I did not realize all commercial grows use chemicals. Maybe that's why I grow my own. I grow for meds not cash, so quality is king. I must like the end result. A few extra ounces of doo doo does not help my cause. I am mainly opposed to the harsh insecticides that they use commonly.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]https://www.icmag.com/ic/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=7927049[/FONT]
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Why do you grow organically?
- Thread starter Pwyll
- Start date
Not a fricking one. If they gonna spray poison because they're to lazy to maintenance for bugs, they might as well go with chemical nutes.
Philmore Jars
Member
L'Eagle , Maggie's farm , karing kind are all organic pesticide free I believe I could be wrong though
For the purposes of my piddly A64 grow organic soil suits my disposition. I don't mind work but I'm no good at the repetitious tasks of hydro. I didn't retire to be bound by schedules.
I started out in 2013 w/ Roots Organics soil mix & their line of nutes, but even that required more scheduling & work than I did well at. It was good at first but things deteriorated somewhat when I started re-amending & recycling the soil.
It was at that point that Eighths-n-Aces befriended me & what I learned from him upped my game a lot while requiring even less of what I'm not good at. It starts with his scratch soil mix & proceeds with blumats, which are incredible time & attention savers. Mixing the soil is work but it carries the plants to harvest using only water. Once I put together the feed line, reservoir, float valve & manifolds for the blumats it's a permanent installation. I've just grown from seed so far, one batch after another, starting in 3L airpots, sexing & then transplanting to 5 gal root pouches for flowering. Getting the individual blumats dialed in can be fiddly but after that they stay with the plant as it moves to the bigger pot. I get batches of work- soil prep, planting, transplanting, harvesting & finally curing. Most days I just check in on them. If I'm gone for a few days, they do fine. When I build up enough close trim I make bubble hash. I may get lazy enough to just start fems in the 5 gal pots.
I started out in 2013 w/ Roots Organics soil mix & their line of nutes, but even that required more scheduling & work than I did well at. It was good at first but things deteriorated somewhat when I started re-amending & recycling the soil.
It was at that point that Eighths-n-Aces befriended me & what I learned from him upped my game a lot while requiring even less of what I'm not good at. It starts with his scratch soil mix & proceeds with blumats, which are incredible time & attention savers. Mixing the soil is work but it carries the plants to harvest using only water. Once I put together the feed line, reservoir, float valve & manifolds for the blumats it's a permanent installation. I've just grown from seed so far, one batch after another, starting in 3L airpots, sexing & then transplanting to 5 gal root pouches for flowering. Getting the individual blumats dialed in can be fiddly but after that they stay with the plant as it moves to the bigger pot. I get batches of work- soil prep, planting, transplanting, harvesting & finally curing. Most days I just check in on them. If I'm gone for a few days, they do fine. When I build up enough close trim I make bubble hash. I may get lazy enough to just start fems in the 5 gal pots.
No chem shit in my weed other than dawg and Burn1 said it was easier
I am 100% with you on the whole schedule thing, that's definitely the reason I switched. What are root pouches? How wet do the blumats keep the soil? It's a sort of drip feed, is that correct? Does it let the soil dry out?
My bad. Maggies farm is certified organic by some program in California. Seems like a legitimate outfit. They grow mostly outdoors, so maximizing yield doesn't have as much allure.
Root pouches-
https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&k...targid=kwd-28977738609&ref=pd_sl_7z23i5o18e_e
Blumats maintain constant moisture level. Plants love 'em-
https://www.amazon.com/Blumat-Deck-...e=UTF8&qid=1494159863&sr=8-1&keywords=blumats
The kits are kinda a tease because it takes more hose & more bits to do it well. This is the N America distributor- nice people, good service-
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/blumat-kits
Giant thread on blumats-
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=111046
Pics in my albums. It's important to have a catchment basin when using blumats as they occasionally get wonky & overwater. Open fast draining soil mixes work best.
St. Phatty
Active member
In 2008 I took a class in hot composting & learned to do the technique myself.
My best temps were 160 (with one batch of materials) and 130 (with another batch).
But I found that I prefer to not focus too much on the max temp.
I think of it as preparing the Ultimate Sunday Brunch for the local worms and micro flora & fauna.
Like a petri dish.
At the time I was doing 6 inch cubes with GH nutes.
I switched to good organic soil, and the difference was noticeable - for the Sativa strain I was growing at the time.
I called it "G-Shak" but the local dispensary liked to call it "G-Shock". Once I didn't recognize the name and added some of my own bud to the shopping cart. The owner came over and let me in on the minor name change.
My best temps were 160 (with one batch of materials) and 130 (with another batch).
But I found that I prefer to not focus too much on the max temp.
I think of it as preparing the Ultimate Sunday Brunch for the local worms and micro flora & fauna.
Like a petri dish.
At the time I was doing 6 inch cubes with GH nutes.
I switched to good organic soil, and the difference was noticeable - for the Sativa strain I was growing at the time.
I called it "G-Shak" but the local dispensary liked to call it "G-Shock". Once I didn't recognize the name and added some of my own bud to the shopping cart. The owner came over and let me in on the minor name change.
Yep and there is a TON of science on it too but you won't find many people who are capable of understanding it. Some ppl think the organic difference parallel to veganism when viewed as simple purists.
What people who never gained a parallel level of competence between methodologies can even understand yet they talk as if their experience reflects this.
Yet it most certainly does not but some people treat their belief that nutrition is just ions as if it was a religious belief.
I spent a decade making the transition running some of the same genetics over the term, I know what I have experienced and documented it well and understand some of the science behind it at this point as a by product of trying to explain what I have experienced
There are some people who have spent their years here differently
That's a technique to avoid over watering. Too dry is better than too wet. It avoids root rot. When hand watering the moisture level hunts back & forth across the optimum. With blumats a grower can stay very close to just right in a rich loose soil mix.
That is very illuminating. Going by weight when I water the soil in the top few inches is very dry. It seems like I may be under watering? Checking with a basic moisture meter when I come to water the soil will typically read dry for the top 50%, Moist under that and Wet for the bottom inch or two. Using 5 gallon root trapper pots, which are meant to help the bottom of the pots dry out more quickly.
I grow organically because it was the way I was trained to grow. I will never fully switch to anything else---I've seen fantastic results---but I do plan on dabbling in coco with some of my cuts just to see how it goes.
M.
C
Columbo
Coco itself is clearly organic. Organic but inert. Mostly used in conjuction with synthetic liquid fertilizers however ...
But I'm sure you already know that
