Chem. vs. Organic ferts discussion

[Strainhunter]

Everyone seems to focus on yield and quality on this site when arguing organic vs conventional. But what about the negative impact conventional fertilizers have on the environment?

The more I learn about the soil food web and nutrient cycle loop the less conventional salt fertilizer makes sense.

........

Just something to think about.

I have thought about it in the past.


I have a certain background which I will not go in to detail about here but I can tell you this:

Just as a human body cannot tell where consumed sugar has come from whether it be cane sugar, corn sugar, fructose etc. there ARE artificial "Chemical" fertilizers where not the soil & neither the plant can tell where they came from (meaning whether they are natural or not).

Without going in to detail here any further and boring most of you with chemical formulas etc. I can assure you 100% the fertilizer I am using (and linked to on the 1st page) comes just about as close to the "natural thing" as humanely possible - but @ a fraction of the cost and labor involved.

For those who care and have the necessary background to understand please go to Jack's website and see where & what the components have been derived from and you will understand & agree.

Some never will though. Or don't want to maybe.

 

[Butte_Creek]

My point was not that the plant can tell the difference between food(nitrate is nitrate), it was that these EDTA salts and funk present in conventional fertilizers are inhibiting/killing any beneficial biology, now without the use of conventional fertilizers the soil is useless because it lacks the bacteria/fungi/Protozoa necessary to cycle nutrients from organic matter, as well as vulnerable to pathogens from the lack of beneficial microbes in the rhizosphere so now the use of fungicides/pesticides becomes a normal routine. This System is the reason our top soil is disappearing and failing in large scale ag, no organic matter present.

Obviously the end portion of above is relevant to large scale industrialized ag, and not so much indoor hobby growing. I looked up jacks, hard to find the label big enough to see ingredients, but it's a lot of EDTA salt from what I could see.

"EDTA is in such widespread use that it has emerged as a persistent organic pollutant. It degrades to ethylenediaminetriacetic acid, which then cyclizes to the diketopiperizide, a cumulative, persistent, organic environmental pollutant. It has been found to be both cytotoxic and weakly genotoxic in laboratory animals."

 

[Strainhunter]

.........

You really don't want to understand do you!?

PS:
It took me about 30 seconds on Google to find out you copied 90% of your text from several links.
Cheap shot.

PPS:
Keep growing in clear cups, you too will learn!

 

[Hazyfontazy]

the plants don't know the difference and its just experience that creates a final quality product .

one thing that puzzles me about organic weed is when the grower or taster says it has a lovely earthy taste ,,why would they want it to taste earthy ?

 

[supermanlives]

i have been mixing chems and organics lately . works great for me

 

[Strainhunter]

i have been mixing chems and organics lately . works great for me

That's interesting!

What made you do that?

And what do you go by when mixing them up? Are you using organic soil enhancing it with a chem fert?

 

[flotationdevice]

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[Strainhunter]

...

I'd like to recommend a book called "The Origins Of the Organic Agriculture Debate" by Thomas R. DeGregori.

....

You actually KNOW THIS BOOK!?!?!?!?!

You don't happen to know the author as well...do you?

 

[superbolan]

The chems with organics worked great for me as well, i first did it to quickly address a deficiency and the plants given the chems greatly surpassed the strictly organics. there was a good book about the subject which called the type of growing moreganic gardening. There was absolutely no difference in taste and many friends given a blind taste test would actually pick the chem enhanced bud as the best tasting. I grow in coco now and any runoff or discarded medium is re used in the garden and the veggies love it.

