Grow Rooms 101 - What's Your Soil?

[ChanChan203]

Hey guys!!! Today I wanna talk about soil particularly what kinda of soil and nutes do you use I feel like soil is a part of any grow operation that kind of gets looked over cause I mean soil is just soil right??

Wrong!!! Soil and nutes is one most important parts of any grow so if you will below please drop you option on best soil setup or just what you like to use. Please try to answer the 3 questions I have put below thanks you guys!!

1.What soil do you use and what mixing ratios

2. What nutes are you using

3. What are some of pros and cons you expierence

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[TheChanger]

re: Grow Rooms 101- What's your Soil?

I start my seedlings in FFOF happy frog, when 12 to 18 inches i up-pot and stay with FFOF but use oceans forest as my soil then. I also stay with smart pots. 5 gallon fabric and i only feed after 4 weeks in use. That way the soil isn't hot anymore and the nutes can be used. Ph is most important make sure 6.0 to 7.0 for soil. That way she eats all the nutes given to her. Always ph water before use then measure run off to check your levels..your run off shouldn't be that big of a change from you ph water you feed with.

 

[Demon42069]

Re: Grow Rooms 101- What's your Soil?

I start my seedlings in FFOF happy frog, when 12 to 18 inches i up-pot and stay with FFOF but use oceans forest as my soil then. I also stay with smart pots. 5 gallon fabric and i only feed after 4 weeks in use. That way the soil isn't hot anymore and the nutes can be used. Ph is most important make sure 6.0 to 7.0 for soil. That way she eats all the nutes given to her. Always ph water before use then measure run off to check your levels..your run off shouldn't be that big of a change from you ph water you feed with.

Hey, i made the hop. I use basically the same as this with dolomite lime and some extra perlite added. I just make sure to flush good at switch to flower. I keep running into ph lockout issues. I also did a top dress couple weeks into flower with ewc, lime, and rock dust. Looking into some good recipes for a super soil or living organic soil with tea nutes. Another option is doc buds high brix kit.

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[NuttyProfessor]

Re: Grow Rooms 101- What's your Soil?

MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI
Crab shell meal
Seaweed
Norway lobster shell meal
Rock Dust
Fish blood and bone
Bone meal
Activator
Dolomite lime
Sulphate of pot-ash
Sulphate of Ammonia
Coffee grounds
Chicken Manure
Soluble phosphorus
Epsoms salts

i drench my soil with EM1
top soil , multi purpose compost
worm cast compost
perlite
peat moss

 

[BreakertripR]

1st Time

Ocean forest 2/3
Coco core 1/6
Perlite 1/6

Great grow
Not much bad to say

2nd Grow

Promax 2/3
Worm casting full bag
Coco core 1/6
Clay pellets 1/6

Go grow bad cure ... my bad on that

3rd Grow... now

1/2 black magic - home depot
1/2 black magic coco - home depot
Perlite as I felt needed

Going good so far


For me everything is a first so far ....

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[Papageno]

Subcool all the way bro.

 

[ChanChan203]

Subcool all the way bro.

Is subcool soil truelly work mixing all of it and if so I have a few questions???
1. What base soil do you use
2. How long do you wait to feed nutes
3. What nutes do you use
4. How often do you feed once you start

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[Papageno]

Well you asked ..This is a topic I get super excited about so I will try and limit my response. I could write pages about dirt and the many ways to make it.

First let me answer directly your questions.

1. What base soil do you use
When you mean base do you mean for the compost or for the top mix?

* For the compost I reuse old soil. Most growers in the Northwest are reusing soil not less than 3 times. It takes 3 times to really get good to begin with...

* For the top mix I use my standard Compost cheater blend. You can use this straight up on your first grow while making some compost or use this and throw it into the compost. 1/3 Fox farm Froggy blend, 1/3 perlite, 1/3 steer manure. That cheater blend plus a decent understanding of basic nutes gets you something like this...

(mostly just EWC tea not bottled nutes on this one too)

2. How long do you wait to feed nutes
I don't have to. With subcools blend you do not treat water or feed nutrients. It is all there. I grew this on pure tap water. No fertilizers at all. I only did one microbial tea drop in the very beginning and then untreated tap water from then on nothing more period!

3. What nutes do you use
When I use a cheater compost like most I will use what leftovers I have around from a hydro run. But if I run a true compost again just water.

