Beneficial Bacteria
Stoner Translation: "Bennies"
I've been writing some articles on how to grow big plants. This success hasn't come un-earned. I've had my fair share of struggles, and here's one of them, that nearly drove me to turn off the lights.
A long time ago I was growing RDWC style (Recirculating deep water culture). This is where the plant's root ball dangles submersed in water, and air is pumped into the water, providing oxygen to the roots. At the time, I had no idea what beneficial bacteria was, nor what a "sterile" environment was either. I only knew I was wildly successful doing what I was doing, considering I was quite the novice. I had hoses and air pumps and buckets everywhere. It was a mess but at the time it was working. You could say I was successful by accident.
One day, in the 5th week of flower, I noticed one plant all the way in the back, looked terrible. I could only get to it by crawling on the floor under my other plants. Upon inspection, the air hose had come off the air pump. I reattached it. A week later, that plant was toast, and all my other plants started YELLOWING, from the bottom up. I was adding more nitrogen but that didn't help. Finally, I pulled a plant out of the bucket and the roots were dark brown and falling apart. ALL 6 PLANTS had root rot. Pythium had invaded my entire system. When the air hose fell off, anaerobic bacteria thrived and then spread to all the others.
I started reading. I did everything possible to save the grow, but could not. I scrubbed all my equipment with bleach. I got all new hoses and cleaned the entire grow room with bleach. You could have performed brain surgery in there it was so clean. I put the next batch of plants into flower, and within a few weeks, they got root rot too. I lost everything and started over again. This time, I built a completely new aeroponics system, including an expensive chiller, (even new water pumps). Again, pythium, and lost everything.
I went 6 months without finishing a plant. Don't ask me, "did you try this? Did you do that?" The answer is yes. I tried Dutch master ZONE, H2O2, bleach, physan20, hygrozyme, sm90, chiller, aeroponics, and finally, beneficial bacteria tea. "Bennies" was absolutely, the ONLY THING that saved my plants. I'm talking about a 2 foot tall plant, who's stem looked like a cut clone. Every root was rotted off of it, and I was able to grow new roots using beneficial tea.
During this nightmare, I read for at LEAST 3 hours every night. I learned more about growing MJ in that 6 months than I care to know. I got a good understanding of why beneficial bacteria works, and how to use it. Since then, I switched growing methods. I no longer practice any growing methods where roots are not in medium. I do dirt or rockwool now. These growing methods are less prone to getting pythium or root rot. I could probably go back to DWC and use a product like DM Zone or H2O2 as a preventative measure, but I have done side by side comparisons using beneficial bacteria, and DM zone. Unfortunately I did not document these, but there is no contest, the bennies win by a landslide. And I'm talking about a month into veg, bennie plants are almost twice as tell as ZONE plants.
For the novice readers, here's the lesson learned. When in hydro, we need to choose a STERILE environment, OR a Live (beneficial bacteria) environment. I choose BB, because of the fantastic growth rates, especially during vegetative growth.
STERILE: aka DEAD RES, means an environment where there is NO bacteria, good or bad. The benefit here is you don't have to worry about expensive or complicated beneficial bacteria, you just add the product that kills both and go. The downside is if you have a pythium problem, these products won't usually bring your roots back to health. In addition, these are chemicals the plant is taking in, and I'd rather not consume chemicals. Also, you don't get the benefit of the root encouraging bacteria.
LIVE: (beneficial bacteria, aka bennies) This means you use products to introduce live beneficial bacteria to your roots. This, helps to keep the BAD bacteria under control, and helps your roots uptake more nutrients. You will use products like, aquashield, Greatwhite, fungi, mycos, zho, voodoo juice, etc. Using these (correctly) will encourage great root growth, better than sterile. The downside is these products can be expensive, and it is difficult to use them correctly. If not used correctly in hydroponics, they will have little to no benefit.
I make 5 gallons of "tea" weekly and top feed it to the root zone. I know it may sound hokey but the results are a no brainer. The recipe I use is refined by "heisenberg". You can find his 100 page thread if you search google. My slightly modified version:
Fill a 5 gal bucket with RO or distilled water (not tap water), add an airstone, and:
Anchient forest 1/2 cup/gal
AquaShield 10ml/gal
Molasses 1/2 tbsp/gal
GreatWhite 1/2 scoop per 5 gal
RootsExcellerator 1ml / gal
Rapid Start 1ml/gal
(the first 3 ingredients are necessary, the last 3 are optional)
Let it bubble for 48 hours. Then, flood the root zone of each plant.
There are easier ways to add beneficial bacteria than making tea, and there are a slew of products out there you can spend a ton of $ on. But this recipe is more diverse, and it makes your products last a long time. Plus, if used incorrectly, beneficial bacteria is ineffective.
I hear people say, "well, my roots aren't white because they are stained by flora micro, or this or that.... Well, I use liquid seaweed, micro, and flora blend and it makes my water look like soy sauce. And look at these white roots. Bottom line, if you're not using beneficial bacteria, you are missing out on growth rates.
