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Grow Cultivation Q and A

I'm using bagged soil in fabric pots, but I really don't know what I'm doing. Last year was in sun, this year there are a couple under a Ceramic light. And we also pulled 10 clones from a high CBD plant, and they are resting in a cloner whipped together from an aquarium pump and a bit of PVC irrigation tube. Hopefully it's a female plant, but we'll find out soon enough...

:)
 
momofthegoons said:
I'm trying to wrap my head around what method would be best for me; should I pull the trigger on growing. I know some of you grow in organic soil (I'm looking at you @Shredder :biggrin:) and some of you grow hydroponically. No where in all of our discussions have I seen coco mentioned. Do any of you use coco as your medium for growing?
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Use soil-less media, but peat instead of coco. Peat has some advantages, but it's not as environmentally friendly as coco. Using soil-less media with a starter kit of bottled nutes can give good results on your very first try if you closely follow the manufacturer's schedule. You have lots of other newb mistakes to make - pH, lighting, ventilation, pests, etc. - so you may as well take the guesswork out of nutes. It does get expensive when you outgrow the starter kit, but at that point, you'll have your first harvest and will have learned enough to decide whether to experiment. The Canna line has been great. It's not just organic, it's veganic. You might need a little extra Mg/Ca, but that's true of others as well. Curious about Kyle Kushman's line which is a little less expensive.
 
momofthegoons said:
I'm trying to wrap my head around what method would be best for me; should I pull the trigger on growing. I know some of you grow in organic soil (I'm looking at you @Shredder :biggrin:) and some of you grow hydroponically. No where in all of our discussions have I seen coco mentioned. Do any of you use coco as your medium for growing?
Click to expand...

I use a peat based soil mix with perlite and a quality compost. peat has a better CEC (cation exchange capacity) rating than coco. In a nutshell it holds more nutrients. But coco has some redeeming features as well, but all in all I like peat in my grow.

There are any number of organic nutrients, but one simple one I like is the espoma brand tone fertilizers. They come in plant tone, garden tone, tomato tone and so on. The differences mainly being the npk numbers. The ingredients are pretty much the same, although tomato tone has more calcium. There are tons of organic soil nutrients and recipes out there tho, but I would start with basic easy to source stuff to start.

What might make my grow a little different is that I grow "no til" style. I use 15 gallon pots, and when I harvest I take out just enough of the old rootball to get another plant in that hole. This pretty much eliminates messing constantly with mixing soil. The root/fungal connections will transfer to another plants roots pretty much effortlessly if done soon after harvest. I wouldn't bother with this if you grow in 5 gallon or smaller pots.

In my current home I grew 6 cycles in hard sided pots, then switched to fabric pots for 12 cycles (3 years) of continuous grows, now those pots look like they could be rotting so I have new pots ready for my next cycle.

The absolute key to growing in organic soil is compost. Always get or make the best compost you can get. At the top of the heap is worm castings. I top dress with fresh castings each cycle. I customize the castings by what I feed my worms.

Another side benefit to having worms is using castings is that they off gas co2. So if you can keep the worms in your flower room to give your plants an extra edge.

Like I said earlier there are many many choices for organic nutrients. I don't like bottled organic nutrients. The reason is even tho they're organic, to stop bottles from exploding in stores they add, ussually organic acids, to stop microbial activity. These acids will also stop microbes in soil. I'd rather use homemade teas or dry top dressed fertilizers.

For what it's worth the biggest difference between organic nutrients and chemical nutrients is that organic nutrients have to be broken down by microbes to make nutrients available (soluble) to the plants. That's why good compost matters, that's where microbes come from. Chemical nutrients being soluble can not help but being taken up by plants and don't rely on microbes. That's why hydro can be more touchy and has to be monitored more closely for ph and whatnot.

One organic nutrient worth mentioning is malted barley. I grind up, in a blender a 1/4 cup of malted barley per a five gallon bucket of water. The barley seed had all the nutrients needed to supply a barley plant for several weeks, but more important they are full of enzymes that can make more nutrients available for plant uptake. This is the same barley used to make beer. I like six row barley due to its enzyme profile. I bought a 50 lb bag of it about 3 years ago, split half with a friend and still have at least 20 lbs left. So it goes a long way. I use it maybe 3-4 times per grow cycle.
 
