The difference between soil/hydro

I consider myself a beginner when it comes to growing. Though I studied some of Teaming With a Microbes I came to a conclusion that I possibly might be a hydro farmer as well as a soil grower.

What is the difference betwe n hydro flowers versus soil flowers.

-Does it effect essential oils?



Thanks

Uptake of nutes/O2 can be more efficient in hydro = faster growth + quicker harvest.

Thank you for your response. I searched Google for it but I believe I was looking too far into the question.

I did a large scale DWC with a friend and wasn't that blown away. But soil is something I've looked into.


I think hydro could be a little easier if I'm on the golf course during summer and might not be at my garden all the time.


I haven't had my own personal garden that succeeded. Just got taken down due to the landlord not agreeing with my decisions.


Thanks!

J man said:

Thank you for your response. I searched Google for it but I believe I was looking too far into the question.

I did a large scale DWC with a friend and wasn't that blown away. But soil is something I've looked into.


I think hydro could be a little easier if I'm on the golf course during summer and might not be at my garden all the time.


I haven't had my own personal garden that succeeded. Just got taken down due to the landlord not agreeing with my decisions.


Thanks!

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With the landlord thing, Security is always #1 priority. Tell no one anything! Especially women as they tell everything!

Between soil and hydro I suggest a start with a simple soil mix to get started to learn how to read your plants. In hydro a small mistake can really mess up your plants and a lot more quickly.

Thanks for the tip!

both work....having done a lot of poth I prefer soil...and I would bet real living soil would contain more terps in end product but haven't done any lab tests yet....yeehaw....hydro is cleaner,grows faster and yields more generally tho..pick your poison...

Hydro isn't all that simple. Your going to check the rez twice a day. Your going to measure ph and TDS/EC twice a day and topping off the rez at least once. The rez can go down very quickly as the plants are growing fast.

Hyro is a lot like the tomato's you buy at the store. They plump of fast and heavy but lose flavor and quality. Soil just get's dank if you have dank soil. Now keep in mind I didn't use Pure Blend compost tea in my rez and I wish I tried that. Hydro is just so much more complicated with air pumps, rez chiller, rez heater, it gets complicated quickly.

You can go days without checking on soil plants, although it's not that great to do that.

Are we talking hydro as in automated systems or medium? You can essentially incorporate a hydro drip system while using soil as your main medium, if that is what you're after.
Soil has a much fuller taste with more depth/flavour. Coco can be fed more often, therefore, usually resulting in larger yields but lacking in flavor/potency. I know others will disagree with this but IMO soil is a bit more challenging than coco i.e. dialing baseline, overwatering, pest, flushing, etc. As far as effecting essential oils, you can check out Analytical 360 http://analytical360.com/testresults for terpene test results.. So, if you know of a farm/collective growing specifically in soil vs a place growing in hydro -and then- find the same strain and compare. Nutrient lines, bottled/ teas, all play a major factor, not only in essential oils but cannabinoids as well.

blumats and amended soil..no water pumps,no ec,airpumps,res chillers...and the ability to utilize what nature has to offer...yeehaw....both styles have their benefits....both can produce great product too...pick your poison....

Thanks for the valuable responses.

I appreciate the effort!

Will be running soil for my first solo grow.

Still trying to decide which strain to run as I would like to pheno hunt and produce seeds off the bat.

Easy7 said:

Hydro isn't all that simple. Your going to check the rez twice a day. Your going to measure ph and TDS/EC twice a day and topping off the rez at least once. The rez can go down very quickly as the plants are growing fast.

Hyro is a lot like the tomato's you buy at the store. They plump of fast and heavy but lose flavor and quality. Soil just get's dank if you have dank soil. Now keep in mind I didn't use Pure Blend compost tea in my rez and I wish I tried that. Hydro is just so much more complicated with air pumps, rez chiller, rez heater, it gets complicated quickly.

You can go days without checking on soil plants, although it's not that great to do that.

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A lot of nonsense here. Where did you learn this crap?

Yes, you need a pump: a timer is needed for F & D, but not for DWC

You ONLY need rez chiilers/heaters IF your environment is extreme

I adjust pH only during mid-bud on and then ONCE every other day, but my rezes are small ~ 2.5g. IF you are growing multi-branched 4ft bushes with heavy buds yes, you will need to top off ONCE a day

Loss of flavor? Come on. That's been bantered about for decades, and NEVER proven, HOWEVER, some people use 2-3Xs more nutes than necessary; in that case taste could be affected due to high phosphorous residual, but a few days of flush before harvest should eliminate that

Checkout some of the YT videos from Greenhouse Seeds. They've done a lot of hydro/soil side by side with same strains. With one exception hydro was 2Xs+ bigger for the basically the same effort

Here's a couple pics of my biggest plant from last harvest

View attachment 346428 View attachment 346429 View attachment 346430

Wow im into the circus right on time.

Personally ive done both. Far as the o.p. question, organic is fed with food from nature hydroponic fed uses refined mineral salt suspended in r.o. water to feed the plants.

Growing the same cut in hydro or soil it effects how the plant grows, yields and typically smell and flavour. Lots of organic guys will say its better flavour and taste. I dont agree, a organic grower recently admitted i put forth the first coco grown that impressed him on the taste factor. It can be done using hydro methods. You can have dope just as clean. As a former organic grower i strive to match the quality and cleanliness of my organic product with hydro but i aim for a higher yield. I grow in coco coir.

I dont feel i sacrifice quality for yield because i prioritize it all. Im happy growing how i do now and will for likely for a long time. While the same cut will smell, taste and hit different and certainly grow different in hydro its not fair to say one is better because a very skilled organic grower admitted mine is no laughing matter. You can grow great pot with either merhod. Tons of breeders like say dj short, bodhi, many many more use organics. Then theres folks like head and rez both ised a similar schedule coco hydro, theres a few breeders still runnin dwc, theres guys like reef who do organic and hydro.

