Organics in a bottle? 1st time organic grower.

Hey guys, I've been posting around ICMag looking for a response, but I've yet to receive one, so here's my first post in Organic Soil.

In all my time growing, I've always used Fox Farms nutes. I'm looking to switch it up, so I figured why not look into organics a little bit. I'm not yet willing to go with soil mixes, mostly because I have not yet educated myself enough on the concept of pre-mixing ferts in the soil to last a whole grow only supplemented with teas.

So, this leaves bottled organics. After doing some research - and this is still open for debate and may or may not change - BioCanna is what I'm now looking at. I'm planning on purchasing the following:

Bio Vega
Bio Flores
Bio BOOST
Canna Rhizotonic - Organic?
Cannazym - Organic?
Organicare Huvega
Organicare Calplex

That's where I'm at currently. Can I please get some feedback on this? I've read both positive and negative things about BioCanna. Is this everything I need?

I'd be getting the Huvega and Calplex for Cal/Mg, obviously. Pretty sure this is necessary?

Canna Rhizotonic and Cannazym, can they be used in an organic garden without affecting its "organicness?" Better options if not?

Better bottled organics in general?

Now I have some general questions about BioCanna. It's stated to not use pH adjusters. . . what if the pH needs adjusting? Also, I believe BioCanna is for use in soil mediums only? I assume this would work just as well in a soilless mix, such as Promix or MetroMix? It should be alright I imagine because BioTerra is a soilless medium. I'd get that but I just don't want to have to pay for the shipping on 10 bags when I can pick up some MetroMix-300 10 minutes away (or with luck, some ProMix.)

Please forgive me for not answering your question, but do yourself a favor and read the organics for beginners thread in the stickys. The time invested will be well worth it....good luck.....scrappy

I'm well ahead of you That was the next thing I clicked after I posted this. This is more of a question of the BioCanna line of products than anything else. And after doing a search on BioCanna as well as the names of the specific nutrients, It pulled up no hits.

I'm really only interested in something that's bottled for the time being. Less hassle, less mess, IMO. I did bookmark the thread for the soil mix purposes, I'm really hoping I can get my hands on some ProMix.

Organics in a bottle? 1st time organic grower.

heya erb,

I think your expectation of achieving a good organic grow without acquiring any new skills is unreasonable.

my advice: stick with your foxfarm nutes. if you want to try organic growing your first step is understanding soil and soil biology. when you are thinking along those lines, bottled nutes will seem absurd.

Hi Erb.Biocanna is really good nutes line. I use it in the past and have great results in outdoor grow. Rhizotonic is not organic, but in europe there is also BioRhizotonic. You dont need to add casnnazym, because it is replacing enzymes that are produced by biological life in the soil, so if you are going organics you will just dont need it. Feed your micro with molasses. And yeah, read organic soil forum, there are answers to all your questions and more.

And one thing more, biocanna is 100 % vegetabble so you dont need to wory about mercury or other shits that are often in made-from-fish fertilizers. This is the diference between biocanna and other organic liquid ferts.

don't know much about biocanna, or any bottled organics for that matter but making a good soil mix is probably easier than mixing all that stuff together every watering for sure.

I'm just getting into organic soil mixes and so far i really like them, it seems too easy. I also have the added assurance that I won't lose a crop because of some rogue fungus or critter. And the same strains have a much more complex smell than before.

Man, you guys are gonna make me do a lot more research. I'll apologize off that bat for coming off as arrogant, if that's how it came off as. I just assumed there were two ways to grow organically, bottled, and soil mixes. Apparently... that's not the case.

@ Mad - I really do appreciate that response. In all honesty, I'm not really trying to go organic so much as trying a new fert line. I just liked the sound of BioCanna, and I ended up in here. It's not that I expect to acquire no new skills, it's just that at the present moment, learning a whole new method isn't likely going to happen. Long story short, I'm starting over from scratch. No lights, no nutes, no cab/tent. Every single aspect as to be planned out and purchased and in that aspect, along with 12-hour days at work, I'm just flat-out occupied. I think proper planning is half of the grow. I DO like the sound of "organic bud" and I've heard great things about the smell/taste of bud grown organically as opposed to synthetically. I intend to spend today doing some research on the subject, and we'll see where it goes from there. Also, FF does have an organic line

@ Zap - It looks like I'm going to be doing some more reading on this forum for sure. Thankfully I'm not working today due to the weather. Solid inch of ice on the streets and more coming tonight! Thanks for the info about the Rhizotonic, I kept hearing different versions of it, one side saying it was okay to use, and the other no. Nobody mentioned Europes BioRhizotonic though.