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momofthegoons said:
I'm trying to wrap my head around what method would be best for me; should I pull the trigger on growing. I know some of you grow in organic soil (I'm looking at you @Shredder :biggrin:) and some of you grow hydroponically. No where in all of our discussions have I seen coco mentioned. Do any of you use coco as your medium for growing?
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I think people make growing harder than it should be.
I’d advise to start with some organic bag soil like Fox Farms Ocean Forest. They also sell bottled nutrients which are very easy to use.

I’m assuming you be growing indoors?
So you’ll have to invest in a set up with lights, fans, etc.

don’t have any experience with coco or Hydro but soil is pretty easy .
 
Killick said:
This reminds me of another quote - 'everything is easy when you know what yer doing'... Killick, 1982
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Easy as in put plants in soil and use water/nutes. :smile:

With those other mediums i feel there is way more worrying about PH levels and things like that.

I don’t check any of that shit lol. I use tap water...of course that may vary depending where you live.
 
Disrupt said:
Definitely need to worry about pH with peat.

Very first grow, 1990s, used Miracle-Gro pre-fertilized soil in cheap self-watering flower pots with stash seed. Must've been beginners luck, but it worked fine.
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I don't know that you have to worry about ph when using peat moss. When you read about organic soil mixes they will include lime or oyster shell, or some kind of calcium to add buffering ability to the mix. Some like pro mix has a little perlite and lime included although its a good idea to add more calcium and areation.

For areation I like lava rock and perlite. I'd use pumice if I could find it locally. I used to use grow stones, but they're pretty expensive. Pumice and lava rock have holes that microbes can hang out in. And they are ussually larger than perlite, so it gives you a little size diversity.

I used miracle grow back in the day too (70's). Also had long hair, paisley print shirts, bell bottom pants, and nary a clue, lol. Then I used dyna grow, and earth jiuce. My herb is much better now tho and I'm legal so i dont have to keep looking over my shoulder, unlike the old days.
 
I only have to check my PH when I fill my reservoir and use a $10 digital PH pen (calibrated every time I use it) that`s it, I used to have a PPM/EC pen when I used recirculating systems but don`t have them anymore so the pen has disappeared.
I had a Basil Faulty moment when installing a new oscillating wall fan yesterday. I usually leave any maintenance like that until crop change but thought I had better do it sooner. I had the fan placed where I wanted and when I turned to get a cable tie the fan fell onto my head and then onto my plants! I checked the damage and found I had broken half a dozen branches off 2 plants:disgust: This crop seems to be jinxed, most trouble I have had for years, Murphy`s law, first time I have ever taken pictures of a crop to share with people and all the Gremlins come out to play. It is a good thing I only vape and have a couple of pounds stored up my sleeve.
 
@momofthegoons I've used coco in the past.
From what I can remember it has to be treated as a hydro medium.
Garden compost is usually good to grow in for 6-8 weeks before you need to start adding back nutrients.
Coco needs feeds from day one as it has a very low nutrient content.
No matter which way you go you will need a decent ph meter and an EC meter.
 
phattpiggie said:
@momofthegoons I've used coco in the past.
From what I can remember it has to be treated as a hydro medium.
Garden compost is usually good to grow in for 6-8 weeks before you need to start adding back nutrients.
Coco needs feeds from day one as it has a very low nutrient content.
No matter which way you go you will need a decent ph meter and an EC meter.
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Compost is mainly used for its microbial activity. That activity will go on as long as the conditions are right, and nutrients are there. In a ten week flower cycle I top dress with nutrients once, top dress with worm castings once, and feed with barley seed tea roughly 3-4 times. If you ever feel the compost is lacking, microbe reinforcements in the form of a compost tea is the answer.

Without compost (microbes) nutrients can just be in the soil unable for the plant to take up, unless they're in a soluble form. Adding more may not help. So things like compost and malted barley seeds that make nutrients available for plant uptake are used to keep plants happy.

Btw I havn't used a ph/EC meter in many many years. As long as your water is in a reasonable range your good. Compost and the buffering of calcium (lime, oyster shell, crab shell and so on) will regulate ph unless something is crazy out of whack. And EC monitering is pretty much useless in an organic soil grow.
 
