[jesbuds]

Taste, high, love of your buds is all subjective. What you like from your organic buds someone with hydro may feel they can grow comparable or vice versa. Neither way is better and I have no preference as far as smoking, personally can't tell the difference between smoking well grown organic and well grown hydro bud.

I grow hydro out of personal preference and it's not hard, it's not expensive, I don't use any EC/PH/PPM meters, once a week work on the plants for at most an hour. Much better to me than spending 15-30 minutes daily on my non-hydro plants.

Anyone saying one way is better than another may be right...for THEMSELVES but saying it as a coverall is just plain silly. It's like saying Coke is always better than Pepsi, just depends on who you ask and their preference.

[Buddyy]

Originally Posted by John LOQUE

I grow hydro because is far more simple than in soil. In soil i always had to manage the waterings and the nute program, so when to water and when to give nutes. In DWC, you set your mix once a week, and basta. With chelated nutes, you don't even have to care about the PH. And when i see pics of plants grown in soil, i can't avoid a smile, with maybe 20/30 grams per plant, tall and skinny plant. I make 600 gr with 400 w COB led's in 1 sq meter with 4 plants vegged 4 weeks from seed, in average. I can't imagine doing the same with soil.
And soil plants finish faster than in DWC, at least one week faster for a classic 8 weeker. But yield ... ok, i stop.

John, I beg to differ.

I'm sure there are hydro systems which are pretty easy and carefree, but you still have to measure a lot of things. Also you can't do multi strain grows as easy as in soil.
Soil plants finish faster than DWC, at least one week?? Where did you get this info from? The clones I get from the growshop has the number of weeks to flower beside each strain....guess what? A 8wk strain take 8 weeks in soil, 9wk strains take 9 weeks and so forth. I've grown at least 25 strains in the last 2 years and I always finish as per the strain description. I believe plants of the same cut in general, whether in soil or hydro, finish at the SAME TIME.

Making ACT and botanical teas takes some time but is not necessary for a successful grow. I could do a water only grow.
I water once every 24-48 hours with plain dechlorinated tap water, no ph, throughout the whole grow...I could automate the watering and leave the grow for a week or so, if I wanted to.
20-30g plants?...no about 50g per plant after a 30day from seed veg. If your room is dialled-in and you know what you're doing organic soil is not low yield, and it's relatively lower yield to hydro doesn't matter because it makes up for it in QUALITY.
I should make some photos and post them but I'm not legal so I don't bother just to err on the safe side.

I'm going to do a side by side, rating growth, overall plant health, bud-taste, bag appeal, smell and potency. will post my findings in the hydro section...probably late 2016. till then adios

[jesbuds]

Originally Posted by Buddyy

I'm sure there are hydro systems which are pretty easy and carefree, but you still have to measure a lot of things. Also you can't do multi strain grows as easy as in soil.

Measure a lot of things? Measure out ~10-12tsp of nutes (between 2 bottles) once a week, mix and drop in reservoir. I measure more making a single dinner.

Can't grow multiple strains easily? Someone should have told me this because apparently I've been doing it wrong since I started, every F&D system I've had runs multiple strains without issues (if I couldn't do multiple strains I would have never gone hydro).

While your plan to do a side by side is nice for your own knowledge (and I'll surely peruse your thread), I think you've already come to your own conclusion with things. Going into an experiment with the bias that organic is better will probably make it so in your grow or influence how you feel about the buds.

[stoned-trout]

sorry to stir the pot ..it wasn't my intention....yeehaw

[jesbuds]

Always a pot to be stirred with online weed forums, no reason to be sorry especially with valid/logical arguments .

[LostTribe]

Originally Posted by PetFlora

Well, sort of. I have grown with most hydro from drip, LPA, HPA, DWC, SWC, and F & D, which provides the most control for minimal effort. It is also the easiest to make a correction with; simply disconnect the tubing (I have shut off valves) dump the nutes, flush the plant if needed, make fresh nutes and you're back on track

The old argument that organic tastes better is laughable. Differences could be easily be reduced to whose organic nutrients, v whose inorganic nutrients as well as beginning with pure water to mix nutes. I start with ~ 2ppm RO water, but take it to the next level re-energizing it via vortexing, structuring, and magnetizing. These make the water more available to the nutrients and therefor the root system which feeds the plants

Another great benefit of Hydro is growth, which is typically 2-4Xs greater. This is confirmed by many Greenhouse Seed YT videos.

I'll be posting more later

Here's a super simple DIY I developed and tweaked for a couple years now. It is easily expandable

I start seedlings and clones in a DIY Bubbler, which is easily modified to grow the less choice plants. The best go into my DIY Mini-Me F & D.

Attachment 342885Attachment 342886

Attachment 342887Attachment 342888

what is it you are doing to vortex, structure and magnetize your h2o then?

In years past I had gone through EJ, GH 3pt, floranova, guanos in living soil and have settled down with Pure Blend Pro and see more growth and better quality than any of the above.

Living organic soil is where I started and know that tastes can be easier to achieve in that sort of medium. However at a much longer veg time 3-4x and still less yeild. That means alot less numbers and alot less risk. Plus you are lugging around soil you have to dump somewhere every single grow.

Same hydroton for 8 years too.

That being said not trying to highjack the thread just wanted to put in an opinion and question your water treatment technique.

I have run RO w deionizer for 15 years running. occasionally tap when just keeping a couple select bonsai kept varieties as mom's.

[Buddyy]

jesbuds,

Ok you can do multi strain grows and hydro its easy. I take back what I wrote. I don't have the knowledge or experience to write such comments like multi strain grows are harder in hydro than soil.
I think if I'm going to go to the trouble of buying a hydro bucket+air pump+pebbles+nutes to do a side by side to satisfy my curiosity I really don't think I have any interest in being biased to myself.
I did 3 hydro grows back in '99 and I remember what it entailed and the results I had. I had those pots called aqua farm and water farm. I was a newb but my second hydro grow worked out perfectly (first was blueberry and got spider mites) and I remember the main cola was huge and I remember thinking I knew how to grow because my buds were just as pretty as those in the Sensi seeds catalogue. I also remember the strain was white russian from serious seeds and smoking this weed gave me a headache.
I thought it was because it was hydro. The third crop got moved and I was not able to harvest it, but it was a jack herer which got out of control height wise due to too long veg...

[stoned-trout]

I don't ever dump soil..its one of the reasons I like soil...yeehaw

[jesbuds]

Again not at all saying not to do a side-by-side test, awesome learning experience and especially for yourself but from everything you've said, you're going into it with the bias that organic is inherently better (I won't argue that point with anyone, good bud is good bud to me). One thing I always like to keep in mind with my growing and things I've done in the past that failed (or that I didn't like) is that I was an entirely different person and grower at that time. What didn't work for me then, might work for me now with my added knowledge/experience/patience/etc.

[Buddyy]

well it has to be better because it's more natural...like eating an orange vs vitamin c supplement, or like natural tits vs silicon....and I will know for sure.