3 Way SbS, Amazon Bloom, Black Gold, and Ocean Forest Soils

Today we lay down the framework for a side by side with three types of soil, no other variations.

Long story short, there are rumors of Monsanto buying or having bought out out Foxfarm, and I find myself wishing to have alternatives available should this become the case.

Three plants will be grown in each soil type, all in the same 20g nursery pots, three additional plants will be run alongside the Ocean Forest control group with the addition of the agricultural limestone we're using in the Black Gold because this brand does not include a ph buffer. The limestone will be run at a rate of 167g per cubic foot.



Amazon Bloom has the most ingredients, while Black Gold has the fewest.

Ocean Forest Ingredients: Composted forest humus, perlite, Spaghnum peat, bat guano, fish, crab, shrimp and Norwegian kelp meals, premium earthworm castings and oyster shells.

Amazon Bloom Ingredients: peat moss, forest compost, coconut coir, feather meal, bat guano, marinebird fossilized guano, steamed bone meal, sulfate of potash, magnesia from langbenite, neem meal, earthworm castings, sea kelp (ascophyllum nodosum), humate ore (leonardite), oyster shell lime (not listed on the bag, but on the msds / online ingredients list).

Black Gold Incredients: Spaghnum peat moss and compost, perlite / pumice, earthworm castings.

All plants will be run on the same basic program, shown here:



Target Ph range is 5.8-6.3.

Cutting Machine filled at a rate of 2ml / gallon with GH Rapidstart.



Machine is a GH Rainforest 36, i'll be doing a side by side after the new year with this machine and an EZ Cloner.

Transplanted into 2 liter nursery pots, roots dressed with Plant Success Granular, watered with DEM Lush Roots 840 at 7.5ml per gallon.

Veg plants will be fed once weekly with Fox Farm Grow Big at 7.5ml per gallon.

Transplanted into 10g nursery pots, dressed and watered at same rates as previous.

After transition to flower, plants will be given the Fox Farm soil feeding schedule twice weekly at 1/2 strength, minus the Bush Doctor product line, with the additions of DEM Fat Flowers at 5mls per gallon throughout, and HCO Gravity at 1ml per gallon during weeks 6-8.

This SbS is slated to start just after Christmas, unless you fellows present critiques which require extensive adjustment.

The strain which is being slated for this experiment is:

Smurphberry Jam, my own little bit of work with Dr. Atomic's NLxBB as a base, S2 (2nd self-pollinated) generation.

Haven't done this kind of nerdy growing since college, fun times ahead!

SooperSmurph said:

Final Numbers

Buds were weighed after an overnight in a storage tub with 2 humidipacks mixed in, so the numbers here should reflect saleable weight.

Hash Trim was weighed after spending 2 days spread across a tarp in a room where the an average humidty was 22% or less.

Amazon Bloom
Buds: 366 grams
Hash Trim: 30 grams
Average per Plant: 122 grams

Black Gold
Buds: 467 grams
Hash Trim: 27 grams
Average per Plant: 156 grams

Ocean Forest
Buds: 470 grams
Hash Trim: 44 grams
Average per plant: 157 grams

All decimals are rounded to the nearest whole gram.

Click to expand...

SooperSmurph said:

Taste Test

Three jars were delivered to a house that is occupied by various DJs, musicians, and hangers on who consume a lot of high quality cannabis.

The jars were labeled with stickers of different colors, and the only information given to the samplers with respect to the buds was that each jar was in fact different.

They were asked to rank the jars on appearance, potency, and flavor.

The results are as follows:

Appearance:
1st Black Gold
2nd Ocean Forest
3rd Amazon Bloom

Potency:
1st Ocean Forest
2nd Amazon Bloom
3rd Black Gold

Flavor:
1st Black Gold
2nd Amazon Bloom
3rd Ocean Forest

The Amazon made up partially for its poor yields with higher quality, further investigation with better grades of perlite is definitely warranted.

Click to expand...

Study Finished 7/17/2013

If clones are started on schedule, with any luck we'll have the full data set for this run by the end of April.

Projected start date: December 26th.

Updated Projections: Plants were flowered on 4/3/2013, so harvest will take place 6/7/2013 or sooner.

my moneys on amazon bloom... have you opened up the bags and looked at the soil yet? post pics? comb through it to find any debris ?

I'm all for avoiding Monsanto but can't find any evidence other than threads on weed growing forums that FoxFarm has been absorbed. Any link to support?

My only source is word from the management of two different grow stores I work with, they use it as an explanation for the recent jump in retail price on Ocean Forest.

The bag comb is a nice idea, i'll make sure to take the time to post pictures of each brand for a visual comparison.

My supplier for nursery pots has suggested adding a 4th brand to this experiment, "Fafard FOF 10" or 30, ingredients list online is a bit incomplete, listing only "organic fertiilizer" instead of the actual source such as earthworm castings, which makes me wary. Anyone work with this product or know of a more detailed ingredients list?

My old soil vendor shares your opinion that the Amazon Bloom will be the winner, in his experience the Amazon is almost exactly like the Ocean, but the Amazon shows higher overall quality (fewer unprocessed woodchips and unmixed clumps), as well as leaving out the seafood meals.

This sounds like a good experiment to do. I'm sure plenty of people will be interested in seeing the final results.

