Building A Better Soil: Demonstrations & Discussions Of Organic Soil Recipes

[kelticBlue]

Dear new friends. I'm a total newcomer to this natural living soil thing. Or not completely, I do use the highest quality soil money can buy, but I could probably make an even better one myself. I see our new land has compost. That's a good first step I guess. But from the compost to something I can grow cannabis in - that seems like a long road to go. so i was hoping I would get inspired in this thread

In other words - Subbed

Hello! do You grow in 'Autopot"?

Bobrown grows in auto pots with organic soil. He has experience building soil from scratch and otherwise.
Me not so much, Iwill be back later when I have a minute.

Good luck!

 

[bobrown14]

Well, I have been going back and forth with someone else on this forum, he has been helping out through my journal thread, he suggested I try it, it's doing actually pretty well honestly. And about the county extension, I have no idea where to find that, I'll try to find it but I can't guarantee it! Lol[/QUOTE


The county extension service is for all states in the USA. It's a national program that's been in place since 1914 thru the USDA.

Here's a link to a map - click on the state you live in and it will direct to your state extension service with contact info.

Land Grant University Website Directory | National Institute of Food and Agriculture

You can call or e-mail them and they will tell you how to get a soil test kit. In PA the test kit cost $9 and takes about a week to get your results.

What I do is mix my soil, let it sit for a week or so and gather about a cup or so of soil, set it out on newspaper overnight to dry and into the baggie from the kit and into the mail. Simple enough even I can do it! They give you results and recommendations for amendments if needed.

Penn State Ag doesn't do any organic recommendations so I have to do a little research to find suitable organic replacements. Each state will be a little different.

I can get our soil test kits at our local nursery but depending on what state you're in that may be different. Check the link provided and there should be a website it will link you up with and go from there. If anyone needs help with this please let me know. There's some excellent resources on the state extension websites on all sorts of gardening, farming, growing and soil needs. Oregon State extension service as an example is a REALLY good resource for learning about soil and gardening.

The soil mix (Coots mix) I use has been tested several times and is pretty spot on. We do make our own compost so the mix will change as we change our compost annually and why we test each batch of soil after mixing. This is a good resource paid for with tax dollars so we may as well take advantage of it.

 

[SweetSue]

Dear new friends. I'm a total newcomer to this natural living soil thing. Or not completely, I do use the highest quality soil money can buy, but I could probably make an even better one myself. I see our new land has compost. That's a good first step I guess. But from the compost to something I can grow cannabis in - that seems like a long road to go. so i was hoping I would get inspired in this thread

In other words - Subbed

You've come to the right place DeVille. Prepared to be blown away with BB's brilliant understanding of the living organic soils.

 

[Skullman420]

I use the 15 liter autopots yes. They sure make my life easy

Hello! do You grow in 'Autopot"?

Bobrown grows in auto pots with organic soil. He has experience building soil from scratch and otherwise.
Me not so much, Iwill be back later when I have a minute.

Good luck!

 

[Skullman420]

I find it extremely interesting. Until now I have grown 100% with chemical nutes. To spesify - Canna's line of nutes for hydrophonics. I bought so much of it back when I was growing in a tiny tent with a tiny hydrophonic system, I just kept using it after I switced to soil. But it's been working wonders also in that format. And it doesn't clog up the tubes of the autopot system which some organic nutes sadly does. I still have many liters left of it and I will probably keep using it until I'm ready to do my own thing.

I have no idea how alive my soil is though or how my chemical nutes affect this. I don't know how high my brix is. I need to get gear to test that. What I do know is that I do grow some of the best cannabis I ever smoked. And if I can get it even better, then I am all ears. I love learning

You've come to the right place DeVille. Prepared to be blown away with BB's brilliant understanding of the living organic soils.

 

[SweetSue]

I find it extremely interesting. Until now I have grown 100% with chemical nutes. To spesify - Canna's line of nutes for hydrophonics. I bought so much of it back when I was growing in a tiny tent with a tiny hydrophonic system, I just kept using it after I switced to soil. But it's been working wonders also in that format. And it doesn't clog up the tubes of the autopot system which some organic nutes sadly does. I still have many liters left of it and I will probably keep using it until I'm ready to do my own thing.

I have no idea how alive my soil is though or how my chemical nutes affect this. I don't know how high my brix is. I need to get gear to test that. What I do know is that I do grow some of the best cannabis I ever smoked. And if I can get it even better, then I am all ears. I love learning

Then you'll love this new thread.

