How not to be a salt farmer or a wasteful grower tips

[budnoob3]

Also, in terms of bone meal. Yes, no cremations but after you’ve boiled down to make stock after thanksgiving or what have you. YouTube search or google how to make diy bone meal. Takes time but well worth the effort for sustainable gardening….

 

[Trump]

Semantics to me. Keep it simple, you have indica, sativa, rhuderalis at a high level. You have equatorial, South American, afghani etc at a high level. You have trichomes at various levels of amber. You have canbabanoids and terpenes that could fill volumes of encyclopedic info. You have cb receptors with various attributes. You have an endless array of growing methods. Way too much info for anyone to know it all. The more I learn the less I know. All I want to offer here is the simplest and most cost-effective options I know of for those of us that want quality, medicinally effective product. I learn every day and encourage everyone to share. Nobody gains by withholding knowledge! Share what you know or think you know, inevitably someone will help improve our knowledge collectively or straighten us out when we are incorrect. Be wise, learn to learn from others mistakes rather than having to repeat our own and reinvent the wheel all the time.

You say you're here to learn and teach others yet you criticize those that are giving out information. Maybe you don't want to know the particulars of any process but there are those, myself included, that do and use that information to improve their own style.

If it's more than you want to know I suggest you stop reading whatever semantics you disagree with. You want to do everything as simply and cheaply as possible. I commend you for that. You say you want to offer the most cost effective and simplest growing methods yet anything that is described outside of what you have obviously ascertained as the only way to do things seems to be a waste of time and energy in your eyes.

Maybe someone doesn't want to have to save up a bag of crushed egg shells because its more hassle than it needs to be and the few dollars they spend on a bottle of cal/mag is easier and more worth their time than trying to grow everything from waste scraps. Maybe it would be easier to just go buy a bag of calcium pills and crush them all up. Whatever level works best for you so "best", "easiest", "simplest" are all subjective to the grower and the style they are growing. Are you also going to be critiqueing what is the best method? SOG/ScrOG/Free Grow/LST only/ Synthetic media/Natural media, etc. I'm sure most seasoned growers will tell you there is no "best" or "simplest" or "easiest". It's what works for you. If your aim is to show YOUR easiest method that YOU'VE developed then great. Show it. But to try and nail down a "best" just shows me that maybe you don't have the experience you think you do. Like I said, most seasoned growers have "grown" out of that mindset and have realized through experience that there is no "best" method just like there is no magic bullet that will double your harvest or increase your THC levels.

Honestly, I think the whole organic thing is way over blown. IMO, if you are an outdoor grower then I think developing organic soil is a great way of providing a bountiful media and excellent soil properties year over year but indoor growing the plants aren't in the soil very long and the soil is being replaced or fortified. Trying to build organic soil in a pot is an effort in futility. By the time the soil is at the level that it can support the plant on its own organically the plant is ready to harvest.

Also, when it comes to organic nutes. Once the nutrient ions, be they derived naturally or chemically , are in the rhizosphere ready to be presented to the plant they are identical in makeup. The plant doesn't know how the ion was derived nor does it care. Had I listened to people like you saying the details don't matter I would be all over organics. It sounds great to hear. My weed is organic. 99% have no real clue as to what that even means. They think it means it's cleaner. Nope. Other than whatever pesticides someone might use incorrectly there is no difference in terms of the end result.

If your issue with synthetics is how they were derived and how the high energy needed to derive them is bad for the environment let me remind you that organic fertilizers have an almost equal amount of energy expended to get it to market. Scientist have figured out a way of using lasers to derive Nitrogen out of the air much like the Bosch-Haber process used currently to derive Nitrogen at scale but their process is better for the environment as it doesn't use as much energy and it can be pinpointed to the amount used to keep soil leaching and water way contamination down to a minimum.

I commend your effort. I reject your narrow mindedness.

 

[budnoob3]

As for trimmings and root balls: I leave a modicum of trimmings in the pots as worm food and use root balls for anger management; I take a machete to the root balls when I add them to compost piles

 

[budnoob3]

You say you're here to learn and teach others yet you criticize those that are giving out information. Maybe you don't want to know the particulars of any process but there are those, myself included, that do and use that information to improve their own style.

