinks. And can defeat your very reason you're going organic, time consumption.

With regards to the rest - yes, you are correct. If you learn about organic soil, instead of learning how to grow "weed" ... you absolutely can apply that knowledge to grow anything. It's the foundation of creating a healthy productive ecosystem for plants to thrive in. Learning to scale such systems comes with time.

Bio-availability is related to three things, primarily. Hardness of the object. (egg shells are an 8, for example, while diamonds are a 10) Particle size of the material, which directly relates to how rapidly/easily it can be utilized within the ecosystem. The 3rd is biological activity and health of the fungi and bacteria. A more biologically active ecosystem is going to digest organic matter faster resulting in more rapid bio-availability of the ionic nutrition the plants want.

CEC comes into play here so that those ions are being held in place and bound into the soil particles and readily available for the plants upon command. Plants, via roots exudates, control the behavior of the bacterial and fungal colonies, and therefore, are truly in command of the entire process.

This is why I always stress, as growers, all we can do is introduce stimuli into the environment and measure response. If we control the environment, we control the genetic response.

At least if the plants diet is a result of it's own choosing, then by default, it has to be a truer genetic representation of what that plant is supposed to be...good or bad. This means, weaker plants, aren't indirectly fed more to beef them up for better yields, and then passed off as elites that fail to perform in any other system for anyone else.

It means the plants that stand out above the crowd are more legitimate keepers to begin with because they are truly the superior genetic expression, rising to the top.

Sorry to rant - but there are many reasons to grow organic, outside of the ease. You, like many others, will find out, it's always been true what the organic growers say -"my plants just seem like they keep getting better and better"...

Don't hesitate to get some great advice on worms from Weird and Lapides. Those guys run great organic systems as well - and they're not nearly as long winded as I am.

dank.Frank

Never would I call you long winded my friend. I prefer the term passionate. Also I appreciate the detail in which you break down the information. Trust me I take it all to heart. Hell I just stopped off and grabbed a 50lb bag of dried molasses for $17. Needless to say I’ll be good for a minute now. I also grabbed gypsum and chick n poo which from what I understand is the same as symphony. Also grabbed a lil extra perlite. Man I love this stuff. My girl was watching me grab all the soil and what not from the store yesterday and was like you look like a kid in a candy store lol. To be honest that’s exactly how I felt. :biggrin:

Prodigygrower · Mar 31, 2019

So I got everything mixed up I have to say I really like the consistency of the soil. Maybe it’s the extra coco in the pro mix hb cc. So the final mix looks like this

1 bale of pro mix hb cc
2 1.5 bags of ffof
1 #30 bag of worm castings
1c alfalfa meal
1c dry molasses
2c blood meal
2c fish bone meal
1c sea bird guano
1/4c Sul-Po-Mg
1c azomite
2/3c dolomite
4/3c oyster shell flour
2/3 gypsum
6 1/2c chick n poo
1 2/3c granular humic
1c mycos
1/4c azos
8 gal perlite

I then mixed 5ml of liquid karma and 5 ml of myco chum and moistened the mix after mixing multiple times. I bought a 65 gal storage container to put it all in. This should of been more than enough because I figured I would of had roughly 7 cubic feet of soil or 51.5 gal. Well it wasn’t enough so either they lied to me or it just expanded to much with the added coco either way I ended up with a full 65 gal tote and a 30 gal container as well. I also dropped 15 fotia and 7 Tropicana haze bx5 in some water too. I should have some chem 4 crosses coming soon to put those in the drink as soon as I get them as well.

mrghost · Mar 31, 2019

Welcome to the club. Good luck.
I'd also like to underline that IMHO organic is the way to go. Every fellow grower is amazed by the quality (especially taste wise) of my product.
I make side by side comparisons of the same cut (hydro vs. organic no-till) and that's what tells me I'm doing something right.

AgentPothead · Mar 31, 2019

Zeez said:
I'm in a similar situation to Prodigy transitioning from hydro.

Is there a middle ground into organic with a potting soil product that is fairly complete with amendments?

I had no complaints with the stonington blend from coasts of maine except the price. I ended up settling on an organic blend done by my local grow shop. They don't say exactly what's in it, but it's peat based with I think 13 or 14 amendments and uses local compost and worm castings.

Zeez · Mar 31, 2019

AgentPothead said:
I had no complaints with the stonington blend from coasts of maine except the price. I ended up settling on an organic blend done by my local grow shop. They don't say exactly what's in it, but it's peat based with I think 13 or 14 amendments and uses local compost and worm castings.

I used COM Stonington blend last year with their amendment. By August it was pretty tapped out. 7 foot bushy plants, 20 gallon pots. OGDW says Foxfarrn Ocean, Chunky Perlite and Happy Frog. Snagged a few today to rev up the mothers for this season.

Prodigygrower · Apr 1, 2019

We’ll I got the power run things moving along I’m not 100% happy but it’s been a while and I don’t have unlimited funds with this project. Plus this is a new venture for me and I’m nervous that I’ve done everything thing correctly with this soil. Oh well time will tell and I’ll trouble shoot anything that comes along if and when that happens.

dank.frank · Apr 1, 2019

Phillthy would get about 30-35 gallons per batch of soil. So, 65-70 gallons of soil is about where you should be.

Things are looking good. :joint:

dank.Frank

Prodigygrower · Apr 1, 2019

dank.frank said:
Phillthy would get about 30-35 gallons per batch of soil. So, 65-70 gallons of soil is about where you should be.

Things are looking good.

dank.Frank

Awesome thanks broski. Im just trying to follow the recipe as best I can. I think the extra coco in the pro mix hb cc deff expanded more than I thought it would but that’s what coco does.
I tend to over think things and criticize the hell out of myself. I’m my own worst enemy in that regard. Tomorrow I’ll get the rest framed in. Then it will be added to as the plants grow fans filters ect. The space I have looks perfect for 4K but I’m worried about keeping my temps in check. The basement stays in the mid 60s all year round. I’m hoping a nice portable ac unit will do the trick or even maybe just fresh air drawn in through the window. The adjustwings don’t get super hot for open hoods. I won’t really know till I get everything together though. I wish I had the money for a mini split but that will have to wait for the next spot.

Older wiser and going organic!!!

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