Soil Vs Hydro

[botanist77]

A Friend is Deciding whether to cultivate with soil or hydro.
Hes tried both but had to stop.

I think that soil can have more taste, but then hydro grows fast. Does any one know exactly how faster it grows with doing everything perfect(maybe almost 1 month?), ..regardless of how long it says on the seed packet of the time it takes to flower.


If growing with soil and you fed it organic nutrients, and good brand nutrients from the pipeshop would it grow fast, but not as as fast as hydro with everything at optimum conditon.

Thanks

[stoned budda]

as far as a month,,,, never seen any weed or hydro system that would produce smokable weed........ive akways prefered hydro just cause to me it seems you have more controll over it and ive had less insect problems, and its a cleaner setup. also regardless of what people say i think hydroponics can be made quite stealthy.

[CoreyP]

Well soil or hydro has nothing to do with how many insects. But about which grows faster, aeroponics is the leader for sure. Hydro does tend to grow a little faster true, but only if you know how to do it. Ive seen soil produce more than hydro setups and vice versa. Look, you will get as many different opinions and there are strains of weed. Soil or hydro is a personal preference. One isnt better or worse than the other. Just choose what fits your needs and preferences and youll be good. Dont have this idea that hydro grows bigger or better just because it involves all these pumps and tubes and stuff. A good soil grow is just as good as a good hydro grow. I grow soil because well, i just want to really. I like doing everything organic. I like feeling the soil. I like mixing the soil, i like how it looks. But most of all i like the taste! Theres nothing like some good organic soil grown bud. But later on im defiantly going to look into an aeroponic setup, i think that will be an interesting endeavor.

[stoned budda]

like you say corryp its personal choice, both a\have good and bad points, i love my hydroponics, the only reson i said that about the insects is in my case it seems i can keep my hydro system more sterile and clean thats all maybe its just my self convincing myself........................peace

[Sage of Salvia]

I grow only in hydroponic systems. Some of my friends that grow, and actually know what they are talking about swear I grow in soil. It took me long enough to learn how to do it, so I'm not going to tell you.

Soil:It does taste better.
Hydroponics:It does grow faster.

[Dport]

I've done both and stayed with soil. If you are looking to max out the yield and make some money go with hydro. If you want to pull down a few choice tasting oz's for you and a couple of family members etc. you can't beat simple ass soil.

[Help_Needed]

Growing in hydro is faster because it takes less time to veg. Alternately you let it veg for the same time as you would in soil and end up with a much larger plant, and therefore a larger yield. The time it takes for the flowers to mature is not significantly affected by going hydro. If the strain takes 8 weeks, it takes 8 weeks.

One last thought - All things being equal, the quality of light you're using will play a much larger roll in both growth speeds and final yields than your growing medium will.

[botanist77]

Originally Posted by stoned budda

as far as a month,,,, never seen any weed or hydro system that would produce smokable weed........ive akways prefered hydro just cause to me it seems you have more controll over it and ive had less insect problems, and its a cleaner setup. also regardless of what people say i think hydroponics can be made quite stealthy.

Hey my bad for writing it hard to percieve. I didnt mean hydro results in 1 month budd.. What i meant was Soil would take almost one more month to be ready, than it would than a hydro setup. (so the overall time was like maybe 4 and half months for soil, while hydro 3 and a half months (just an example)

Thanks everyone!!

[pokernaut]

soil is easier, cheaper, more forgiving, and most of all, if done organically, tastes better.

[toastybiz]

The idea that soil is "easier" is a matter of perception and personal experience. Many hydro growers would tell you that it is very easy once you know what you are doing.

I think soil is more intuitive for most people because we've all grown something in soil before so we have a bit more of an innate sense of how it works, whereas hydro is a completely new concept for most folks so a steeper learning curve. And, true that hydro is less forgiving, so that learning curve has narrower tolerances.

FYI I'm a soil grower myself.

[Overmind1632]

^^ perfectly stated

Peronally, also I prefer soil

[ksaint]

Originally Posted by CoreyP

Well soil or hydro has nothing to do with how many insects.

I think you're wrong on this, i've found my soil plants to be much more susceptible to insects. It's also a lot harder to get rid of mites in soil versus hydro, thats what i've found at least. This makes sense that the insects would be more attracted to the soil vs hydroton. I've found soil to be much harder to control when it comes to deficiencies, insects, and overwatering/underwatering. Hydro did have a pretty big learning curve, but it really isn't to hard if you have half a brain. It's definitely a lot more maintenace but in the end i think it's well worth it. My hydros seemed like the grew damn near twice as fast as my one soil, this is partially because mites slowed my soil down quite a bit. If you think you're going to be growing for a while i would invest in a hydro system, and grow some soils as well. oh yea, don't get soil get cocoa coir, it's so much better than soil i can't even tell u, it's almost impossible to overwater since it has really good aearation and the roots will just absolutely explode, i'd recommend putting a few inches of hydroton at the bottom of your pots for drainage and even better aearation.

[DrBudGreengenes]

A Hydro grow will give the Illusion of a "Faster Grow" but not really so as a trip from the grow room into the Lab will reveal..
Take a "Cross section" cut from a branch.
Same strain,Same light, One grown Hydro and one grown in real soil mix ....
(Not a Peat or Coco based hydro System...it you add anything but water when you water......your growin Hydro 90% of weed is Hydro....just not all in a bucket of water )

Prepare a slide of each for the microscope.....
on the soil one you Will see that the cells are round for the most part.
on the Hydro one they are Ovals because they are full of water...that explains the "Illusion of a Larger plant"
dry them out and the soil one will weigh more....

[pokernaut]

yes, soil growing does have it's own set of drawbacks, but to paraphrase one of the grow books i read back in the 80s...

"with soil growing, when something goes wrong, you can see it coming and fix it in time whereas when things go bad in hydro, the happen instantly, and sometimes devastatingly so"

the same guides also stated that soil was "easier" because you basically just plant and water while you constantly have to measure PH & nute levels etc. with hydro.

i just prefer soil because that's the way nature does it, and the very best tasting weed i ever smoked was from a co-worker who created his own compost out of food scraps and blanded it with hyponex potting soil & ammendments. that shit tasted soooo clean and fresh! it convinced me.

the biggest advantage i can see to "fiddly" hydro growing is potentially greater yields.

[toastybiz]

Pokernaut, I agree. With soil you generally can get by with your pH being off by more than 0.5, but with hydro that will kill a plant quick. With hydro you have to get your cycle timing and nute levels dialed in or you are looking for big problems, but with soil you can miss a day of watering and all that will happen is your plants will droop a little, water 'em the next day and they pop right back. In that sense I personally find it "easier" as well, I just have heard enough hydro growers take issue with the idea of "easier" that I think it ends up boiling down to what you know and are willing to do.