what medium would you use based on quality only

[alpo]

here is my dwc grow and my coco coir grow with same strain same light same nutrients. user errors from same source.

dwc:

coco coir:

 

[alpo]

im going to try 100% perlite.

 

[goingrey]

im going to try 100% perlite.

Always good to try new things but seems like DWC worked pretty well for you, those buds look amazing!

The coco buds don't look as good surprisingly. But coco grown buds definitely can be great too. Might need different nutes to DWC or a different approach in general but it's possible.

 

[alpo]

Always good to try new things but seems like DWC worked pretty well for you, those buds look amazing!

The coco buds don't look as good surprisingly. But coco grown buds definitely can be great too. Might need different nutes to DWC or a different approach in general but it's possible.

weekly reservoir changes weren't my thing

 

[alpo]

rockwool has been my best results so far:

 

[delta9nxs]

im going to try 100% perlite.

Harvest Hero Perlite+ Silica – Harvest Hero

www.harvesthero.com

this is where i got the idea to use DE with perlite.

except you don't need to pay them a bunch of money to dump some DE on your perlite for you. the price is pretty steep for a bag of cheap stuff that you can buy yourself.

using DE you don't have to buy expensive grow store silicate.

the worm casting idea i came up with but it's so obvious that i doubt i'm the first to try it with perlite in a recirculating system.

using worm castings you don't need expensive inoculants. there are an amazing variety of beneficial organisms in it.

don't mix it all in together with the clean perlite as it travels and settles throughout the system anyway.

i've been experimenting and somewhere between 5-10% by volume of worm castings and 1-1.5% DE seems to be working well in my system.

 

[delta9nxs]

this is a thread i'm doing right now using this technique. just started veg.

MAYBERRY (BLUE STAR S1) M-22 breeders cut

como estas ya'll! Welcome to a PPK grow of Bluestarseedco's Mayberry s1 from the Blue Star line. Blue Star = Death Star x Whitaker Blues Death Star = Sour Diesel x Sensi Star Whitaker Blues = Quimby x DJ Short 98 F4 Blueberry Josh Blue is the breeder and here is his description; "Blueberry...

www.icmag.com

 

[X15]

Harvest Hero Perlite+ Silica – Harvest Hero

www.harvesthero.com

this is where i got the idea to use DE with perlite.

except you don't need to pay them a bunch of money to dump some DE on your perlite for you. the price is pretty steep for a bag of cheap stuff that you can buy yourself.

using DE you don't have to buy expensive grow store silicate.

the worm casting idea i came up with but it's so obvious that i doubt i'm the first to try it with perlite in a recirculating system.

using worm castings you don't need expensive inoculants. there are an amazing variety of beneficial organisms in it.

don't mix it all in together with the clean perlite as it travels and settles throughout the system anyway.

i've been experimenting and somewhere between 5-10% by volume of worm castings and 1-1.5% DE seems to be working well in my system.

I’d get food safe DE if that’s the route anyone is going to take.

 

[X15]

Food Grade I believe it’s sold as.

 

[flylowgethigh]

I agree that soil is really hydro, but instead of a solution with ions, the soil is like a supermarket and the microbes are the shoppers, putting ions in the cart to deliver to the roots. Thing about soil is you can’t really flush out nitrogen when it is time to make trics.

 

[delta9nxs]

I’d get food safe DE if that’s the route anyone is going to take.

i get mine from home depot. next to the worm shit!

 

[Dime]

I’ve yet to see living soil work better than hydro. I’ve grown the same clone in the same room in my buddies homemade soil vs a 3x3 hydro tray with pebbles.

It didn’t even look like the same plant when finished. Even the smell was stronger from the hydro plants.

In active hydroponics the medium is merely to anchor the plant,you dont need any medium if you stake it,that would give ultimate control to provide optimum nutrients,a master grower or a person experienced with use nutrient control and manipulation could steer for different looking plants with repeating clones . Other variables also come into play. I believe plants are selective picking out more of what they need if everything is available. Outdoors the plant loses nitrogen on it's own as it ripens or uses less and more K and P as it senses the season closing, I think that's the hard part of growing indoors,providing the rest of the variables like temp,diminishing light cycle increments and intensities ,hot and cold spells and more signals etc that nature does so the plant knows it's going to die and we have to manipulate to imitate and we can't do it like nature does.

 

[Hiddenjems]

"organic"..."boutique"..."craft" cannabis and it still sucks balls compared to the sour the NY crews were growing with very basic hydro

first and foremost it's genetics, in some cases a particular plant might taste better done in organic soil, but even "wet dirt" and "earthy" flavors are due to genetics

the very best weed I've grown was in ffof with botanicare 3 part sample pack pro grow, pro bloom, and liquid karma, I didn't even know what calmag was at the time, my first 2 plants and my best 2 plants, legends ultimate indica and sams original hazeXskunk1

then I grew some mandala north indian afghan the same way and then in perlite only hempy with botanicare cns17 2 part still no calmag, in soil the heads rotted, in hempy it came out better with noticeably better potency, the strain didn't have any kind of noteworthy flavor, and then I ran a royal queen NL in the hempy

I now do hempy with hydroton and a bit of coco mixed with the hydroton in the upper section with Bill Farthing style nutrients/feeding, and while I haven't ran any of the same strains there are some differences I have noticed

in soil gg4 for example came out really good, but it did end up very..."full bodied" would be a way to describe it, very robust and flavorful smoke

the cns17 perlite only NL came out good, tangy almost peach like smell, a good "weed" flavor but nothing too breathtaking, very nice potency, but when sparking a bowl it produced a thicker more noticeable char, it would finish clean but during the burning there was a sort of "plastic" element to it

the chemdawg I grew most recently in the coco hydroton hempy came out what I would consider the best after my first 2 plants, very strong smells during growing and a nice flavor, what stood out to me the most though was that it was the "lightest" like it smoked light definitely not as "robust" as the soil gg4, great potency

I would consider the chemdawg a "cleaner" smoke compared to the soil gg4, and even a bit more potent

I think in hydro you need more than just a 2 part to get the better quality, and in soil it might seem like the quality is better at first, but to maintain it you might end up wasting time and money chasing the dragon so to speak

The main reason I prefer hydro is it’s so sterile I don’t need to use any pest control. Soil is a bug magnet.

