Thanks for stopping by and for the kind words.
There are plenty of people who achieve high brix, especially outdoors in places with volcanic soil, river bed top soil and other places with good mineralization. History has recorded that the crops in the Nile Valley, before the Aswan damn was built, back to the time before the pharaohs were of extremely high quality due to the cyclical flooding of the Nile river and the distribution of all that lovely, mineralized silt that washes down from the highlands in Ethiopia. Those crop just grew on their own.
What's in your soil? I'd love to know.
My personal philosophy of my soil always comes back to music or cooking. Properly amended soil is like a tuned piano, or quality ingredients....we just need a piano player and a chef and we have something special!
Much of my time is spent trying to get all the key's action and the tune right. There's much more to the "Zen" of growing that I don't always share on my blog, but basically, for a long time I've wanted to arrive at good soil with other raw ingredients. I know it would be different and it opens up even more possibilities for top quality cannabis.
That's all I'm trying to do....get to the best. I've learned almost everything I know from other people. I'm only now starting to figure out a couple things on my own.
I've throughly enjoyed the visit. You really have me thinking.
My soil mix is based on one by Clackamas Coots.
Begin with a base of equal parts
- sphagnum peat moss
- an aeration component (pumice, rice hulls, lava rock)
- a combination of compost and humus
To this basic mix CC adds, per cubic foot adds the following:
1/2 cup organic Neem meal
1/2 cup organic Kelp meal
1/2 cup Crab meal (or Crustacean meal when available - it has Shrimp meal with the Crab meal. It's a local product from the fisheries on the Oregon & Washington Coasts)
4 cups of some minerals - rock dust
After the plant is in the final container he top-dresses with 2" or so of worm castings and waters it in with Aloe vera juice and Comfrey extract. Or Borage. Or Stinging Nettle. Or Horsetail ferns. Whatever is ready.
I purchased a mineral and nutrient kit based on this recipe and mixed it up myself from there.
The kit I ordered actually had:
1. Crustacean Meal - NPK along with Chitin and Calcium
2. Kelp Meal - Acadian Seaplants Brand
3. Neem Cake - Ahimsa Brand
4. Karanja Cake - Ahimsa Brand
5. Brix Blend Basalt - Rock Dust Local Brand
6. Gypsum Dust - Mined in Colorado - Calcium and Sulfur
7. Glacial Rock Dust - Gaia Green
8. Oyster Shell Flour - Calcium
It's noteworthy that I accidentally added too much mineral mix so I mixed in more peat moss, more Worm Power and added the rice hulls for diversity. We also had some exotic Japanese river sands and zeolite left over from bonsai, so I threw them in too. I found some leftover orchid mix that had some biochar in it and thought "Why not?" It's hard to say what ratios I ended up with. I was thinking of it in terms of giving the widest level of diversity in cracks and crevices for micro organisms. I theorized that there were likely small but beneficial organisms that might need a grain is sand with particular shapes to thrive in the soil. Totally unsubstantiated by data, just a gut feeling.
I had two primary goals. Initially, I wanted to build a soil that would meet the needs of the plant, on the plant's terms. Secondary to that was my desire to build a soil that I could plant the seed into. I wanted a soil that would nurture the plant from germination on. My intent was to raise Autos, without transplanting.
It's turned out to be an interesting soil. By now the mycorrhizal fungi community should be pretty well established and I don't plan to disturb them. Tomorrow I begin a weekly enzyme tea with fulvic acid and three days later a weekly drench of aloe/coconut water with fulvic acid. I'm still pulling together all of the keys to smooth continuity (budgets! Grrrrr!) but as I slowly but surely acquire them the soil keeps astounding me. These plants are incredible. And the smells! I'm still trying to figure out how to describe them.
Happy, healthy plants. What we all strive for.