 

[cyat]

Just as a human body cannot tell where consumed sugar has come from whether it be cane sugar, corn sugar, fructose etc. there ARE artificial "Chemical" fertilizers where not the soil & neither the plant can tell where they came from - easy to see when you get sick and fat tho.

maybe true for plants? cant tell where the sugar has come from? like what store, haha?
if you are saying all these sugars are equal in the long run to the body, then you are really believing the propoganda. this is what high fructose corn syrup manufacturers want us to believe. like the commercials now calling it corn sugar and saying its all just sugar. I call bullshit on that. almost all the major organs are heavily taxed by hfcs, and it cannot be totally broken down. this is a big reason american kids are so fat, its in everything. cane sugar is not great for the body but hfcs is much fuckin worse. I dont fuck with it at all. Im not a doctor but have studied this a good bit. Dr. mercola talks alot about it. Agave nectar is also just as hard on the body and most people buy it as health product. Also hfcs comes from mostly genetically modified corn.
sorry for ranting , and maybe I misunderstood your point, but i have strong views about hfcs, and aspartame which is in all the gum now.

oh my body can tell right away, first my taste buds then the rest

 

[mostnonymouse]

I'm with cyat. The amount of corruption and lies behind our (United States) food industry is utterly disgusting. Start by smoking a joint and watching some documentaries about the food industry like "Food Inc.", "Controlling Our Food" and "Food Matters"......"Dirt!" too if you want to start learning more about why most of us organic growers choose to grow the way we do. When I learned the truth about our food is when I stopped trusting the government and started questioning the bullshit...and why chemicals and additives not legal in many other countries are legal in the USA. Start questioning the validity behind some of those studies and start looking into who is backing them and what their motives are or may be...Trust NOTHING from the FDA or USDA. They are both in bed with the corps and have paved the way for the disgusting unscrupulous practices involved in the production of our food. Do the research and I trust you'll end up on our side, or just call us nuts, sit in the dark and welcome the onset of diabesity with open arms... happy toking!

 

[Butte_Creek]

You really don't want to understand do you!?

PS:
It took me about 30 seconds on Google to find out you copied 90% of your text from several links.
Cheap shot.

PPS:
Keep growing in clear cups, you too will learn!

Are you serious, your seriously that stubborn? The only thing off google is the passage in quotations, and it was probably easy to find on google, because it was a quotation.. lol. As well as the information about EDTA is pretty straight forward, it's a mild organic pollutant, any website is going to tell you that.

Everything I wrote, besides the quote on EDTA, is straight from my mouth/brain, as a result of reading books like the soil food web, and taking soil/ag classes and a permaculture class in college.



Please supply the "several links" I copied from. Unbelievable. No please do, this is great.


All I said is conventional fertilizer over time is harmful to the well being of the environment, including the top soil, water, and consequently the diversity of life. It is not a sustainable system, and thus will not continue to work for ever, all while polluting our most precious finite resources, such as water.

Is that really that hard to grasp(it wasn't even completely relevant to your indoor grow, since i was speaking mainly of large scale conventional agriculture), that you have to evade my comment with outlandish claims that I just copied it all off google, in an attempt to disqualify anything I said?
You sir, are the cheap shot! lol, unbelievable


Clear cups? you must be confusing me for someone else.

 

[Butte_Creek]

For conventional growers, where do you dump all your soil after each run, or drain your water that contains phosphates and other pollutant salts after flush/runoff?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

IMO, chem nutes have a big plus in that they're measurable. A well-managed feed flushes to near nothing in the mix. (This stuff is reusable too.) I've had post flush runoff readings as low as ~150ppm. Can't really do that with organics. I realize organic compounds aren't an issue as they're not readily absorb-able.

But isn't organic bacteria breaking-down these compounds right up to harvest? One can't measure the amount of organic compounds left over in the medium. So it's hard to tell whether the tank's outta gas or still partially full. IMO, the best taste is when plants run out of ferts of any kind and start to wean themselves of excess sugars.

The organic craze started off with concern of environmental damage from over application of chemical ferts and toxic pesticides. I have no problem managing a 100% organic grow but IMO, responsible use of chemical ferts and pesticides already addresses the environmental aspect.

And last but not least, organic compounds break down into the same NPK, also known as... you guessed it, chemicals.