How natural is the smoke if you’re constantly spraying bs on the plants?

 

[alpo]

here is my perlite setup I started:

 

[alpo]

^ it's a bato bucket / dutch pot if its hard to see same concept as a hempy bucket

 

[mexweed]

The main reason I prefer hydro is it’s so sterile I don’t need to use any pest control. Soil is a bug magnet.

How natural is the smoke if you’re constantly spraying bs on the plants?

I'm all about reusing the medium too, like if I had a nice little greenhouse set up and could bake soils in the sun, have beneficial predator insects etc then 100% I would grow organic soil, I would churn the used soil with fresh ingredients and basically make it into Sub's super soil, I would have a living bed to transplant seedlings into and let them veg for a bit, then into 10 gallon with super soil in the bottom 1/4 and living top layer

running a small tent is another story, I have settled on hempy buckets and have been experimenting with hydroton and coco, moving towards hydroton only for a few reasons, firstly my main stash of coco had a bit of moisture in it and the entire tub started to grow white mold lol, it also did this when mixed with hydroton on slower drinking plants, I've read it's harmless but still

the coco also breaks down and rinses away when I rinse the hydroton and try to rinse the coco, in other words if I tried my best to recycle the coco eventually I would run out of coco

the coco also inhibits proper hempy roots to develop if the plant doesn't have that kind of root system in their genetics, some plants shoot to the bottom and develop like they're supposed to, but others instead of having to go to the bottom for survival will latch onto the coco in the upper section and never get too thick in the reservoir

 

[alpo]

I'm all about reusing the medium too, like if I had a nice little greenhouse set up and could bake soils in the sun, have beneficial predator insects etc then 100% I would grow organic soil, I would churn the used soil with fresh ingredients and basically make it into Sub's super soil, I would have a living bed to transplant seedlings into and let them veg for a bit, then into 10 gallon with super soil in the bottom 1/4 and living top layer

running a small tent is another story, I have settled on hempy buckets and have been experimenting with hydroton and coco, moving towards hydroton only for a few reasons, firstly my main stash of coco had a bit of moisture in it and the entire tub started to grow white mold lol, it also did this when mixed with hydroton on slower drinking plants, I've read it's harmless but still

the coco also breaks down and rinses away when I rinse the hydroton and try to rinse the coco, in other words if I tried my best to recycle the coco eventually I would run out of coco

the coco also inhibits proper hempy roots to develop if the plant doesn't have that kind of root system in their genetics, some plants shoot to the bottom and develop like they're supposed to, but others instead of having to go to the bottom for survival will latch onto the coco in the upper section and never get too thick in the reservoir

Have you used 100% perlite in the Hempy bucket? it's about 1/4 the price and weight of clay pebbles

 

[YellowCanaryConsulting]

What medium would I use bass strictly on quality? Living soils, it's finally been proven unequivocally from what I've read and seen online that living soils and the plant communicate with one another and a healthy living soil allows the plant to hit its peak potential, I've also seen folks that are 34 years my senior that have been at this a lot longer than me stress their play it's a little bit. Just my opinion

"living" soil creates the grease. And without the proper enzymes, that grease isn't converted to dank. Lots of greasy organic bud that tastes like soil.

When it comes to quality, the missing factor is either an a enzyme or a precursor. So the perfect grow medium for quality would be a bucket full of oxylipogenase enzymes and fatty acid flavor precursors.

 

[dank.frank]

Wash, rinse, repeat. Works all the time. Every time. Chop. Re-amend. Plant. Water.

Best mix I've ever made. Best mix I've ever used. Never found anything to best it. Capable of 3# per light with the right genetics in the right environment. Nothing but water.

This is the best.

Mix for Soil Beds

3.5 gal compost
1.25 gal coir
2 gal peat
.5 gal EWC
.5 gal Black Kow
.5 gal vermiculite
.5 gal permatil
1 gal perlite


~ 1.5 cu ft - 9.75 gallons of media


NPK Amendment Mix

This is added per 1.5 cu ft of media.

3/4c - alfalfa meal
1/3c - aragonite
1/2c - azomite
2/3c - bat guano(N)
1/2c - bat guano(P)
3tbsp - blood meal
1c - bone meal
1/3c - calcitic limestone
1c + 1tbsp - crab meal
3tbsp - diatomaceous earth/calcium bentonite
1/3c - dolomitic limestone
1/2c - dry molasses
2tbsp - elemental sulfur
3tbsp - feather meal
1c - greensand
1/2c - gypsum
1/3c + 1tbsp - humic/fulvic
1c + 1tbsp - kelp meal
1/8c - potassium sulfate
2/3c - rock phosphate
1/3c + 1tbsp - sul-po-mg
1 2/3c - Symphony


This creates a soil which has a NPK profile of 740-1110-945. However, due to the nature of organic materials, not all of this is available at the same time. The diversity and the balance of this mix is why it still works.

dank.Frank

 

[mexweed]

Have you used 100% perlite in the Hempy bucket? it's about 1/4 the price and weight of clay pebbles

that's how I first did hempy, but the dust from perlite is really bad and I've read that it breaks down fairly quick when recycling it