@ Sam -It's the "seems too easy" thing that sets me off from it really. It's like, for every plant of every strain, I can make one soil mix and they'll all thrive? Really? Like I said, I'll be doing some more research, but I just don't get it. If I were to feed 2 different strains the same thing, I'd get 2 different results. Say a touchy plant like white widow and a easy-to-grow plant like say, NL#5. Reading the sticky thread suggested only further instills my doubt. Mix in this amount of this, and that amount of that into your soil, plant and grow.

I'm guessing you make teas to supplement any deficiencies. What happens if a certain plant/strain finds the pre-mixed medium "too hot?" Meh, I'll do some reading, but if anyone feels like laying down the basic outline, that'd be sweet. If not, that's cool too. Appreciate all the feedback.

SmokinErb said:

@ Sam -It's the "seems too easy" thing that sets me off from it really. It's like, for every plant of every strain, I can make one soil mix and they'll all thrive? Really? Like I said, I'll be doing some more research, but I just don't get it. If I were to feed 2 different strains the same thing, I'd get 2 different results. Say a touchy plant like white widow and a easy-to-grow plant like say, NL#5. Reading the sticky thread suggested only further instills my doubt. Mix in this amount of this, and that amount of that into your soil, plant and grow.

I'm guessing you make teas to supplement any deficiencies. What happens if a certain plant/strain finds the pre-mixed medium "too hot?" Meh, I'll do some reading, but if anyone feels like laying down the basic outline, that'd be sweet. If not, that's cool too. Appreciate all the feedback.

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about certain mixes being too hot, some strains will use/tolerate more N than others, so adjusting the mix for the strain can help in successive rounds.

about how a single mix can be good for many different strains, it's the microherd that feeds the plant in organics, we feed the microherd. the plant can signal the microherd what nutrients it needs via exudates(waste excrements) from the roots which feed the microherd and let them know what it(the plant) needs. The army of beneficial bacteria & fungi cater the nutrient feedings to the particular strain based upon its needs.

thats my understanding of it anyways

my mix is

4 parts peat moss or coco (I like coco much better)
2 parts composted manure (cow)
1 part Humus
3 parts perlite

1.5 tbs/gal dolomite lime
1.5 tbs/gal diatomaceous earth
1 tbs/gal blood meal (if using coco I'll use half cottonseed meal)
2 tbs/gal bone meal
1 tbs/gal kelp meal
1 cup/10gal of epsoma bio-tone

earthworm castings are also very good to use but they are not available locally so I do without. They have a very high beneficial bacteria content.

also, when I use coco in the mix above, I lower the ph of the watering solution to 6 - 6.5, otherwise you'll see the characteristic Ca and P lockout associated with coco.

This is actually pretty cool stuff. So these nutrient teas are basically necessary is my new understanding, but simple to make as they can be made from the soil amendments.

So far I'm just documenting different base mixes, amendments and teas come next. It seems likely that I'll just opt to use LC's mix #2 with some slight tweakings. From what I can tell it seems that a lot of the respected organic growers (that I've seen, so far) have basically used the same thing.

I've been going through the "pimp your organic fertilizer" thread too. I need to figure out where all of these nutrients go, in the mix, or in the teas you water with. I think I have quite a task on hand.

You don't have to use tea's, I've seen indoor organic grows have good success without any teas at all, just water.

Tea's can give you additional nutrients, but I think the introduction of the diverse microherd in the tea is more beneficial.

Feeding you plants nutrients is what you do with bottled chem nutrients or even bottled organic nutrients. I prefer to have the microherd feed the plant, they know what the plant needs better than I do and can offer so much more then NPK.

