So here's the big question.... Is my soil too 'hot' or too weak. Im just unsure. MY BASE MIX sat for 4 weeks to start 1/3 peat 1/3 perlite 1/3 worm castings 1 cup dolomite lime per cubic foot 4 cups Azomite per cubic foot 2-3 cups per cubic foot of amendments: 2x - kelp 1x - dr earth tomato, vegetable, herb fertilizer 1x - alfafla 1x - neem cake meal 1x - crab meal 0.5x - Indonesian guano 0.5x - Jamaican guano basically a modified "Easy Organic Soil Mix For Beginners" by InTheGrarden. also i probably made it on the light side to start. also i had some green sand in original mix. my watering habbits are usually every day or so. i use about 1/2gal of RO water at least per 5gal pot. i use 7gal,10gal, and 15gal pots for larger plants too. i will add that i usually add every week or two to the flower room pots a tea of molasses, worm castings, and sometimes buffalo compost. so i proceeded to reuse this soil right away noticing every use was better and better. i started 're-amending' after the first cycle or two. then proceeded to 're-amend' what i thought was lightly, after every grow cycle. i have done this about half a dozen times or so with the same soil. i take four 5 gallon buckets of used soil and add: one 5gal. bucket of worm castings so this is about 3.33 cubic feet by this point(+sometimes more perlite if i think its needed) i then add: 0.9 cup dolomite lime 0.9 cup dr earth tomato, vegetable, herb fertilizer 1 cup kelp meal 0.5 cup alfalfa meal 0.5 cup neem cake meal 0.5 cup crab meal 0.25 cup Indonesian guano 0.25 cup Jamaican guano i water with some molasses and worm casting tea when i can/remember before letting it sit for anywhere from 1 day to 2-3 weeks. about a year later... at least 6 or so times of recycling i am seeing problem in the veg room.... i have had well rooted clones going in this mix full-on since its first cycle. and i have had nothing but perfect 'vegging' plants and beautiful mothers for 3/4 of the year easily. now i am having yellow stripes form on the leaves. looks to me like its getting too 'hot' from my strict 're-amending' methods. Or do i have the schools of thought completely backwards. am i seeing lacking of nutes over time? PH problem? missing 'something' or 'things' specific? how can i tell for sure? next step in re-using this soil? i cant help but second guess because i just don't know for sure. what should i do exactly?... dilute with a known good basic organic soil mix? am i missing something crucial? some help would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance!! -shodan p.s. these ladys are bent/trained over just so you know. also, i have another strain that seems to take it a bit better than this one. still does the same thing eventually when it starts to fill out the containers root space. also i notice on the 'tolerant' strain sometimes the edges of the leaves curl up a bit in flower. i should say that my yields in general have been great. no real noticeable decrease in amounts or flavor/potency. just the plants goin in from the veg room to flower arent as good looking as desired. the flowers seem to be growing well enough, but the leaves seem to be dying off earlier and in general looking less luscious. there is something up i know it.
I see you're adding amendments during recycle but don't see you adding anything in the way of vermicompost - It's all about the vermicompost and not so much about the nutritional feeds. I'd try working some good quality worm compost into the mix - you've surely got enough food going on. From my signature, and some of the best advice LD ever gave - "You cannot amend your way to a viable soil. Get the Compost/EWC dialed in and you won't have many questions that need an answer. Lumperdawgz" J
Thanks for the reply jerry. I guess I thought my addition of strait worm castings each 'recyclye' would be a good vermicompost. If not, what would you recommend? Think my soil is too hot, or weak? Or not vermied enough to make it work properly?
Are these 'store bought' EWC or homegrown? I don't add as much, but my vermi is pretty dense and rich. Is that .9cup of dolo /cf or for the entire 3.33cf? pH, perhaps, but for sure it seems you're shorting the mix in calcium. When I re amend, I add a cup of lime/10 gallons of used mix and usually some gypsum also for plenty of calcium. I've found that the mix is good for about 3 years till the peat gets too broken down to aerate well. I really think it's a calcium shortage, but easy enough to check. Top dress a couple with either dolomite or gypsum and see if it clears up in a month or so. Everything else looks good. Wet
i am not doing homegrown castings as of yet, but are in the near future plans for sure. i use the Wiggle Worm Soil Builder 30lb bags. they seem to work pretty well. seems like i could plant the ladies directly into the worm castings if i wanted to. they are mild, but do seem to carry good microbials and what not. my soil has always presented itself to be doing the right things until recently. definitely fresh homemade ewc would be much better in the long run in many ways. anyway... so you use over double the amount of dolomite lime than i seem to, eh. that could be my problem.... i have always wondered if i was over or under doing it with the lime. recently as well i was reading about the internet seeing what i could do.. i thought maybe not enough Calcium would possibly be the reason. what about oyster shell dust? or do you think gypsum would do better that dolomite, or oyster? thanks for the reply by the way! any other input would be great too. -shodan
I personally am not crazy about dolomite (because of high magnesium content), so if you have another method of increasing your calcium input, like gypsum or oyster shell flour, I'd recommend that. Or you could soak egg shells in vinegar for 2 weeks to extract the calcium. Or crab/shrimp/lobster meal. But like wet, I'd recommend trying something calcium-related to see if calcium is the issue.
