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How do you fix lockout organic soil?

idiit

idiit

Active member
Veteran
if you run organic you must read and understand Albrecht's method imo even if you don't end up using albrecht's approach.

Albrecht believes that the excessive mg in dolomite lime is the biggest lock out culprit. he recommends a lime mix to bring down the mg %'s.

there are tons of posts, threads here on Albrecht. do the advanced search.
 
heady blunts

heady blunts

prescription blunts
Veteran
without pictures it's a real crapshoot trying to diagnose and treat issues. a great way to fuck up a garden is try and correct an issue that isn't there.

that said, based on what you've described, I've got an idea of what may have happened.

afaik peat is far more acidic than coco. when adding liming agents to a mix the goal is generally to buffer the low pH of the peat component. if you swapped the peat for coco 100% but kept the oyster shell flour ratio the same, you may have pushed your media pH up pretty high.

unfortunately I have no experience with coco so this is merely a hypothesis and I've got no suggestion to remedy it.
 
idiit

idiit

Active member
Veteran
^ agree. I don't know what's causing lock out issues. I wanted to point out the importance of having the right mg ratios to start with.

the water where i'm at is 9-10 on the ph. highly alkaline. keeps waste water line repairs down i'm told.

coco is another 'animal' with which i'm not familiar. :)

what I do know from my personal experience is that organic soil for me was tough to get right but since I managed to put together something that works for me I love it. the rols ( recycled organic soil) seems to have a tendency to adjust the ph on its own to the correct level. I do watch the water and adjust it back to around 6 ph.
 
Mikell

Mikell

Dipshit Know-Nothing
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Without testing substrate pH you're just guessing at the problem. An actual breakdown of your mix would be helpful.

Side question, what type of coir did you use?
 
R

Robrites

New guy here....what are the signs and symptoms of lockout? (every bad thing I read about - I wonder if my girls might have it}
 
Scrappy4

Scrappy4

senior member
Veteran
idiit said:
^ agree. I don't know what's causing lock out issues. I wanted to point out the importance of having the right mg ratios to start with.

the water where i'm at is 9-10 on the ph. highly alkaline. keeps waste water line repairs down i'm told.

coco is another 'animal' with which i'm not familiar. :)

what I do know from my personal experience is that organic soil for me was tough to get right but since I managed to put together something that works for me I love it. the rols ( recycled organic soil) seems to have a tendency to adjust the ph on its own to the correct level. I do watch the water and adjust it back to around 6 ph.
Click to expand...

Lucky you with a high ph, lol. I'm in the same boat with ph 9 water. I found it helps in no till to add more N than I normally used. It also helps to add things that can lower ph, like neem meal, fish hydroyslate, and even molasses can lower soil ph, high N seems to lower ph as well. Adding molasses to fermented extracts makes for low ph feeds as well. The sulfur in gypsum helps too.

But I don't add anything to lower water ph, with the exception of the final waterings before harvest. Then I might add citric acid or molasses to my water for those last couple of weeks.

One plus is, you don't have to worry about adding calcium, as your water provides it. A small comfort perhaps.

But back to the OP. a compost tea or compost slurry can help fix lockout issues. In effect it is sending lots of microbes to make nutrients more available for plants. It's my go to, for most any plant health issues, and another reason to always have high end compost/vermi compost around. It's important.
 
xmobotx

xmobotx

ecks moe baw teeks
ICMag Donor
Veteran
i had problems w/ coir & gave it up. finally, the bucket i used for my 1st efforts w/ coir became productive after sitting in the weather/rain for a couple years outdoors
 
S

sprinkl

Member
Veteran
Robrites said:
New guy here....what are the signs and symptoms of lockout? (every bad thing I read about - I wonder if my girls might have it}
Click to expand...

Leaves that aren't picture perfect lush green when the soil should have enough nutrients.. Either due to a wrong pH or too much of one element which competes for uptake.
An organic soil can be quite forgiving but if the pH is way off the microbes have a hard time as well.
 
R

Robrites

sprinkl said:
Leaves that aren't picture perfect lush green when the soil should have enough nutrients.. Either due to a wrong pH or too much of one element which competes for uptake.
An organic soil can be quite forgiving but if the pH is way off the microbes have a hard time as well.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the answer sprinkl.:)
 
blooper

blooper

Active member
how often are you watering? i battled what i thought was a pH lockout in organic soil indoors for an entire 12/12 cycle and when i harvested and went to look at the rootball, it turned out that container was over-watered and had 3-4" of soggy muck that wouldn't dry out before the plant started to wilt from lack of water in the actual rootzone. since then i've learned to water less when transplanting into a large container until the roots have a chance to spread out.

foliar sprays can help while you get things figured out.
 
Scrappy4

Scrappy4

senior member
Veteran
blooper said:
how often are you watering? i battled what i thought was a pH lockout in organic soil indoors for an entire 12/12 cycle and when i harvested and went to look at the rootball, it turned out that container was over-watered and had 3-4" of soggy muck that wouldn't dry out before the plant started to wilt from lack of water in the actual rootzone. since then i've learned to water less when transplanting into a large container until the roots have a chance to spread out.

foliar sprays can help while you get things figured out.
Click to expand...

I've taught some growing classes for a local compassion club. When I talk about plant problems, I always talk about the 2's. As in too dry, too wet, too much feed, too little feed, too hot, too cold, too this, too that. These 2's, seem to responsible for a great deal of plant problems. Or more accurate, I should say plant grower problems, lol.
 
Space Toker

Space Toker

Active member
Veteran
having some technical difficulties with the old digital camera I have (was messing with the settings and had no idea what I was doing as I am a tech dinosaur), but working on it! ;) I have 2 tubs, one more lightly watered with this concoction I made, and most of them are fine, and the other tub where nearly everything looks dead/near death. In both cases, the ones in 1/2 G bags suffered the worst. In the more heavily watered and fertilized tub, most look bad but the 2 that are in 2G bags are not nearly as affected and clearly still alive. I hope that helps. I watered all from the top, put water in one tub at a much higher amount than the other tub.
 
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