All nute companies are putting out the same stuff. the labels are all just advertising. you don't need to know the brand I use. you need to know what N-P-K mean and how to use them. That said again with the 1/3 1/3 1/3 blend you will need 0 absolutely no ferts at all during veg. In fact you may get a little tip burn but nothing bad and it will be fine. For newbs I sometime recommend cutting the manure in half and adding coco as some can't handle the tip burn.


4. How often do you feed once you start
A good living soil needs no food. A dead soil will need additives added regularly depending on how dead it is... and other factors will cause the amount to vary.

Some people go off the deep end and go full dead and run hempy buckets which work great but then you are basically running hydro in fake soil. In that case the nute regimen is very stringent.

So depending on your growth rate, lights, airflow, humidity, temps, soil quality....much more....this dictates the photosynthesis happening and that dictates how much you can feed before it starts to burn.

Now in an organic natural soil blend you have symbiotic microbes and much more happening that converts nutes for you at the right rate and buffer intake and make for great plants without any help.


In my signature is a link to a grow I did on here for some people to show them how to grow good stuff without spending any money really. How to do it yourself all organic style. In that journal you will find everything you need to know about growing in soil indoors without using bottled nutes. I choose to use Subcools method for that run as it is the most famous and widely used organic cannabis method by far. There are many others but Subcools has been used by "everyone" for a while now.

Now normally I would have posted a ton of links on this but this forum rips em out and cancels my posts on this topic so I am just going to say...Do some searches for growing cannabis organically on the web and you will find lots of sites that have Subcool and other great recipes all explained well.


And that is me keeping it short on soil.

 

[Papageno]

I would clarify...

The bigger plant there I grew on cheater blend. Cheater blend is commonly done with EWC instead of Steer manure for one...I prefer steer manure for that part. That blend again needs no nutes in veg unless you go real far SCROGing or you use a small container. In bloom I used EWC tea. My special blend. I think once I added some stuff from a bottle as I had it and was kicking myself later for doing it.

I used soil from males found at bloom in my compost. I brewed up the Subcool from the males soil which was the cheater and them used some cheater on top of subcools compost. Very hot setup. Only about 4 months cooked for that journal.

On the subcool run I did some seed and some clones. I showed how to propagate and collect pollen...you name it so I could point at it if anyone asks how to do this or that.

Near bloom I took clones and had them out a week and then put them right into bloom 1 week after cutting. Wanted to show what a potential SOG might do this way. So they were in soil that had been brewing more like 7 months at the time which is more ideal. Those came out much better...if I wasn't moving and shut down they would be on probably 4th grow by now. Each time you can recycle and 1/3 is single use "fresh" as in it has not been composted yet. So you can keep a good pile going with some of the fresh stuff off plants each grow.

 

[ChanChan203]

Well you asked ..This is a topic I get super excited about so I will try and limit my response. I could write pages about dirt and the many ways to make it.

First let me answer directly your questions.

1. What base soil do you use
When you mean base do you mean for the compost or for the top mix?

* For the compost I reuse old soil. Most growers in the Northwest are reusing soil not less than 3 times. It takes 3 times to really get good to begin with...

* For the top mix I use my standard Compost cheater blend. You can use this straight up on your first grow while making some compost or use this and throw it into the compost. 1/3 Fox farm Froggy blend, 1/3 perlite, 1/3 steer manure. That cheater blend plus a decent understanding of basic nutes gets you something like this...

(mostly just EWC tea not bottled nutes on this one too)

2. How long do you wait to feed nutes
I don't have to. With subcools blend you do not treat water or feed nutrients. It is all there. I grew this on pure tap water. No fertilizers at all. I only did one microbial tea drop in the very beginning and then untreated tap water from then on nothing more period!

3. What nutes do you use
When I use a cheater compost like most I will use what leftovers I have around from a hydro run. But if I run a true compost again just water.

All nute companies are putting out the same stuff. the labels are all just advertising. you don't need to know the brand I use. you need to know what N-P-K mean and how to use them. That said again with the 1/3 1/3 1/3 blend you will need 0 absolutely no ferts at all during veg. In fact you may get a little tip burn but nothing bad and it will be fine. For newbs I sometime recommend cutting the manure in half and adding coco as some can't handle the tip burn.


4. How often do you feed once you start
A good living soil needs no food. A dead soil will need additives added regularly depending on how dead it is... and other factors will cause the amount to vary.

Some people go off the deep end and go full dead and run hempy buckets which work great but then you are basically running hydro in fake soil. In that case the nute regimen is very stringent.