If it's more than you want to know I suggest you stop reading whatever semantics you disagree with. You want to do everything as simply and cheaply as possible. I commend you for that. You say you want to offer the most cost effective and simplest growing methods yet anything that is described outside of what you have obviously ascertained as the only way to do things seems to be a waste of time and energy in your eyes.

Maybe someone doesn't want to have to save up a bag of crushed egg shells because its more hassle than it needs to be and the few dollars they spend on a bottle of cal/mag is easier and more worth their time than trying to grow everything from waste scraps. Maybe it would be easier to just go buy a bag of calcium pills and crush them all up. Whatever level works best for you so "best", "easiest", "simplest" are all subjective to the grower and the style they are growing. Are you also going to be critiqueing what is the best method? SOG/ScrOG/Free Grow/LST only/ Synthetic media/Natural media, etc. I'm sure most seasoned growers will tell you there is no "best" or "simplest" or "easiest". It's what works for you. If your aim is to show YOUR easiest method that YOU'VE developed then great. Show it. But to try and nail down a "best" just shows me that maybe you don't have the experience you think you do. Like I said, most seasoned growers have "grown" out of that mindset and have realized through experience that there is no "best" method just like there is no magic bullet that will double your harvest or increase your THC levels.

Honestly, I think the whole organic thing is way over blown. IMO, if you are an outdoor grower then I think developing organic soil is a great way of providing a bountiful media and excellent soil properties year over year but indoor growing the plants aren't in the soil very long and the soil is being replaced or fortified. Trying to build organic soil in a pot is an effort in futility. By the time the soil is at the level that it can support the plant on its own organically the plant is ready to harvest.

Also, when it comes to organic nutes. Once the nutrient ions, be they derived naturally or chemically , are in the rhizosphere ready to be presented to the plant they are identical in makeup. The plant doesn't know how the ion was derived nor does it care. Had I listened to people like you saying the details don't matter I would be all over organics. It sounds great to hear. My weed is organic. 99% have no real clue as to what that even means. They think it means it's cleaner. Nope. Other than whatever pesticides someone might use incorrectly there is no difference in terms of the end result.

If your issue with synthetics is how they were derived and how the high energy needed to derive them is bad for the environment let me remind you that organic fertilizers have an almost equal amount of energy expended to get it to market. Scientist have figured out a way of using lasers to derive Nitrogen out of the air much like the Bosch-Haber process used currently to derive Nitrogen at scale but their process is better for the environment as it doesn't use as much energy and it can be pinpointed to the amount used to keep soil leaching and water way contamination down to a minimum.

I commend your effort. I reject your narrow mindedness.

Sorry if I gave anyone including you that impression. My semantics comment was based on a quick review of a few things I may have interpreted hastily. What prompted me to start this thread was a plethora of inaccurate or misguided information I’ve seen online. I don’t think I ever claimed to be best intentionally, rather I want everyone to know you don’t need to spend a small fortune to be successful, and that you can achieve a more sustainable organic practice. Also I never want to claim this is all achieved in containers. Things are rotated and added to frequently which does have costs for me as well. I do add HP Pro BX organic on an annual basis as things expand. I do get annoyed where vendors charge X dollars for something that could be free and sustainable. I’m all for using products necessary for the first couple years while we learn how to make things more reusable. My apologies again if I offended anyone.

 

[budnoob3]

Most of what I say has no value to aero or hydro growers. My personal belief is that organic growing is the easiest and provides the quality and flavor profiles that I prefer. I don’t worry about ph levels and bottled or boxed nutes etc. I have 0 experience with aeroponics and limited hydro and will agree that you will achieve higher yields using those methods from what I’ve seen. I promote organic sustainable practices not only for environmental needs but my belief that a time will come that we all need to know it whether it be our generation or future ones. We need to leave a world our kids and theirs can prosper.

 

[Trump]

Sorry if I gave anyone including you that impression. My semantics comment was based on a quick review of a few things I may have interpreted hastily. What prompted me to start this thread was a plethora of inaccurate or misguided information I’ve seen online. I don’t think I ever claimed to be best intentionally, rather I want everyone to know you don’t need to spend a small fortune to be successful, and that you can achieve a more sustainable organic practice. Also I never want to claim this is all achieved in containers. Things are rotated and added to frequently which does have costs for me as well. I do add HP Pro BX organic on an annual basis as things expand. I do get annoyed where vendors charge X dollars for something that could be free and sustainable. I’m all for using products necessary for the first couple years while we learn how to make things more reusable. My apologies again if I offended anyone.

