Indoor No Till Deep Soil Bed

Iron_Lion said:

Seriously great grow

The only down fall with bed growing is that science shows it works best when all of the plants in the grow space are of the same genetics.


Here is an excerpt from a thread I made a while back that explains how plants recognize their own kin and have improved growth when their neighbors are related to them.


https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=210399

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Thanks Iron Lion. I am actually using all the same cuts so I should be cool in that respect.

lookin great organicterra! i have yet to see the larger smart pots indoor but it seems to be working wonders for you

iron lion, that was some good info, thanks for the link! i have a question tho, sorry if it seems noob but wouldnt more aggressive/competitive root growth be helpful to our cause?

Maybe this has already been addressed, I don't know. I understand the principle behind no till.. but how does it apply to growing pot? I would understand better if you had 160 acres going..

very nice organic terra!
I spray my still-potted post-harvest rootballs down with a LAB solution or other beneficials.
after a couple of weeks you can usually pull the slimy stump out leaving most of the soil behind (there wont be much left of the roots)
keep up the good work.

No-till conceptually better in large containers, to your point. Like 15 gallons, etc

Right now my plan is to cut all the plants flush at harvest, top dress with homemade compost, EWC and green manure like comfrey, dandelion, and yarrow. Then plant vegged cuts.
The soil biology should take care of the old roots but I wonder if eventually it will start to fill up with root mass.

wowowowow!!!

this is really awesome. no doubt this bed is going to do great things.

your old roots will be digested by the soil biology. new roots grow happily in a no till system.

very exciting!

heady blunts said:

wowowowow!!!

this is really awesome. no doubt this bed is going to do great things.

your old roots will be digested by the soil biology. new roots grow happily in a no till system.

very exciting!

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No kidding........that's a sweet bed you got there OT.......nice job!

All the best,

b_d

Very excited to see how you like it. Soil used this way apparently gets better after a few grows. Amazing to me.

This looks to be a good thread, subscribed.

rrog said:

I'm using tall 7 gallon pails with the Max BluMat system. So far, so good

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Link me to your thread!!

I just filled a SmartPot with onions and garlic today.

organicterra said:

Day 28 flower.
I'm curious to hear some thoughts on how to manage this bed over the long term.
One unknown is how quickly the old root systems will breakdown and if there are any potential issues with running this type of no till bed as a perpetual flower room with no real breaks in between rounds.
Any thoughts?

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I'm wondering some of the same stuff going in to my second round. The old root systems were from fairly large (5-6') plants in 5 gal buckets. Basically untouched since harvest minus watering/the mixed cover crop. I was wondering if adding lactobacillus directly to the soil would break down the old root systems significantly faster without any compromise of new plant growth or balance in the soil micro community/soil mix/bed. I'm unsure how the micro universe below would react to it...

I know lactobacillus is good for breaking down compost and makes foliar spray for controlling powdery mildew... but what about applying some of its magic to our no-till soil after harvest? Is this old news? *edit* perhaps the LAB self referred to?

The concern is time... lactob. speeds things up... The no-till is a sweet way to set up, but what will things will look like a few cycles down the road - i'm guessing pretty crowded!? Esp. in my little 5 gallon worlds. A lot less wiggle room than you. I put two or three new babies in with two or three old root systems and had to strike new ground a couple times cause it was on top of the old resident.

One idea for you is to have a second bed (!) and allow the current crop to decompose its roots and cover crop out for the duration of the flower cycle of the other bed... and rotate. seems too big of a job for a bed your size, plus the room to accomodate it could be too much.

Another idea is to be mindful of the spaces in your bed and rotate growing spots, perhaps applying a direct lactob dose to the old/dead leftovers, and hope most is gone in the next two months??

I could possibly deal with 15 more 5 gallon buckets stuffed in a corner with cover crops going while the roots decompose... but I may not have to!