So depending on your growth rate, lights, airflow, humidity, temps, soil quality....much more....this dictates the photosynthesis happening and that dictates how much you can feed before it starts to burn.

Now in an organic natural soil blend you have symbiotic microbes and much more happening that converts nutes for you at the right rate and buffer intake and make for great plants without any help.


In my signature is a link to a grow I did on here for some people to show them how to grow good stuff without spending any money really. How to do it yourself all organic style. In that journal you will find everything you need to know about growing in soil indoors without using bottled nutes. I choose to use Subcools method for that run as it is the most famous and widely used organic cannabis method by far. There are many others but Subcools has been used by "everyone" for a while now.

Now normally I would have posted a ton of links on this but this forum rips em out and cancels my posts on this topic so I am just going to say...Do some searches for growing cannabis organically on the web and you will find lots of sites that have Subcool and other great recipes all explained well.


And that is me keeping it short on soil.

So do you use the subcool original recipe or the 2.0 recipe for subcool soil and as base potting mix soil would it work good if I used like fox farm happy from or even ocean forest??

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[bignugz420]

Hey everyone why doesn't anyone want to do DWC hydro anymore??? It's my only way to truly grow. I love it and the process and getting 2 to 4 inches of growth a day

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[ChanChan203]

Hey everyone why doesn't anyone want to do DWC hydro anymore??? It's my only way to truly grow. I love it and the process and getting 2 to 4 inches of growth a day

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I would love to grow dwc I have before but in current grow setups I can't use a dwc in future I would love to go back to it

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[Papageno]

I believe I have only heard of one soil that should not be diluted. I have never used it but I hear Promix-HP for "High Porosity" is designed for cannabis. The rest of them...all of them...need to be diluted.


Okay now you kicked it in me.

This gets to the heart of soil and mixing which is the pulse of soil growing.


Soil is a science really but a science of creating a living ecosystem. Well you can choose to run dead soil but that is just a waste.

I wont get too deep there are tons to read on this like literally entire websites devoted to it. I spent years doing side by side grows to dial in medium using darn near everything. This was before the internet had sites like this. I could go get HighTimes or buy books at the bookstore at the time.


What you need to know is...

You need a porous aerated medium to grow in. This enables maxim control of water and many other things too much to go into. The fact that we are not adding nutes does not mean we don't want control. This also allows for better root system for multiple reasons. There is more...you need an aerated medium. there are many products for this. Cannabis grows pretty much agree across the board that perlite is the desired medium. I use vermiculite to stop gnats but not for aeration.


You need a manure from something. There are multiple sources. EWC is used by many and is super great. I prefer to use it in my teas. I like the way steer manure as I feel it mixes and holds better for the soil. There are a bunch of reasons for this. also it is like$1.99 for a good sized bag at the "Depot". It is where the term cheater comes from. This help to create a fake compost soil. It is compost. It wont be in there long enough to make a real compost out of the rest but it is sort of like like adding some if you made it. But it is way to hot to grow in it needs to be diluted. It is full of microorganisms that set you up for a fantastic grow.

Then you need a real bit of soil in there for all the various many reasons you can read right on the bag. I talk too much... It should have some ancient forest soil or Humis or humic extract, some sort of shells like crab or oyster shells, really if it has those 2 then it will have the rest. Those 2 things are only in the stuff you want to buy. Don't get anything with time released nutes right...

Most of the other stuff, which is great and I use, like rock phosphate (azomite) must be broken down for a good amount of time for them to really be available to be used. Throwing them on top of soil is not much use as it doesn't really absorb until microbes break it down. So for the rest of the stuff you really gotta cook something. Putting it in is fine but it doesn't work well until cooked.

I am a minimalist and found that 1/3 1/3 1/3 works fantastic and is easy to use and remember. I tried all kinds of ratios and variations and rocks to you name it in the mixes. Keep it simple man you will love the results.


Here were 2 males...you can see the line there between cheater and Subcool... Look at the density of roots done in the supper hot subcool verses normal soil. Now Subcool is too hot to grow in and it needs a buffer to grow veg in. But I thought that was cool.

 

[Papageno]

Hey everyone why doesn't anyone want to do DWC hydro anymore??? It's my only way to truly grow. I love it and the process and getting 2 to 4 inches of growth a day

I use DWC too.


You get bored and do different things. I am at heart a soil guy but I can't count how many DWC grows on here no one can fix and I have fixed for them using an EWC tea.

Eventually most people do many types of growing. DWC is way more work...and I do it organically with EWC tea and use way less nutes and do way less work than most...and still it is way more work than soil.