@Shredder I've been used to a ph of 7.2 and EC of 7, averages. Hydro grows, rockwool and coco.
I ran one where the EC was 10. Not knowing what this '10' was I had to do a lot of transporting of my regular 7 water with me.
Nasty chalky sediment.
In Scotland I know they have very soft water which can be put into car batteries.
Soft water having it's own problems. Fun times when I first found that low EC water causes ph fluctuations.
For the money, to me, it's worth getting to know your water.
Can't always trust your water company.
In an organic situation I'd be collecting rain water.
An ideal situation I'd be on rain water and sunlight, the carbon footprint of the weed industry is going to be huge.
 
phattpiggie said:
@Shredder I've been used to a ph of 7.2 and EC of 7, averages. Hydro grows, rockwool and coco.
I ran one where the EC was 10. Not knowing what this '10' was I had to do a lot of transporting of my regular 7 water with me.
Nasty chalky sediment.
In Scotland I know they have very soft water which can be put into car batteries.
Soft water having it's own problems. Fun times when I first found that low EC water causes ph fluctuations.
For the money, to me, it's worth getting to know your water.
Can't always trust your water company.
In an organic situation I'd be collecting rain water.
An ideal situation I'd be on rain water and sunlight, the carbon footprint of the weed industry is going to be huge.
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I've actually grown indoors with water with a ph of 9+. The water had a lot of magnesium in it. Like you said as long as I knew what it was I took steps in that regard. Things like a lot of molasses, fish hydroslate, and in the soil, bio char, and em1 ( a biological innoctculate) All will lower the ph to a more acceptable level. Btw bio char will make a EC meter spin like a top, lol. The grow did pretty well, but eventually I got a reverse osmosis filter and life became much simplier.
 
We're on well water. Will check PH (using strips a neighbour gave me, which show an expiration date in 2006. Probably still OK, right?). Currently have 5 plants in fabric pots, 2 under CMH lights and 3 outside. Plus 15 clones in a cloner, bubbling away with some water fortified with some nutes I found in the garage from last year. Not ideal, but I'm just playing around.

So, with the 15 clones, I've had an idea that maybe someone in here can validate: Snow tire season starts in 6 or 7 weeks, but it'll be warm enough to grow in the garage for awhile. I'm planning on letting the clones grow til they are 18" or so and them switch them to flower, with a plan on getting one or two large buds from each. I'm not aiming for trees, just a few buds.
 
Sale of Halogen lights are about to be banned in the uk....
Im wondering if this affects hps or mh lights...
May be forced to go led...
 
Are you sure it`s halogen and not incandescent ?
Either way they are very different lights, so that would be a No, HPS and MH would be called as such if they were going to ban them.
 
Kellya86 said:
May be forced to go led...
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Come on in, the water's fine! :sunbathing:

Used MH in the 1990's. LEDs are so much easier. Love the Amare. Game over. Before that, used a popular, lower wattage lamp based on earlier tech (and got lower yields). Consider a lamp featuring COB (Chips on Board) LEDs. A mix of both types is popular. White light (no need for the weird, old magenta spectrum).

COBs produce a phenomenal amount of light. Difficult to believe - a bit of yellow film so bright you can't look into it. :shocked: They produce significant heat, not nearly as much as an MH, but you can't isolate a heat-generating ballast. (Wonder if something similar is technologically possible?)
 
Disrupt said:
COBs produce a phenomenal amount of light. Difficult to believe - a bit of yellow film so bright you can't look into it. :shocked: They produce significant heat, not nearly as much as an MH, but you can't isolate a heat-generating ballast. (Wonder if something similar is technologically possible?)
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Quoted for truth. If you can find a way to manage away the somewhat added heat, these are gonna save you a small fortune. If I were a cultivator, I'd be finding a way to make COB work. However, this is typically for the more DIY and tech savvy folk, last I checked there weren't ready to use retail COB solutions. That may since have changed, however.
 
herbivore21 said:
However, this is typically for the more DIY and tech savvy folk, last I checked there weren't ready to use retail COB solutions. That may since have changed, however.
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No more. Amare isn't the only reputable retailer. COB's DIY origins keeps the retailers honest. A bit like desktop computers. You can buy the parts and assemble it yourself, or you can pay a fee to someone more skilled and experienced to do it for you.
 
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