Love it. Then concentrate your efforts on showing people how to make their own teas and other nutrients without having to buy them if they have the inclination. I will wholeheartedly agree with you that buying bottled nutes is expensive if you listen to the hype. I use bottled nutrients because they are my "easiest" and "cheapest" as far as my method and the time I have to put into it. For example, someone on another site was hyping Botanicare as a great nutrient that offers excellent value over others. I mentioned the nutrients I use and he commented that the Botanicare nutes he uses are identical in perfomance to the ones I use but cost half. On the surface, he was right. His gallon of Grow cost $37. Mine cost $62. Mine had almost 3 times the applications per gallon than his did. I did a cost analysis for him and he realized that in reality he was paying almost double for the Botanicare nutrients vs the ones I use. In essence he was paying for water.
I have plenty of access to information on how to make my own nutrients like KNF or manure teas or whatever but I have better things to do with my time than trying to make my own nutrients. My entire nutrient makeup cost me around a nickel per application.

BTW because of my inexperience in making my own nutrition, I have a few questions. How do you know the nutrient ratios after you make your own nutrients? Is there a recipe that has been scrutinized by a lab to be able to give a ballpark ratio that you can use based on the scraps you use? Doesn't the nutrient ratio in the waste scraps dictate that? How do you know that the waste scraps you are using aren't contaminated with "undesirable" ingredients that the scraps may have picked up when they were cultivated?

Again, I have nothing against anyone wanting to DIY but there's a reason why we have Botanists/Agricultural Engineers/Plant Biologists and the fertilizers they have developed over the centuries. It's because they've found these to perform the best for the parameters they are trying to achieve. If organic farming was able to hit the performance standards that synthetic farming offers I would imagine that would be a world wide practice.

Organic farming has its place but for the majority of indoor weed growers I don't see it as an effective way of getting the most out of your plant which, IMO, is what most growers top priority is.

 

[Bill284]

I love a good healthy informative discussion.
Thanks to both of you for all your great info.


Stay safe
Bill284

 

[budnoob3]

I’m in car ready to go but I love the feedback and promise to answer your questions as best I can soon. In short, I don’t have lab results or anything like that, my rudimentary style is to use as little of everything to start and monitor based on what I learned from grandpa and others about gardening in general and add/increase where appropriate. I will update soon with more detail. Thanks!

 

[Trump]

No worries my Brother! As @Bill284 mentioned. A good lively discussion that can shake out fact from fiction which, I think, is the basis for this whole thread. If I come off as an arrogant prick it's probably because I am but that's a discussion between me and my therapist!!!

When I worked at pot farms in NorCal in the 90's I learned a lot from all the old hippy farmers that had been growing for decades. When Cali legalized I worked at licensed indoor grow ops. I got a much more science based experience and was able to filter out some of the "facts" my old hippy friends told me was gospel in regard to cultivation. I've been trying to meld both the hard earned anectdotal information I was given with the more science based information that has been coming to light, especially in these last few years. It's been quite the eye opening experience to watch people repeat some of the "facts" my hippy buddies taught me. I try and weed out the broscience but sometimes it's not worth the fight.

 

[budnoob3]

Abbreviated yet still long version grandpa came from Italy with my great grandparents in the early thirties. They were farmers and similarly grandma came from Nova Scotia with similar background. I learned about gardening, raising chicken, goats, and sheep etc from them early on. I learned about how my father helped raising fighting cocks that were delivered to NY and NJ to help supplement their income in the early days. Dad still had a set of spurs that they’d put on the roosters for training. Skip forward, I smoked as a teenager but gave it up when I was 17 thinking it was bad for me all the way until dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a blood infection when I was 36. Mind you I never stopped growing sunflowers, tomatoes, peppers, and various root vegetables and herbs/spices throughout. When I started growing cannabis it was strictly for medicinal purposes and primarily RSO / CCO use. It was during that period I learned a great deal of growing and oil production info from folks in CA and CO primarily but also mentors from AZ and other parts of the country and world. Similar to what you described it was also a time where I picked up a lot of folklore, old wives tales and BS in general. I can only promise 2 things - I will never try to feed anyone BS and I know for a fact that the CCO can help save lives. Can is the operative word there, no guarantees but also will do no harm and at least help alleviate some of the suffering. Case in point, my dad is still alive in his 80s without ever having chemo or radiation. CCO wasn’t necessarily the only magic because a lot of other changes were made to diet and habits as well. On the flip side I have lost family to bone and lung cancers that used similar methods but they were at least alleviated from some suffering. More to follow…