DrZiggy's Low And Slow Drying: Maximizing Your Harvest

 

[totalnoob]

opinions on whether I can substitute ground Clam Shell instead of the ground oyster shell?

 

[bobrown14]

I use the 15 liter autopots yes. They sure make my life easy

I'm using the 26L autopots in my flower room with a 400L reservoir that I auto fill with RO water... because I'm lazy. The plants water themselves. FTW

The only job I have is to check the water level, look for pests and be sure the electric is still on!

Sometimes its pests and sometimes its a failed timer... its always sumptin... My timer just burned up again... and it was a 20A timer.

DeVille... wait till you try some organic soil grown goodness without the chems. Not saying the chems are lessor ... I am saying once folks went to organic soil they don't change back to nutes. Way less $$ and way less work.

What's Brix??.. I don't even know what that is!! It must be something similar to PH testing... I don't do that either or PPMs.... actually I do test my RO water with a PPM meter every 4-6 MONTHS just to be sure my filter doesn't need replacing.

Your soil is alive.. meaning there are micro-organisms in there, that's how the chems you're adding it get to the roots of the plants. Could you have more micro-herd... YES. Thats the difference, my living soil is VERY alive and really, that's all I worry about.

Keep the soil healthy and the rest will follow.

 

[bobrown14]

opinions on whether I can substitute ground Clam Shell instead of the ground oyster shell?

Yes as long as it's a fine grind... if its course it will be slow release. The oyster shell or the crab shell has a certain percentage of Ca to Mg ratio. This ratio should be on the bag... it should say like 25% Ca and 1-2% Mg ... something like that. IF the label says anything more that 1-2% Mg don't use in container gardening. Link me to the source of you clam shell gear. A quick google got me nothing.

Is this home made.. if so good on ya.. it's all about the coarseness of the grind. Crab shell is coarse, oyster shell can come FINE and coarse.
The coarseness is an important factor to consider. Just be aware too much of a good thing.

I ONLY add in Ca when mixing soil BEFORE I use it. If I think I need to amend with Ca ... time to mix up a new batch of soil.

You can't really gain anything from topdressing Ca in containers ( don't care what anyone says). Its best to have it already in the soil over time. Outside in a garden yes.. not in a container. It will mess shit up right quick in a container instead of the intended reason for "adding" in.

Container gardening is not quite the same as gardening outdoors. Similar yes... not the same. For a container to amend with Ca you'd probably only need a teaspoon for a 10gal pot as a top dress. Outdoors it sorta changes the PH of the soil temporarily, in a container it will change the PH permanently .. well at least for several rounds in that same soil.

 

[totalnoob]

yes, I would be crushing the clam shells from the clams we had a month ago. I saved them hoping I could use them. we did clams here on a fairly regular basis. thanks for the info.

 

[Conradino23]

"Degrees Brix (symbol °Bx) is the sugar content of an aqueous solution. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by mass. If the solution contains dissolved solids other than pure sucrose, then the °Bx only approximates the dissolved solid content. The °Bx is traditionally used in the wine, sugar, carbonated beverage, fruit juice, maple syrup and honey industries."

More here: Brix - Wikipedia

Brix has been used for ages by agricultural industry to measure quality of the produce. In cannabis growing it's a very niche thing so far used by High Brix growers, nonetheless gaining the ground as a legit way to estimate quality of your plants both in veg and flowering. To measure Brix you need to buy a refractometer. If you want to know more anout the method I recommend clicking in The Lab With Doc Bud thread, which you'll find in the Organic Growing section.

 

[MartiniBudz]

Hey there SS - I'm guessing you think there's an N deficit because of yellowing??

Try making a kelp meal and worm casting tea... 1 tbs of kelp meal and 2-3 tbs worm casting in a bucket of water. Use 1-2 cups of this to a gallon on water and water in... (not the whole gallon) .. enough to water the little ones.

i think the plants look fine - they are running out of soil... transplanting into larger container you should be good. The kelp meal/casting tea I use for general health... can add in some calcium too that never hurts.

Oh I read about your TM-7 substitute for Pro-tec-k in your IPM.... just a word of caution, I've never had good luck with the TM-7 it's pretty strong stuff...