Another thought - is this re-amended mix draining properly? Often a heavy/dense soil simply won't be able to provide roots with sufficient oxygen and this will show itself as yellowing or generally slow growing plants. J
No experience with oyster shell flour. Not available locally and no way am I going to spring for $30+ shipping on a $12 item. I use both dolomite and gypsum at the same time. Dolo for pH and Ca and Mg, and gypsum for more Ca and some sulfur. For the most part, Ca is Ca, is Ca. Get what you can source easily and cheaply. Here, dolomite lime is ~$4.50/40lb bag. Gypsum is ~$15/40lb bag and calcitic lime is ~$15/40lb bag. There are other sources of Ca for sure, like oyster shell flour and lobster shell meal(?)/flour(?) that are also under $20 for a 40lb bag. The problem arises when they aren't available locally and you have to pay shipping on that 40lb bag. Your $$$ and your call if they are worth the difference. Wet
cool, well... i am going to add more lime and a bit more crab meal maybe for starters. im am going out to grab some gypsum as well and start cycling that in. so to reconfirm my suspicions... nobody for sure doesnt think maybe my soil is too 'hot' or 'weak'? ph makes sense to me, but i still dont want to rule anything out. also i usually add a bit of perlite every once in while to make up for the ewc additions each cycle. i should be ok on aeration,but it could help possibly to keep it in mind because normally i dont really worry much about it. thanks again everyone!!
That stuff is useless unless it's for chickens. I take it you're talking about chicken grit, right? I tried some 4 years ago and still finding chunks of it. Way too coarse to break down in a meaningful way for our needs. I think Jerry tried some also with the same lack of results. Oyster shell flour is just that, about the consistency of flour. In parts of Fl, they make roads of crushed oyster shell. Crushed limestone too. If it's not super fine, it just doesn't breakdown all that fast. Like in our lifetime, fast. Wet
So it seems as if Ca is certaintly a good place to start. I have a few concerns regaurding the whole concept of reamending and recycling soil the way I have described at the start of the thread.... I am concerned since I do mostly the same thing every cycle or two months. Will this soil more likely get too rich for my plants or be lacking in certain nutrition over time? What is to be expected? What are good ways to tell if I am using too much dry fertilizer and other soil amendments or too little. Obviously I noticed my plants responding differently. But how can I tell if is from over abundance or deficiency? Some know how from a similar experience or methods used could be helpful. Typically I've read that similar soil mixes will live well for plants indoors for about 3 years or so before the peat breaks down too much and what not. So really I'm just fishing for more info on the concept. So I can trust my gut feelings on the matter. Thanks all. -shodan
You're absolutely right Wetdog - I still find the same sized pieces of oyster shell in my soil 3 years later. Its like taking pebbles, adding them to your soil mix and expecting them to break down - it isn't happening. This is why you'll find old shells at the beach - this stuff (Ca) isn't water soluble. Useless as a soil amendment, except for maybe (heavy) drainage... j
The best way to know what's in your soil (or not) is to have it tested. There are many companies out there that do this, or if you live in an area close to a university with an agricultural program, they can do it too. This is the company that I use. I utilize them because their tests contain more information than what's offered by my local university extension. Cheaper, too (25$ for a standard soil test), with very fast results (they email them to you, usually within 4-5 working days after receiving the sample). http://www.loganlabs.com/index.html Being able to effectively interpret the information contained in the soil report, and determine HOW much of WHAT to add, is a whole different story. The lab also offers consultation on this type of thing, but it costs more (+50$?). I can help with this if you decide to have your soil tested. As an afterthought, I've included a link that deals with the Cation Exchange Capacity of soil. It's where a soil's "fertility" lies. http://www.soilminerals.com/Cation_Exchange_Simplified.htm
so i went ahead and got myself a soil test. looks like my percentages are off a bit according to that cation exchange report states you posted to have me read. looks like i have plenty of food in general. so my mix is probably a bit too much for some of my ladies? also it does seem that the Ca is a bit under par as speculated already. also i have too much Magnesium it seems probably do to the lime i have been using. so im looking for suggestions. my ratios are off a bit presumably, but im not sure how to remedy exactly the best way. i mean i need to kick up the Ca and lay off the lime for a bit for sure as far as i can tell. should i dilute the soil and then amend to correct the ratio imbalance... this is just one of my own ideas, but im not sure. any help or suggestions would be great. also great cation exchange info. ive read it a few time now and probably will a few more to make sure it sinks in. seem like a valuable piece of info. thanks!!! well i will post a pic of the saturated paste report i got. see what ya think. both samples are from my soil collective. sample 1 is a sample from a few buckets after plants lived in them for a couple of months or so. sample 2 is my re-amended soil as described above. -shodan
My guess is aeration/drainage problems, as suggested before. That CEC link...save it. It's one of the more valuable links I've come across since discovering this passion. When you have a good grasp on CEC and its part in soil fertility you can manipulate things a bit and still have an understanding of where they're at, in relation to your ideal progression rate, though nothing beats experience in a subject.
Yo sho', I just took a look at your soil report. As you have already surmised, your soil needs some help. Calcium, phosphorous, and trace elements especially. I'm getting ready to leave for the weekend, but when I get back, I'll start doing some calculations. In order to suggest amounts of "x" or "y" for amending, I'll need to know how much soil we're dealing with (cubic feet), and what a gallon of it weighs. Try to be as accurate as possible, this is REALLY important. I'll get back to you on Monday or Tuesday.
@shodan- I've a bit of bad news. While I was showering and then packing to leave for this weekend, I had a thought about the soil report that you got. It's a paste report, not a standard soil report. While the two DO contain similar information (almost identical), the paste report for some reason does NOT include the CEC (or M.E.) of the soil sample. Without that value, I can't calculate shit! Did the lab suggest a paste report? I feel partially responsible for this mix up. I should have been more clear as to what KIND of test to get. So basically we're back at square one. There might be a SMALL chance that the lab would have the CEC info from your test sample, but I doubt it. The chemicals used in the two processes are different, and if they were testing for CEC in the paste test, I would imagine it would be included in the report. It won't hurt to ask...