For those of us doing it for themselves...keeping things cheap and easy means a lot. All my weed is for me so keeping it simple is a big deal....I gots a day job man.

 

[Demon42069]

So for your 1/3 ratios would it be thirds of ewc, humis, and perlite or additives? With additives is more kinds better or is it better to keep it simple with just rock dust, lime, shell, and guano?

Been wondering, a lot of people talk of using only a ewc tea. My fox farms big bloom say its an organic mix of ewc and bat guano. Would the big bloom work the same as ewc tea or is the tea better somehow?


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[Papageno]

So basic soil for your starter person is 1/3 perlite, 1/3 Steer manure OR EWC or some mix...but 1/3 manure, and 1/3 some good bag soil.

For the good bag soil there is a list about 10 items you want but if it has oyster shells and ancient forest soil then it is top grade stuff and works great. I use froggy blend as it is reasonably priced. All the stuff from the original recipe for Subcools is readily available at your grow store today ....well that used to be true. So much of it is bottled now people have given up but the base soil he uses I can still buy at my local store if I wanted to. That really is kind of irrelevant. The soil bag you buy is a medium for the organics to grow in.

I get $1.99 good size bag of steer manure at the depot...great product for the price.

You can get your perlite there too in a big bag.

For the first grow you wont need any ferts in veg as the manure feeds. In bloom you can choose a product or line of products and then understand how it/they work(s) and the appropriate application. If you had a product in mind we could talk about it but it doesn't matter they all work the same learn how plants work.

I make a complete complex EWC that combines all the stuff in the Advanced Nutrient line including bud factor X all in one bucket and apply it every 2 weeks. Fraction of the price. For beginners EWC tea is a bit of a stretch to get into but eventually you will want to put on the big boy pants. (All explained in the journal in my sig)


Then after you sex them you take the males and throw them in a bin and start your compost.

Your second run is on 3-4 month compost. The plants from the first run that went full cycle go in the pile at the beginning of the second grow. The third grow has 7-9 month compost. Golden soil...to me that stuff is worth more than you can imagine.


I use Earth worms in my compost bin and sometimes even in the plants pots. Works fantastic.

These were small when I got them...they lived in the pile for a while and got fat. Went into some plants pots I grew.

Get those at any hunting or fishing store snitchessssss.

 

[Papageno]

With additives is more kinds better or is it better to keep it simple with just rock dust, lime, shell, and guano?

In the compost pile you want to follow one of the many approved recipes like Subcools. Easily found on the web.

You can play with it but do your research and understand how long it takes for rock dust to break down before it becomes accessible. Be patient and follow the rules. Same goes with a long list of other ingredients.

With an EWC tea it is up to you what you want to run your program like. I don't abide by the numbers. I Listen to my plants and understand how absorption works. But I am an engineer so I think things maybe through differently. Anywho...Compost blends like Subcools (when done right) provides aof that in live active beneficial microbial environment that creates self buffered uptake and things just work out. There is a lot to say about having a live environment down there and doing it correctly. Thick books have been written about the subject I aint splainin it here.... I done the journal.

Been wondering, a lot of people talk of using only a ewc tea. My fox farms big bloom say its an organic mix of ewc and bat guano. Would the big bloom work the same as ewc tea or is the tea better somehow?

There is a whole entire section on this website about teas. I am getting people all over to use it but there is a ton of it all written up. Lots to read. It does lots of amazing things.

What it is however is liquid compost. In a few days you can make a compost pile and pour it onto a plant and fix any problem with beneficial microbes. When you make it if you add a few things it is amazing.

Works in hydro and soil.


I hand held this guy through his first real successful hydro runs over the last year and a half on here. He just had a problem in his 5th real grow I think you'd say that could not be solved. That is typical (that's when people really crash hard about and don't know whats wrong). He started a journal and I walked him through it last week. He fucked it up the first time. The second time he got it right and fixed his problem. For something that didn't make sense.

Wonder Woman - Grow Journal - 2016


I can point you at a lady on here who I was helping through a problem who sort of accidental threw some extra on some of her clones and those plants out did the others the entire grow. Once the microbes took hold they won.

You can't beat nature.

 

[Papageno]

Just remembered I accidentally skipped over something important.

For the cheater blends (which there are many of) you want the perlite not less than 1/4 of the mix. I prefer around 1/3, a bit more is better. Good bag soil comes with some.