Here's the recommended amount to use from Bioag:

TM-7
Foliar Rates: .75g/gal ....I don't know what .75 grams is but it's still a lot for me. May or may not be what you're using... either way tho TM-7 is humic and fulvic acids + micro nutrients - Pro-tekt is a silica (and K) amendment.

I would be careful with that or just order up some Pro-TeKt ... a little goes a long way with either of these products. I use 1-2 tsp of proteKt per gal of water for IPM. I use it to help with plant immune system... bugs trigger the plants immune system to kick into high gear, silica helps strengthen that process.

I'm not saying not to use the TM-7, I just never had any luck with it.. plant deformities start showing up.

Was in a discussion about silica with Doc Bud on Rads grow journal. He's totally against any use of K in veg. I'm not as strict about it but he does make a valid point. Pro-teKt (the K in the name means it has K Potassium).

Amazon:
Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt, Nutritional Supplement For Plants, 1 Quart

Hey BB, I'm having similar issues right now with my babies, any suggestions?

 

[JimSaskFarmer]

Hey all looking forward to getting my organic on. Here's what i have for a basic starter soil mix
topsoil
Coco coir
Perlite
earthworm castings
shrimp compost
Gaia Green all-purpose 4,4,4 (Alfalfa meal, bone meal, blood meal, glacial rock dust, mined potassium sulphate, fossilized carbon complex, rock phosphate, greensand, kelp meal, gypsum)

Now i just finished cutting the grass and am wondering if it would be beneficial to add some grass clippings to this?

 

[bobrown14]

yes, I would be crushing the clam shells from the clams we had a month ago. I saved them hoping I could use them. we did clams here on a fairly regular basis. thanks for the info.

They will take years to break down. Suggest purchasing a bag of Oyster shell flour" or shrimp/crab shell meal. These products are ground pretty fine, much finer that you can DIY... unless you have special equipment. Have you ever thrown a clam shell in your garden?? Can dig them back up several years later pretty much unscathed.

The oyster shell flour I'm suggesting are not simply ground up shells.... they are mined from ocean deposits that are 10s of thousands of years old, then ground to a fine powder..

 

[bobrown14]

Hey BB, I'm having similar issues right now with my babies, any suggestions?

Bigger containers! You're going to be running out of soil pretty quick.

It's awfully difficult to diagnose possible health issues from a picture. IF you're growing in organic soil, then the best way to figure out what you might be lacking or have too much of in the soil is to have a soil test done. Contact your local "County Extension Service" if in the USA for a test kit. VERY easy to do. Then you will know EXACTLY what you need to do with your soil.

You're in #2 nursery pots it looks like and they are filling up fast with roots and your plants are getting big. What I do is up pot to final 7 gal containers and let them go in VEG for another week or so.. you will see more growth, once that happens (new growth) they are getting close to changing to a flower lighting schedule.

If you are already in flower.. you can still up pot. I'd do that ASAP. Your plants look fine to me, just take a look under the leaves for any pests. Look CLOSELY.

 

[MartiniBudz]

Bigger containers! You're going to be running out of soil pretty quick.

It's awfully difficult to diagnose possible health issues from a picture. IF you're growing in organic soil, then the best way to figure out what you might be lacking or have too much of in the soil is to have a soil test done. Contact your local "County Extension Service" if in the USA for a test kit. VERY easy to do. Then you will know EXACTLY what you need to do with your soil.

You're in #2 nursery pots it looks like and they are filling up fast with roots and your plants are getting big. What I do is up pot to final 7 gal containers and let them go in VEG for another week or so.. you will see more growth, once that happens (new growth) they are getting close to changing to a flower lighting schedule.

If you are already in flower.. you can still up pot. I'd do that ASAP. Your plants look fine to me, just take a look under the leaves for any pests. Look CLOSELY.

No pests for me so far, had them once, used captain Jacks and got rid of em ...tested the Ph of the water I've been using and it was at 8. Put Ph down on and brought it down to 6. Then watered 2 that needed watering. Don't know how to check the Ph from the soil or what comes out, however it's called..any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Skullman420]

Doing a cloning experiment with soil and beneficial bacteria. The soil is high quality without nutes, I have around 25% perlite, 25% vermiculite and Azus beneficial bacteria. In modified airpots.

I never tried to root clones directly in soil without a rooting medium. I believe the high quality soil and the beneficial bacteria combined with the modified autopots will create a superior root-system compared to regular cloning.