Erb, you may find this helpful.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=149234

It is a fairly comprehensive nute study, that I think will help answer your questions.....scrappy

with my organic grow im feeding with Liquid Fish, Maxicrop Kelp, Blackstrap molasses n Superthrive, so u cud do something like that instead of teas if u want, depending on how u got ur soil mixed. im actually switchin to teas on my next run as im still in a learning phase with organics myself

mad librettist said:

heya erb,

I think your expectation of achieving a good organic grow without acquiring any new skills is unreasonable.

my advice: stick with your foxfarm nutes. if you want to try organic growing your first step is understanding soil and soil biology. when you are thinking along those lines, bottled nutes will seem absurd.

Click to expand...

You'll find it's worth your time and study. I did.

Heya Erb,

In my grows, the tea is like hitting "reset" on a PC running windows 95. It just fixes everything.

If you go organic I promise you this: a hump to get over at first, then it gets easier and easier every year, instead of getting more and more complicated as you throw all your good plots out of whack.

@ scrappy - That's exactly what I've been looking for. Even though I'm getting less and less interested in BioCanna by the minute.

@ Mad - It seems likely at this point that organic is something I'll be trying. I'm just concerned with results. I'd hate to spend all those months and dollars on a new set-up to be let down, ya know? So it's just some anxiety in there, but the concept seems simple enough. I do have a question that I haven't yet found an answer to. If most growing mediums are sterilized. . . where do all of the beneficial bacteria and such come from? I really feel like I'm missing something here.

worm castings, composted anything, humus and I like espoma bio-tone, among other things

Microbeman ought to come in here and chew my ass just for being in this subforum, but I will throw in my $.02.

i tried organic bottled nutes in hydro and have been hollered at that "that isn't true organic." I understand that the point of organics is to use an organic, living soil and feed the microbes, not the plant.

To do organic bottled nutes I basic was creating a large tea brewer out of my res, which was a big pain in the ass. To this I added Pura Vida Organics (from Technaflora) which until last year was OMRI. The nutes were very weak and hard to dial in, they were also expensive and since I had to use a ton of it, was going through a gallon of nutes a week for half of an 8 light grow. To do organics indoor I think DOES require a well-built and aged living soil, but if you can't do that I wouldn't bother with organic bottled nutes. Stick with chems and a dead reservoir and your life will be easier.

using a simple pre-ferted soil mix, not too rich, has to be the simplest way to do organics - or growing in general i'd say. there no law to say you have to use teas, water is fine and a bottle of simple organic bloom ferts if they start to yellow a bit early. soil or soil-less mix doesnt have to be aged really or recycled to perform well.

VG

SmokinErb said:

@ scrappy - That's exactly what I've been looking for. Even though I'm getting less and less interested in BioCanna by the minute.

@ Mad - It seems likely at this point that organic is something I'll be trying. I'm just concerned with results. I'd hate to spend all those months and dollars on a new set-up to be let down, ya know? So it's just some anxiety in there, but the concept seems simple enough. I do have a question that I haven't yet found an answer to. If most growing mediums are sterilized. . . where do all of the beneficial bacteria and such come from? I really feel like I'm missing something here.

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Organics can be quite cheap. JayKush does his grows for pennies outdoors.

Now I assume you already have all the equipment (lights/ballasts, pots, fans, etc....), so your only real cost is the soil mix and nutrients, right?

There's plenty of good recipes for soil mixes, and it isn't hard to mix up some on a tarp. How many gallons of soil mix would you need for your plants?

Here's my recommendation. Follow a soil mix like the one listed in this thread already. Where in the country are you exactly? Are you in the NW? Most of the ingredients are easy to source.

If you choose to use synthetics, which most people in this forum abhor for a variety of reasons, then use them very very light. There's some ethical/environmental reasons for not using synthetics, but in small doses you won't hurt your plants or micro-life (I know MM will disagree with me on this). I see a lot of giant pumpkin growers doing a combination of organics and synthetics and their getting good results. However, they're not smoking or ingesting their final plant either...

Anyway, I just want to encourage your to go for it. The costs are really minimal, as you can re-use your soil. You may have a bit of a learning curve, but there's a ton of good info. on here and it's worth the time and effort in the long run. Go organic for your health's sake!

To do organics indoor I think DOES require a well-built and aged living soil, but if you can't do that I wouldn't bother with organic bottled nutes.

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Lazy, You are learning. Way to be! BTW one can get good results with a freshly mixed soil provided weird nutrients are not applied but it does get better with subsequent crops/plantings.

When I have time, I'll be kicking your ass all over the place in the other forum....just too busy right now.