-Funk

This is definitely a good experiment. I look forward to seeing the results.

I don't want to let the Monsanto/Scotts connection to go unchallenged though. I'm not saying it is absolutely false, but I can find no evidence for the allegation - just allegations and assumptions coming only from canna forums. There is a pretty shocking willingness to believe the story because Scotts said they were looking to buy companies that match FoxFarm's profile and because prices went up. Repeating rumor as fact may be doing a huge disservice to what may very well be a decent company. I've used Happy Frog with good results and no real complaints. I'm completely open to better products. If FoxFarms comes out on top, many will still avoid them because of the Monsanto "connection".

It's really easy to imagine grow shops spreading rumors to advance their own interests. Same for competing companies. Since you have two industry insiders telling you the same thing, at least one should be able to provide proof.

Scouring the net yielded nothing as far as Monsanto or Scotts buying Foxfarm, just more threads like this with people discussing it because of things they've heard from industry contacts, one of which on this forum states that FoxFarm recently had to switch sourcing raw materials and that their quality went down as a result, and as a precursor to this, the owner of the company entered into negotiations to sell.

The guy talking about source switching was in this thread: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?postid=5305675

I have not heard anything about the fox farm switch over but I have steered away from their soils because I find soil gnats hitching a ride in them quite often. The brand I have switched too(roots organic) hasn't given me any problems yet and I'm finding I like the consistency of the soil more so then fox farm.

smoooth said:

I have not heard anything about the fox farm switch over but I have steered away from their soils because I find soil gnats hitching a ride in them quite often. The brand I have switched too(roots organic) hasn't given me any problems yet and I'm finding I like the consistency of the soil more so then fox farm.

Click to expand...

My main gripe with the Fox Farm lies in consistency also, far more unprocessed wood chips and unmixed clumps than I like to see in premium potting soil.

Amazon Bloom also has a nicer consistency than Ocean Forest, but it contains no perlite at all.

It has little to no unprocessed bits, and has that rich loamy smell you associate with soil that has been thoroughly composted, whereas the Black Gold smells mostly like Peat Moss and little else.

Black Gold is a bit softer to the touch than Ocean Forest, probably because of the extra peat moss, it also has a much lower amount of perlite, i'd describe the level as the same as miracle gro soils which feature perlite, not quite where i'd want it for proper aeration and drainage.

It shares the problem with Ocean Forest of a few too many pieces of unprocessed wood in the mix.

I'll need to add some perlite to both mixes in order to make the experiment fair, just to the same level as present in Ocean Forest out of the bag, shown here:

Pictures have been distributed to the posts where they belong, tidy tidy.

12/26/2012 update, clones have been started, if they respond the way the rest of the clones have been in this machine then we'll be planting them during the first half of January into their respective soil types.

I wanted to make sure to start fresh new clones for this side-by-side rather than using existing veg plants in the hope that this would increase the differentiation in results, and while it has increased the wait time for the start of the experiment, I feel the extra time will be worth the payout in higher quality data.

I'm glad this experiment is about to happen. I've never used Black Gold but I've heard nothing but great things about it. Keep up the good work.


-Funk

Thanks for all the well wishes fellas, root nubs are starting to appear on our clones, so we're almost in business

Cool can't wait, I've been happy with OF but the amazon is intriguing.

Amazon is good stuff. Ocean is currently my favorite, seems like it made more node sites than my other soils.

Well we'll have an unexpected staggering to the start of the experiment.

Currently I have 4 clones which are rooting much faster than the others, so we'll be starting 1 clone in each soil type using these vigorous individuals, with the remaining 2 clones for each soil type to be transplanted when they have finished rooting.

This will take place tomorrow, after Grofax exchanges some incorrect nursery pots, pics when finished.

The first four have been started, away to the races we go, these four are of the same approximate size and maturity, with the remaining 8 still in the clone machine, cold weather and a lack of an aquarium heater in my machine have slowed them but we shall persist!

On the addition of perlite:

In order to get the Amazon Bloom and the Black Gold to the aeration levels present in the Ocean Forest, we had to add perlite, since black gold is less than 15% perlite by volume, and Amazon has none at all. The Fafard mix is already at the same perlite % as Ocean Forest.

To the Amazon Bloom, we added 14 liters of perlite per 1.5 cuft bag.

To the Black Gold, we added 6 liters of perlite per 1.5 cuft bag.

The only inconsistency created by this is that brought on by the consistent grade of my bagged perlite, which doesn't match up with the mixed grade used to amend most retail soils, so my Black Gold has far fewer small perlite particles than the Fafard or Ocean Forest, and the Amazon Bloom almost none.

Drainage and absorption have been fairly consistent across all brands since the transplanting of the first four, so it seems like the proper perlite ratio has been achieved.

Week 1 update! First four are doing pretty well, shown in the image left to right, Ocean Forest, Amazon Bloom, Black Gold, and Fafard. The current largest are the Ocean Forest and Black Gold examples, with the Amazon Bloom example being smaller but just as healthy. The Fafard example is yellowing noticably, not sure of the cause, will perform soil tests to identify the issue. Could be fertilizer or ph based, or if it's just one of those things she'll grow out of it. If further example plants display the same yellowing, even if just initially, this soil type will be culled from the trial.