AIRPOT MODIFICATION
First I took 4 1L air-pots and cut the 4 bottom rows. Since the bottom tray is supposed to ble put 3 rows from the bottom, I in reality only loose one row. So these pots are now short enough to fit inside my Root!t grow-house and they are still able to hold around 0.75L of soil each.

These Airpots are going to be used for cloning directly in soil without the use of any rooting medium. With this method I hope to be able to soon have 4 plants with perfect root systems. Plants that can be transplanted to my autopot system whenever needed without even giving it a shock. Just remove the walls from the airpot and put the clone into the medium of your choice.

Airpot modification - 1L to 0.75LThis experiment is really interesting. To make sure it's a real test I made it very hard for myself.

CLONING TEST CANDIDATES
1x Big-Bud - Mother plant - In vegg for 153 days
1x Pure Power Plant - Mother plant - In vegg for 153 days
1x White Widow - In bloom for 25 days
1x Bubbleicious - In bloom for 25 days

It's useful to collect everything you need in one place so you don't have to run around with clones looking for things. Time is the essence here. You need to work fast after you make the cut(s)

Reverse Osmosis water pH'ed to a little bit over 6. Then added 3 tablespoons of beneficial bacteria. Really cloudy stuff. Wouldn't want this in my autopot tubes. I then soaked the soil with this and put the pots away for a few hours.

I measured the distance from the top to the bottom-tray on the air-pot. Then made a mark on a long thin screw with a black marker to indicate how deep the hole can maximum be. Screw down almost to the max, then screw back up. If you just rip it up the hole may get to wide or collapse altogether.

The screw was also useful to measure how much stem I should keep on the clones. The air-pots are still deeper than a rockwool or most other rooting mediums, so even with the 4 bottom rows cut off, you can have a much longer cutting than normal. More nodes and stem below the ground to get potential roots from.

Here is the candidates after the job was done. I didn't cut the leaves this time. I left them all on there. Check out how many nodes the Pure power plant has. That strain is amazing.

The clones sure look pretty and they didn't wilt anything so far. Put them under a dome after taking these photos. First out are the vegg candidates:

Big-Bud

Pure Power Plant


Then we move on to the flowering candidates. The longer out in flower you get, the harder it becomes to clone. So these two are the real test. I cut off the buds from the clones. They would just rot if I didn't, and hell! I'll smoke them to get an idea what awaits me when I finally harvest

White Widow

Bubbleicious

Here's how the canopy looked on the flowering plants when I took the two last clones.


Part 1 of this test is completed. Now we wait....


DeVille

 

[Radogast]

Hey all looking forward to getting my organic on. Here's what i have for a basic starter soil mix
topsoil
Coco coir
Perlite
earthworm castings
shrimp compost
Gaia Green all-purpose 4,4,4 (Alfalfa meal, bone meal, blood meal, glacial rock dust, mined potassium sulphate, fossilized carbon complex, rock phosphate, greensand, kelp meal, gypsum)

Now i just finished cutting the grass and am wondering if it would be beneficial to add some grass clippings to this?

Grass is worm food and not the best worm food. Unless you have worms in that soil mix, I wouldn't do it.

Grass can also be compostable material, but it makes no sense to grow plants and make compost of the soil at the same time. In that case, one makes compost first.

 

[Skullman420]

So I'm trying out:


I use 1/4 of perlite, 1/4 of vermiculite, a little bit of leca and the rest is a high quality native soil.

To make the soil alive I added:
2 tablespoons of Azus Beneficial bacteria
100 ml of Rocket fuel

I gave each plant 8 liters of water when re-potting them into this soil, then misted them with a canna Rhizotonic foliar spray. They have previously been fed Canna nutes for vegg at 1/4 of recommended dosages.

 

[JimSaskFarmer]

Thanks Radogast. Trying to get my head around all the info (1000+ posts in this thread alone) getting a little over enthusiastic i think. So basically when adding amendments we want something the micro herd can use easily, already broken down some what.

Another thing I've been trying to wade through the info on is water quality and ACT. Specifically chloramines, posted testing for my city is 3 ppm. I have read you can neutralize with lemon juice, ascorbic acid, various aquarium additives (be careful of salt content) or simply add compost and it will neutralize on its own. I tried the later with the shrimp compost and castings a 1/2 cup of each in 4 liters i didnt get any foam and i understand that may not mean it didnt work. My question is if i go ahead and add this to my mix (about 80 Liters/20 gallons) will this make my mix useless if there are chloarmines in it.