Stoner Translation: "Bennies"
I've been writing some articles on how to grow big plants. This success hasn't come un-earned. I've had my fair share of struggles, and here's one of them, that nearly drove me to turn off the lights.
A long time ago I was growing RDWC style (Recirculating deep water culture). This is where the plant's root ball dangles submersed in water, and air is pumped into the water, providing oxygen to the roots. At the time, I had no idea what beneficial bacteria was, nor what a "sterile" environment was either. I only knew I was wildly successful doing what I was doing, considering I was quite the novice. I had hoses and air pumps and buckets everywhere. It was a mess but at the time it was working. You could say I was successful by accident.
One day, in the 5th week of flower, I noticed one plant all the way in the back, looked terrible. I could only get to it by crawling on the floor under my other plants. Upon inspection, the air hose had come off the air pump. I reattached it. A week later, that plant was toast, and all my other plants started YELLOWING, from the bottom up. I was adding more nitrogen but that didn't help. Finally, I pulled a plant out of the bucket and the roots were dark brown and falling apart. ALL 6 PLANTS had root rot. Pythium had invaded my entire system. When the air hose fell off, anaerobic bacteria thrived and then spread to all the others.
I started reading. I did everything possible to save the grow, but could not. I scrubbed all my equipment with bleach. I got all new hoses and cleaned the entire grow room with bleach. You could have performed brain surgery in there it was so clean. I put the next batch of plants into flower, and within a few weeks, they got root rot too. I lost everything and started over again. This time, I built a completely new aeroponics system, including an expensive chiller, (even new water pumps). Again, pythium, and lost everything.
I went 6 months without finishing a plant. Don't ask me, "did you try this? Did you do that?" The answer is yes. I tried Dutch master ZONE, H2O2, bleach, physan20, hygrozyme, sm90, chiller, aeroponics, and finally, beneficial bacteria tea. "Bennies" was absolutely, the ONLY THING that saved my plants. I'm talking about a 2 foot tall plant, who's stem looked like a cut clone. Every root was rotted off of it, and I was able to grow new roots using beneficial tea.
During this nightmare, I read for at LEAST 3 hours every night. I learned more about growing MJ in that 6 months than I care to know. I got a good understanding of why beneficial bacteria works, and how to use it. Since then, I switched growing methods. I no longer practice any growing methods where roots are not in medium. I do dirt or rockwool now. These growing methods are less prone to getting pythium or root rot. I could probably go back to DWC and use a product like DM Zone or H2O2 as a preventative measure, but I have done side by side comparisons using beneficial bacteria, and DM zone. Unfortunately I did not document these, but there is no contest, the bennies win by a landslide. And I'm talking about a month into veg, bennie plants are almost twice as tell as ZONE plants.
For the novice readers, here's the lesson learned. When in hydro, we need to choose a STERILE environment, OR a Live (beneficial bacteria) environment. I choose BB, because of the fantastic growth rates, especially during vegetative growth.
STERILE: aka DEAD RES, means an environment where there is NO bacteria, good or bad. The benefit here is you don't have to worry about expensive or complicated beneficial bacteria, you just add the product that kills both and go. The downside is if you have a pythium problem, these products won't usually bring your roots back to health. In addition, these are chemicals the plant is taking in, and I'd rather not consume chemicals. Also, you don't get the benefit of the root encouraging bacteria.
LIVE: (beneficial bacteria, aka bennies) This means you use products to introduce live beneficial bacteria to your roots. This, helps to keep the BAD bacteria under control, and helps your roots uptake more nutrients. You will use products like, aquashield, Greatwhite, fungi, mycos, zho, voodoo juice, etc. Using these (correctly) will encourage great root growth, better than sterile. The downside is these products can be expensive, and it is difficult to use them correctly. If not used correctly in hydroponics, they will have little to no benefit.
I make 5 gallons of "tea" weekly and top feed it to the root zone. I know it may sound hokey but the results are a no brainer. The recipe I use is refined by "heisenberg". You can find his 100 page thread if you search google. My slightly modified version:
Fill a 5 gal bucket with RO or distilled water (not tap water), add an airstone, and:
Anchient forest 1/2 cup/gal
AquaShield 10ml/gal
Molasses 1/2 tbsp/gal
GreatWhite 1/2 scoop per 5 gal
RootsExcellerator 1ml / gal
Rapid Start 1ml/gal
(the first 3 ingredients are necessary, the last 3 are optional)
Let it bubble for 48 hours. Then, flood the root zone of each plant.
There are easier ways to add beneficial bacteria than making tea, and there are a slew of products out there you can spend a ton of $ on. But this recipe is more diverse, and it makes your products last a long time. Plus, if used incorrectly, beneficial bacteria is ineffective.
I hear people say, "well, my roots aren't white because they are stained by flora micro, or this or that.... Well, I use liquid seaweed, micro, and flora blend and it makes my water look like soy sauce. And look at these white roots. Bottom line, if you're not using beneficial bacteria, you are missing out on growth rates.
Do you think Corey's Root Magic could take the place of the Great White or Orca? I think so but wanted to see what you thought