 

[budnoob3]

As for more detail about knowing ratios and what to add at any given time. That goes back to my less is more strategy. There are so many symptoms that can be confused because of too much of anything vs too little of something. If you err on the side of less water, less nutes, less heat and less light at least you know the symptoms will be based on a deficiency and reduce the number of variables you need to consider. Knowing that, you can focus your attention on what needs to be added vs trying to fix based on a myriad of unknowns. When you make organic teas etc they are much more forgiving in my experience so simply adding another feeding regardless of the ratios tends to resolve any deficiency. And if you know for sure what the deficiency is based upon symptoms you can hone the amendment even further using an organic option that is either purchased or readily available in your stockpile preferably. One instance and example that kills me is products derived from molasses that have been watered down as mentioned that might be sold for 8-16 dollars for an 8oz bottle when all you needed to do was shake up some black molasses in a bottle of water, no more than a tablespoon to achieve the same result for less than a nickel.

 

[Trump]

Abbreviated yet still long version grandpa came from Italy with my great grandparents in the early thirties. They were farmers and similarly grandma came from Nova Scotia with similar background. I learned about gardening, raising chicken, goats, and sheep etc from them early on. I learned about how my father helped raising fighting cocks that were delivered to NY and NJ to help supplement their income in the early days. Dad still had a set of spurs that they’d put on the roosters for training. Skip forward, I smoked as a teenager but gave it up when I was 17 thinking it was bad for me all the way until dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a blood infection when I was 36. Mind you I never stopped growing sunflowers, tomatoes, peppers, and various root vegetables and herbs/spices throughout. When I started growing cannabis it was strictly for medicinal purposes and primarily RSO / CCO use. It was during that period I learned a great deal of growing and oil production info from folks in CA and CO primarily but also mentors from AZ and other parts of the country and world. Similar to what you described it was also a time where I picked up a lot of folklore, old wives tales and BS in general. I can only promise 2 things - I will never try to feed anyone BS and I know for a fact that the CCO can help save lives. Can is the operative word there, no guarantees but also will do no harm and at least help alleviate some of the suffering. Case in point, my dad is still alive in his 80s without ever having chemo or radiation. CCO wasn’t necessarily the only magic because a lot of other changes were made to diet and habits as well. On the flip side I have lost family to bone and lung cancers that used similar methods but they were at least alleviated from some suffering. More to follow…

I have a similar story. An ex GF had COPD when I met her. She would be on her nebulizer at least 3 times a week. She had never smoked weed before and was afraid of it thinking it was a gateway drug. I gave her a CBD pen a friend of mine was making. She kept refusing it because it was derived from Cannabis. I finally convinced her that she wouldn't get high or addicted and that it might help her asthma. After a week of sucking on the pen she asked me if I would smoke a joint with her so that if she freaked out I would be there to help her! I asked her what had prompted her to actually smoke weed and she said the pen had really helped her and was super convenient whenever she started to feel her chest tighten up.
After we smoked the joint she was really quiet. I asked her what she was thinking about. She told me had she known weed was like this she would have started smoking a lot sooner. She told me how much better she felt overall and that a lot of the little aches and pains went away after she smoked and that the high was no big deal. She told me she thought that if she smoked weed she'd be like the heroin addicts you'd see nodding out at the bus stop!

She became a huge weed advocate after that.

As for more detail about knowing ratios and what to add at any given time. That goes back to my less is more strategy. There are so many symptoms that can be confused because of too much of anything vs too little of something. If you err on the side of less water, less nutes, less heat and less light at least you know the symptoms will be based on a deficiency and reduce the number of variables you need to consider. Knowing that, you can focus your attention on what needs to be added vs trying to fix based on a myriad of unknowns. When you make organic teas etc they are much more forgiving in my experience so simply adding another feeding regardless of the ratios tends to resolve any deficiency. And if you know for sure what the deficiency is based upon symptoms you can hone the amendment even further using an organic option that is either purchased or readily available in your stockpile preferably. One instance and example that kills me is products derived from molasses that have been watered down as mentioned that might be sold for 8-16 dollars for an 8oz bottle when all you needed to do was shake up some black molasses in a bottle of water, no more than a tablespoon to achieve the same result for less than a nickel.