But more importantly is you need organic material in there for everything to live on and work. That is the real function of the manure. You could use dead leached manure and use a good tea and make it all good again. You can also Just use good nutes in perlite alone and then you gots a hempy bucket really. There is a rainbow spectrum between.

So something I glossed over that was important is when you want to lower the amount of manure in the cheater you do it by adding coco not more perlite.

You need organic matter in there and coco is great. The reason it is used in most applications is it absorbs nutrients. It has no nutrients inherently and is dead. Using that stuff it literally just cuts the power of your manure down without impacting the ratio of the blend.

See I was all high and got side tracked but the blend ratio is maintained ~1/3 perlite this way.

My understanding is Promix-HP is 1/3 perlite..but again I never used it. I just know from side by side experimentation less than 1/4 is shooting yourself in the foot. More than about 1/3 is not necessary but depending on "situation" results may vary.

 

[Demon42069]

If i was to make a rols you use it the same as a super soil right? Fill the bottom of the pot with the rols and fill the rest with normal organic soil. Can you make a rols for the plain soil as well?

Could i have a bin of the rols with a bunch of admendments for the bottom of the pot. Then create one with mainly just some carbon and nitrogen for the top fill so i dont have to buy soil for every grow.

Been looking into this but can't find a clear answer. Not sure if im confusing rols with super soil or if they are the same. I just get a lot of super soil results from google.

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[Papageno]

YEEEESSSSSSS this is what I am talking about....


So you can use a bag of soil and then use a bunch of stuff in bottles that have fancy advertising and make it work great.

Or

You can use some homemade compost (it doesn't stink you can make it inside) and some blends and get great stuff for near no cost or effort once started.

That compost can and should be Recycled and the intent is to make it Organic Living Soil. You can kill it and bring it back but you want to get some bins and make a pile and keep it going. You toss in all your trim and leaves and stalks and all your males and that is how you deal with all the scraps you don't cook. Helps with the grow really.

The compost is too hot to just plant in. Did you see how black that stuff is above in the worm pic. Black gold man. Subcools recipe is very clear 1/3 compost and 2/3 top mix.

Top mix is some bag soil to start but that is all too hot. That must be cut with perlite. You can cut it to 1/3 perlite and 2/3 your fancy bag soil and that might also get you through veg (probably not). Steer manure is very high in nitrogen and is basically all the fertilizer it needs in veg. It comes with a host of microbes as it is composted. It is basically all organic mass which will absorb any nutes you add including tea. So cutting the bag soil with pure compost gets you everything a plant needs...for a while. You do not have a real compost going with things like rock phosphate breaking down daily. But it is darn close.

Back in the mid 90's I did lot of experiments on ratios. You get some tip burn in the "teens" because it is right on the edge but 1/3 steer manure is real nice. Gets you through veg no problem.

So you can use that for the top 2/3 on top of the compost and again that gets it all the way to the compost. Once it gets in there it has everything it needs.

Mind you that is still very hot. You may in that case want to cut in some coco in the top blend. Depends on your photosynthesis and how good your organics are really.

Anyway you really need 2 bins just to make it easy. I have a bin where I maintain a compost pile. I have another bin I mix up my cheater soil. The top soil however is not necessary to hold onto or do anything with. The compost pile as you probably know you need to turn all the time.


Oh yeah and super-soil...what is that...that is cheater. LOL...Not really but yeah sort of. I am an old fart. I brought up supersoil on this forum before a few times and the trolls came out of the woodwork.

Supersoil is cheater blend Plus on crack. Supersoil is a way to get a fake composted mix without the effort. It works great. I used it on tons of grows. But the real difference is it is one time. It is mixing in all the stuff and getting really darn close to a compost. And all of them add about 1/3 or so manure like I said for the reasons I said. And all of this is to cheat and mimic a compost. I have used it many times and love it. I prefer the simplicity of straight up 1/3 x3 and some tea in bloom...I like making my tea.

You can compost most supersoil recipes just fine...Well good ones you can. But mostly what people are doing is mixing in a bunch of stuff and using it right then. That is the real difference between supersoil and a proper compost.

So yeah you can put it all in and get some use out of the things or you can keep reusing them and get superior results.

You can get superior results using cool products and less sophisticated methods. Often times I prefer to just use the cheater when doing experiments as I have more control.

There are reasons for everything...but if you do a good recycling program you just add untreated tap water once a week in veg and every 4 days in bloom and cut it down when it is ready and that is about it. Make sure to pay the electric bill and learn how to cure and you are golden pony boy.