Gee64
Well-Known Member
The biggest difference between hydro/coco and Living soil imo is with hydro/coco the gardener has some say in the finished product (for better or for worse) whereas Living soil allows the plant to be dictated by its genetics so to grow hydro and succeed can be said to be easier but to grow hydro and know how to feed a plant to achieve its true genetic potential like Living Soil allows is a far harder task requiring far deeper knowledge than Living Soil. If you know how to manage Living Soil you dont need to know much about plants at all to get a stellar finished product. I am a Living Soil guy. Im new to growing weed but Ive grown with fungii and microbes my whole life. I like to let plants grow to whatever they want and just supply them with good soil. The plants, of any kind, not just weed, never cease to amaze me. And I agree... theres alot of tried, tested, and true soil recipes available. They are all different but after the fungii and microbes are done with the recipes the banquet they create for the plants are almost all the same.I agree living soil is very complex and there's truly a lot more to learn and understand...you're right you should look into everything you decide to put in your soil as well, the thing is though, there's been so many that have already done this, so using a broadly accepted mix such as CC's mix gives you a base starting point that already has so much of that testing put into it and is all readily available, no need for testing yourself per say..
As for synthetic vs organic nutrients..there is differences, pretty large ones at that too...take N, it can be taken up by a plant as NO3- or NH4+(I think)....in LOS the plant will "control" which form it wants more of and have the micro-herd supply that form, whereas using synthetics you can't rely on the micro-herd cause you've killed it off...the entire delivery system between synthetics and organic is completely different, easy to think of like this...in a real organic grow(living soil) you're feeding the microherd and the plant takes what it wants, in a synthetic grow you're feeding the plant
Not quite sure what you mean about being sustainable indoors....my idea of sustainability is relying less and less on outside resources(so food/nutrition etc..) and being able to provide everything for yourself...so those plants you cut down, compost & reuse them etc...supplying everything you need yourself & not letting anything go to waste(not that this is my aim, just my understanding of being sustainable, obviously electricity and some things need to be sourced from elsewhere for now), so with this understanding I don't get how Hydro would ever be considered "sustainable" vs Soil..perhaps you mean something else though
Cultivator...not trying to switch you over to Soil here lol...you posted in an organic grow journal last week that I follow closely and said something that stuck out...."Too be fair im a huge believer in beneficials. I used to run sterile res for a long time but ive been running live res in my hydro grows for past 4 years or so and there is no way id go back to sterile. The difference in quality alone is more than worth it."
If you feel that way, than think of it from an organic soil growers perspective, in hydro you only get a mere handful of the bennies that get utilized in a LOS, if you couldn't go back to living without the use of those bennies, imagine from a LOS growers perspective having to give up all the bennies they use that don't survive in hydro
I get that the average soil grower doesn't have the slightest clue about this stuff(myself I've only began to learn about all this), but I'd argue that's the average grower them self, that it doesn't pertain to soil vs hydro...the only difference being that anyone can pick up some dirt, plant a seed in it and call themselves a soil grower, whereas if you choose to do hydro, you must at least do some research into it so are more likely to have some knowledge of what they're doing.
All that being said...... I love watching the hydro/coco Mad Scientists do their thing. Its pretty cool to mould your own plant too.
Just dont mix styles or you will have all sorts of problems. Grow it all! Its a hobby!! Do it the way that really interests you.
PS.... I see alot of LOS growers talking about microbes,microbes, and more microbes. Pay attention to fungii folks its exactly 50% of the equation. Fungii moves the nutrients that the microbes make and it literally talks to your roots taking orders for what nutrients your plant needs. Fungii will set up numerous microbe colonies each producing different nutrients and have the whole buffet waiting for your plant to ask for something. If your ph is constantly to high your overloaded on microbes and not enough fungii. PH to low and vica-versa if your soil was built properly thru one of the proven recipes.