So here's my view on that. One of the things a botanist taught me was that plants have 3 modes. Growth, Recovery and Death. When they are in growth mode they are concentrating all their energy on growing. When they are in recovery mode they are trying to fix whatever is bothering them and, until they fully recover, are not in growth mode.

Introducing deficiencies on a regular basis will keep the plant in recovery mode while it constantly tries to get back into its happy place aka growth mode. Recovery has its own modes. Stunted completely or slowed down trying to rev back up to its happy place. Plants will not grow when they are stunted. Plants will grow at a much slower rate when they are slowed down due to their being in recovery mode.

Keeping bare bones nutrition in the soil will keep the plant throttling between growth and recovery so while it still may produce it will not reach its full potential. His suggestion was to keep the soil well stocked with nutrition but keeping an eye so you don't tox the plant. He said that having a lot of ions(below tox levels) in the soil is not a big issue as the plant dictates what it wants to take up generally. Supplementing a particular ion(N-P-K) at a particular time in the growth cycle will allow the rhizo to have more of those particular ions available for presentation to the roots. Granted, too much of anything is never good but staying within feed parameters should keep the nutritional ratio in range and the plant will never have to go into recovery trying to fix the deficiency it experienced.

Basically, the longer you can keep the plant in purely growth mode the better your chances of your maxing out the potential of the plant.

 

[budnoob3]

Exactly, and over time and practice you learn to avoid recovery mode. I kept detailed journals of feedings etc for the various plant life I’ve worked with. Mostly art and trial and error. As you can see, I may not be reaching max potential but it works pretty darn well
1 pic from after torrential rains and another from the day after attached… from same plant featured in thread

 

[budnoob3]

Also, back to the worms briefly. By maintaining them in all of my medium including ground, bins and pots I have the ultimate fertilizer situation in my opinion. Worms generate roughly double their body weight in castings daily. Plus they help speed up the breakdown of detritus I leave on the surface. I’ve actually considered taking one plant and not adding any teas just to see how long and how well it does vs the others. Best to try with clones so I shall start that experiment soon.

 

[budnoob3]

Red e/

Exactly, and over time and practice you learn to avoid recovery mode. I kept detailed journals of feedings etc for the various plant life I’ve worked with. Mostly art and trial and error. As you can see, I may not be reaching max potential but it works pretty darn well
1 pic from after torrential rains and another from the day after attached… from same plant featured in thread

a

Exactly, and over time and practice you learn to avoid recovery mode. I kept detailed journals of feedings etc for the various plant life I’ve worked with. Mostly art and trial and error. As you can see, I may not be reaching max potential but it works pretty darn well
1 pic from after torrential rains and another from the day after attached… from same plant featured in thread

also, if your plants look similar before and after watering that is normal. If they look like the first pic still on the following day you probably don’t have good enough drainage, are giving too much water so remember perlite is your friend. I always add 30% or so perlite to new batches of soil I’m preparing.

 

[budnoob3]

Speaking of recovery, back around week 4 when I first brought her outdoors there was a decent storm with high winds that broke the main stem near the base. No tying or splint was required, she recovered quickly on her own as you can see here

 

[budnoob3]

As for dispelling myths, let’s also mention light stress with photoperiods. Not totally a myth because there are definite consequences of radically changing lighting schedules and intensities and some photos are more sensitive than others. However, there are purists that will go to extent of making sure power strips have no illumination on the power switch and other such extreme measures. I for one can tell you in my experience that is BS. I’ve opened my tents during lights out briefly on many occasions without any perceivable issues. I’ve also switched from LED to HPS or Ceramic Halide abruptly either due to bulb failure or some other problem and put some girls through undo stress but they all managed to survive and produce for me.

 

[budnoob3]

For training, I prefer LST outdoors and SCROG indoors. I think the reasons are obvious but mainly indoors with artificial lighting I like to keep bud sites as equidistant from the lights as possible and for outdoors a little bending and tying promotes more bud sites without too much stress. I’m also a fan of topping but don’t always do it, cutting clones also promotes new growth sites.

 

[budnoob3]

Good Morning momma and 3 clones