Do I need to add other soil amendments to my mix?

[Wooderson]

I don't think the pura is "organic" anymore, or should I say was


have you looked at bio-canna for liquid nutes?

Very Cool Thanks!

 

[Wooderson]

That looks like a much better idea

It's always nice to build your own soil so you know EXACTLY what YOU put in, which results is a more dialed in approach. Especially when feeding bottle nutes.

Why not just make it easier on yourself and go like this

1 part EWC
1 part peat
1 part coco
1 part perlite

It seems like you have a pretty good idea what you want to ammend with

I would recommend including alfalfa meal and glacial rock dust in your ammendment list. This will help your soil develop over time as you recycle.

Lisdexik

Questions; How much alfalfa meal and glacial rock dust? 1 TBS per gallon?

 

[Weird Jimmy]

don't use green sand. It's an un-renewable resource. If you're using bottled nutes and supplements then bone meal or feather meal etc, would be overkill... use an oz of dolomite per gallon of soil..... I would ditch the Fox Farm soil mixes all together... a pretty basic recipe is 50% peat, 30% perlite (as large chunk as you can find), and 20% worm castings... you'll save yourself a ton of money....

 

[VerdantGreen]

I've always used Vermiculite,but plan on going further without it. It gave me that extra day or two of water holding capability, especially when gone for a few days at the festivals.

i have to leave mine for a few says sometimes and i find that topsoil at 15-20% helps it hold water and probabaly helps in other ways too like stopping the perlite from floating.

V.

 

[habeeb]

^ I must have done 6 trips in the last year and a half.

what I do if leaving, and usually gone anywhere from 4-7 days. I do one of the following.

-drench the shit out of them right before leaving the door. might have to check your calendar and adjust to get to water on the day of trip

-do above, and even leave some water in the tray, this is not the best option as waterlogged soil is bad

-up the light, light equals heat in most cases, so even upping the light,I have seen a day just by moving the light up

-put the fan on lower or farther away

-get a watering spike, and put in amount of water in container you think necessary. the clay ones work ( remember to test it out before leaving, don't setup the day of trip )

-you can up-pot if there needing it

-I cannot say 100%, but higher humidity if it's low. keep in mind airflow if in flower

-even thought to build some timed device to dump a container in trays ( I use trays to hold my containers ) , but most cases this isn't needed if doing on of the above

-I've seen watering systems like the oasis, that pump water through tubes at selected intervals, haven't used though so..

-and as V mentioned, I usually have a topping of something on my soil ( rock, coir strands, wood chips, dead leaves, rice hulls, and some others I've tried.. )


experiment around, that's most the fun. remember if you come back and your plants dead, there are more seeds and it's not the end of life. what fun is 100% right all the time anyway?

 

[Montana]

Rock dust is a great mineral builder and soil conditioner, greensand doesn't really kick in till at least the second use of your soil (very slow release rate), rock phosphate has about 30% P, but only 3-4 % of that is available per cycle, and it will continue to put out for 4-5 years......so don't add it every time.

These ammendments listed above are not worth it IF your using your soil only once, but very beneficial when soil is re-used.

Alfalfa is great stuff and has a growth hormone regulator, very cheap as well.......if you can get all these ingredients........use them all @ 1 tablespoon per gallon of medium.

Alfalfa
Bone
Blood
Kelp
Dol Lime
Glacial rock dust
Greensand
Rock Phosphate


All you would have to do is water with compost/mollasses tea every watering and your set, no more bottled anything....all the way to harvest.....and the more you use it, the better it gets.

 

[Wooderson]

Rock dust is a great mineral builder and soil conditioner, greensand doesn't really kick in till at least the second use of your soil (very slow release rate), rock phosphate has about 30% P, but only 3-4 % of that is available per cycle, and it will continue to put out for 4-5 years......so don't add it every time.

These ammendments listed above are not worth it IF your using your soil only once, but very beneficial when soil is re-used.

Alfalfa is great stuff and has a growth hormone regulator, very cheap as well.......if you can get all these ingredients........use them all @ 1 tablespoon per gallon of medium.

Alfalfa
Bone
Blood
Kelp
Dol Lime
Glacial rock dust
Greensand
Rock Phosphate


All you would have to do is water with compost/mollasses tea every watering and your set, no more bottled anything....all the way to harvest.....and the more you use it, the better it gets.

Right On, Thanks for the info!

 

[guest2012y]

i have to leave mine for a few says sometimes and i find that topsoil at 15-20% helps it hold water and probabaly helps in other ways too like stopping the perlite from floating.

V.

I definitely noticed the difference topsoil makes. I suspected this when I made my mix and decided to back off the vermiculite by 1/3 of my original mix. Glad I did,the mix holds water great,but not to much. I'll see how weening myself off the vermiculite works over time.

 

[Wooderson]

What about using Humic Acid 12% ?

http://www.ageoldorganics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Humic-Acid-Tech1.pdf

 

[kingofqueen]

I have been researching soil mixes . I dont see a benefit to mixing FFOF and Happy Frog . I do however see benefits to mixing FFOF and FF Light warrior . And I,ve seen posts with good results mixing these 2 .Just add perlite 15-25 % ,Blood meal,bone meal ,and dolomite lime . I,m gonna try this mix next.I used straight FFOF on first grow .It sucks for drainage by itself still taking 5 days to dry out dammit ! It compacts badly also by itself also.