 

[Butte_Creek]

discobiscuit- i think your post was well thought out and honest.

imo, you cant really have responsible use of chemical ferts in large scale agriculture. you probably agree with me, not sure. indoors, hobby marijuana grow, yes it's probably do able, i don't doubt you can do it.


yes, bacteria feed off organic matter, when they die they mineralize and present plant roots with plant-available elements. as well as protozoa feed off smaller organisms like bacteria and fungi, and then their excrement contains plant available elements. nitrate is nitrate. it is the same to an extent. it's when conventional fertilizer salts are chelated and produced with pollutants, that is when conventional fertilizer differs and becomes inhibiting to beneficial biology and diversity. it's also through excessive long term use of these salts that inhibits active biology. there are a few other reasons, which later i will post when i find out.


also, imo, organics does not need to be "flushed", never have i grown organically and had to flush excess nutrients. the plants yellow on their own by the end of flower, even after slow releasing amendments are still present in the soil. i think when people start treating organic as chem, i.e. pouring "hot" organic liquid concoctions into their small pots indoors, is when they run into problems. i use manures, meals, and rock dusts in my compost, yellow leafs by harvest, and i know for a fact these amendments are still available in the medium.

 

[FlaDankster]

What is your medium Strain Hunter?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

discobiscuit- i think your post was well thought out and honest.

imo, you cant really have responsible use of chemical ferts in large scale agriculture. you probably agree with me, not sure. indoors, hobby marijuana grow, yes it's probably do able, i don't doubt you can do it.


yes, bacteria feed off organic matter, when they die they mineralize and present plant roots with plant-available elements. as well as protozoa feed off smaller organisms like bacteria and fungi, and then their excrement contains plant available elements. nitrate is nitrate. it is the same to an extent. it's when conventional fertilizer salts are chelated and produced with pollutants, that is when conventional fertilizer differs and becomes inhibiting to beneficial biology and diversity. it's also through excessive long term use of these salts that inhibits active biology. there are a few other reasons, which later i will post when i find out.


also, imo, organics does not need to be "flushed", never have i grown organically and had to flush excess nutrients. the plants yellow on their own by the end of flower, even after slow releasing amendments are still present in the soil. i think when people start treating organic as chem, i.e. pouring "hot" organic liquid concoctions into their small pots indoors, is when they run into problems. i use manures, meals, and rock dusts in my compost, yellow leafs by harvest, and i know for a fact these amendments are still available in the medium.

A well reasoned response. I don't pour even the least amount of fert waste down the drain. I pour it on outside plants and they never looked better, lol. I agree that agricultural-scale use of chemicals pose problems. I think we're expecting the largest oxygen-free zone in the gulf this year, due to record flooding and chemical fertilizers.

I certainly wouldn't want to substitute polluted chemicals for effective organics but I'm not too worried about beneficials in the medium. Aside from the fact my medium is soil less (aka no dirt) and the only beneficial it may offer is further breakdown of the peat etc, my potting soil is almost as inert as perlite in a feeding sense. Doesn't pH like perlite but we all know about that stuff. I fact, I could probably grow in pelspan (if I knew the effective pH range, lol.) After all, chem nutes are readily available.

Sounds like you've got your amounts dialed if you're getting color fade near harvest. Kinda hard to imagine you've got substantial NPK left (in the medium) w/ fading leaves

Hell, I wouldn't mind smoking mean green as long as it isn't harsh and doesn't taste like ass.

IMO, there's no reason not to use organic ferts. IMO, it's much easier to get what I'm looking for with chems. Thanks for your information.

 

[Strainhunter]

What is your medium Strain Hunter?

It's ProMix HP

 

[flotationdevice]

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[Strainhunter]

He used to move dimebags down at the local jr high. I met him in 7th grade and the rest is history...

That's VERY interesting!

If you were able to PM (you need 50 posts for being able to do so) you and I would have quiet a few interesting conversations!

Wow what a small world.