Here is a study worth checking out~
http://www.infrc.or.jp/english/KNF_Data_Base_Web/PDF%20KNF%20Conf%20Data/C1-5-018.pdf

I wanted to point out to you that it does find that the use of wood chips did "work" but with less favorable results. Who knows if that would apply to your set up, just always nice to make an informed decision. Gotta brush up on some science to comprehend this~ I'm not sure what the difference between lactic acid bacteria and lactobacillus is.... haha! anyone? bueller?
Excited to see what happens here ~MissGD

Very cool - do you find that the root zones of each plant have enough space without competing? I've been wanting to do a bed for some time now

Heads up..the root systems are almost completely broken down by the end of the next cycle. I don't do a thing. Yes Lacto will break down the old root system,but there is enough microbial activity in those exceedingly healthy soil no-till pots to really act on any organic matter that decomposes or enters the system. They eat it up....fast.

Plus you have worms,pot worms,blind springtails,and various other critters in there working on that stuff at the same time.

A proper topdress of certain amendments and organic matter should be all they ever need....save for an ACT here and there maybe.

Ok... I guess I can recall now how fast leaves disappear from just being placed on top of the pots. Once its dead... its food for a busy community. Thx CC1~

MissGreenDreamz said:

Ok... I guess I can recall now how fast leaves disappear from just being placed on top of the pots. Once its dead... its food for a busy community. Thx CC1~

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Well,the soil works the same way no matter what,but the type of cannabis can have an effect on the consumption of nutrients. Watch the difference between the G13 x O.Haze and the NL/Haze this round in your garden.
Somewhere around the 8th week in flower you'll see how much more vigor the NL/Haze has....a clear sign that those pots have consumed more organic material than the others and may actually need more topdressing than the G13/Haze no tills.

Timing a topdress in flower is also something to think about. That topdress,whatever material or combination of materials it is, has a breakdown rate,whatever that rate is needs to be accounted for when topdressing.

If you think your soil will need some food in a week...topdress today. However your soil should be all good until you go to flip MGD. @ that point the decision to apply any topdress will be better made.
Rock on
CC1

Cool... picture a time lapse video of the living roots increasing in size, consuming the old plant roots as they disapear. Now it seems ideal! I wonder if there are some sort of biodynamics with the plant consuming its own kin as compost. Would be way more pertinent in the case of a big outdoor no-till garden...maybe worth mentioning since the article discussed earlier in this thread suggests that cannabis senses differences on the species level and physically reacts to it. Wonder if it affects the rate of consumption, as in a need to overgrow a different species that it has the opportunity to consume - promoting increased root growth speed... probably minute but... food for thought?? heh.. :/

OR a plant is built to offer its own species it's self, and a dedication to a certain species per container would be ideal? hmm that's some good blue orca cc1... its ponderin' weeeed! LOL! great thread organicterra!

I visited a 30 year no-till outdoor garden a while back. Large area,maybe 1/2 an acre. The soil was like walking on a giant sponge. You could reach down and stick your hand into the soil a considerable depth with little resistance. The vegetables and plants that were in this garden were all lush and healthy.

In nature consider that a wild patch of cannabis that grows annually without the aid of man to fertilize it can only rely on the organic matter that that patch produces year after year. As it drops,dies,decomposes,it builds up and is consumed by the soil/plants.
Plus I'm sure there are other companion plants that grow near or with cannabis.

Great summary CC1. I have come to look at people, especially guys, as uncontrollable tinkerers. We want to tweak, modify, improve and essentially not leaving well enough alone. It's intuitive to buy fertilizers, till the earth, etc. We've made things more complicated than they need to be, and spent a lot more money than we need to.

I'm getting ready to try this myself, and love seeing other threads of folks already giving it a go. Thanks for the show and tell, looks very nice

MGD don't forget LAB already exists in your soil!

afaik, in a no-till system it's better to keep your soil constantly populated rather than leave it empty between rounds.

the new plant doesn't "eat" the old plant, but it does support a thriving micro herd and they will decompose the dead organic material as needed.

I think rotating the species of plants is a good idea tho. youre on a great track with the cover crops between runs.