Really its all about what system appeals to you. They can all be good and bad they all have their downfalls. I like coco its very quiet and stealth i hand water it and so no neighbours to hear noisy pumps. I go through alot less solution. Downsides are i have to handwater every day so i cant go away...

Theres ways to do organics or hydro in the same system. Say coco you can do it either way. Also theres ways to do it in hydroponics (bio buckets is a organic hydroponic system) and soil can do organic fed or hydroponic food. Many hydro foods will work in all systems, some are purpose designed. I used gh flora as the first hydro food i ysed in coco which works in everything then quickly moved to a coco specific nutrient. I use canna. They make nutrients and schedules for all systems. Some places in the world its more expensive. The base foods not bad world wide but the adds cost alot in north america. I use their base food and local adds i spent alot of time planning my feed schedule out.

Anyway o.p. both systems are fun and great and look around at all of them and choose something that suits your interests and situation. That said dont start out on like aeroponics its alot of work there but theres lots to choose from

Drain to waste in Coco is a lot lot lot easier than any soil grow. Plain water for the last 10 days, increase or decrease feed if needed immediately, likewise pH, it is so easy.

Soil, so easy to over or underwater, and unless you are an expert almost impossible to get the soil "hotness" right... The amount of nutrients, especially N is critical, too little and poor growth/ yield, too much and you produce horrible green weed full of Chlorophyll that takes months to (hopefully) cure away. Still during this time you can try to convince yourself that it is somehow more natural or maybe you just like the taste of shitty green chlorophyll and earth while you invent theories about "more natural terpenes"

Properly grown weed in Coco (or other Hydro medium) that has been correctly flushed, tastes of just the weed itself, not weed plus the mud it was grown in and a load of green green leafy chlorophyll on top.

Easy7 said:

Hydro isn't all that simple. Your going to check the rez twice a day. Your going to measure ph and TDS/EC twice a day and topping off the rez at least once. The rez can go down very quickly as the plants are growing fast.

Hyro is a lot like the tomato's you buy at the store. They plump of fast and heavy but lose flavor and quality. Soil just get's dank if you have dank soil. Now keep in mind I didn't use Pure Blend compost tea in my rez and I wish I tried that. Hydro is just so much more complicated with air pumps, rez chiller, rez heater, it gets complicated quickly.

You can go days without checking on soil plants, although it's not that great to do that.

Click to expand...

WOW... You are way off base. F&D Hydro is the simplest way to grow. Soil is much more complicated by far. With Hydro just top off res and check PH 1 time a day. Less than 10 min maintenance. You can even cut that down using an auto top off valve. I use a continuous PH/TDS meter and only have to adjust PH every other day in most cases. No chiller needed 1 water pump and 1 air pump. Way easier than trying to buy and mix 30 different items to get the correct soil mix. Not to mention the back breaking work to actually mix the soil and carry it around. I move water with a hose. And if you get your soil wrong there is no easy fix. As PetFlora said with hydro if nutes are bad then dump, flush and add new nutes. You probably spend more time every day hand watering your plants than I do on maintenance. You still need to PH adjust your water before you water the plants so my having to adjust PH periodically is much simpler since in soil you don't have an easy way to adjust the soil PH. When I read the soil forums, I see people actually using MORE feed additives on soil than we use in Hydro. I run GH nutes Lucas formula. 2 bottles of nutes and they get mixed at 2:1 ratio. How much simpler can you get? Compare that to some of the Tea recipes I have seen. Let's not even talk about the difficulty of doing Organic Soil compared to Hydro.

I won't debate over taste or quality as I have never had an opportunity to taste the same plant grown side by side in both soil and hydro. I do know that no one that has smoked any of my Hydro grown weed that has said anything but good things.

So, IMO, for Pure ease, quality and quantity F&D Hydro is number 1 by a long shot. Even a beginner can turn out good quality and good quantity on their first grow with F&D.


This is a picture of my first grow ever. How many soil growers have plants like this on their first harvest? This was unknown strain bag seed. I got 13 zips on this grow under a 600W for .65g/w on my first grow. I regularly double that now under the same light.

I started with hydro and I don't appreciate the negative energy directed towards me.

Hydro in the summer is going to need a rez chiller if you really dial it in. Rez temp needs to be mid 60's and that's cool for lights on.

Your home made DWC might not require a pump but my system did. Current culture systems also require a pump.

Hydro systems tend to rely on bottled nuts. Hydro in my experience never compared to outdoor flavors smells.....this was my experience.

Again this is my experience but soil only requires water if it's planned correctly. I had to top of a 5 gallon rez twice a day..at least once a day. Every time the rez was topped the nutrient TDS would go down so adding nutrients was required and every time nutrients are added PH is affected...so that has to be adjusted to.

Not to mention just how shitty it is when the PH meter breaks! Most soil growers don't even use a PH/TDS/EC meter or overpriced bottled nutrients. Soil is simple, no need to over complicate.

To each his own

Addition: I would do hydro again, for big grows. 300+ gallons of soil has some drawbacks.

buy a cement mixer or do living soil ^^^^^^^^^^^^^yeehaw...personally I think hydro is easier....but with soil that's alive there is all kinds of stuff going on in it that hydro don't have...hydro def is cleaner with less chance of introducing pathogens/bugs ....

Living hydro? Can it be done? I'd bet I could do better at hydro than before with what I know now.

soil = dirt
potting mix = no real dirt only non-nutritive ingredients
potting soil = potting mix with nutes

but I get what people are saying

I think soil is more ecological and supports more ecology. Although many say hydro is more water efficient.