Hey buds...in my last grow I felt that my pot wasn't aerating fast enough so I wanted to get some advice as what to add to my soil mix in order to aerate it better. I know there are things like vermiculite, perlite that I could get but since this is the organic section I know that there is something better I could add. I've heard rice is good for aerating soil...is this true? All advice is appreciated!
Even bumping up the percentage of peat will help considerably. I don't have any specific "aeration" ammendments in my mix in my soil and I'm just fine. I don't use a specific recipe when I mix - just like in my kitchen. When I'm mixing my soil, I run it thru a hardware cloth screen. If I feel like its too heavy, I throw in a little more peat until it feels "right". It works good for me, anyhow. I start out with premium compost and vermicompost products and ammendments, and then I just add Pro-Mix until I feel its the right consistency. I'm sure that some will say I need to add aeration stuff, but I don't feel like I even need them. Jerry. Edit - I do feel that my success is most probably due to the high amounts of premium compost and vermicompost in my mix. Its a big part of my mix. The other "ammendments" are a very small percentage. Like I said, then I just add Pro-Mix till I think the actual soil consistency is well drained/aerated.lots of good compost/vermicompost. Its stupid easy.
Grim, if you are heavy handed with the watering can, you may want to add more aeration amendments. I do 50/50 peat perlite, with a dash of coarse sand, and then mix that 50/50 with compost. Next time, I'm going to mix a little heavier by adding 25% EWC by volume, and cut the perlite/switching to lava rock. I prefer to water less often if I can.
I agree hope. Before I was cutting my soil mix with some FF light warrior I had laying around and wanted to use up but it has coco in it along with spagnum peat and I felt that it was holding way too much water. poppy- I am sort of heavy handed with the watering....I always water with 10-20% run-off. Good replies...I'll def look into lava rock but I was also wondering if their were any household items like rice that I could use that would get the job done without making a trip to the store. Correct me if i'm wrong but lava rock us super porous-y which has great water retentive properties....wouldn't that make it a bad choice for aeration?
yes lava rock is very porous it does not hold water afaik and it's definitely a solid aeration amendment, you wont go wrong with it. also provides iron with its benefits and is difficult to over do. it's definitely a recommended amendment, although i've not used it. You're thinking about rice hulls i think. if you want to use some old rice in your grow, it has to do with cooking rice and setting it out in the forest to accumulate microbes, then it must be composted. but I am not too sure about the process, i'd need to look more into it... the reason the hulls are a useful amendment because they are basically the shell once the rice is removed it is a very airy material that works great as an aeration amendment because if its versatility- it can be used in worm bins and in soil mixes for best effect
This last little indoor grow I did w/o runoff. I always thought I was doing something special treating my past organi-ponic grows like hydro, with drain table and all. This go around, I gave them the water they needed, no more, no less, and they came out tastin like maple syrup. Musta been all the molasses. I know a guy who grows organically in mop buckets with no drain holes. It's definitely not something I would do or recommend, but in his situation and with his experience he can pull it off without a hitch every time.
Coir is hydrophilic. If it is mixed into a soil mix, it helps wick water throughout the mix. Like anything else, if you use too much you pay the price (Law of too's). If you look at my soil mix, coir is there but not a real major player. I would never grow in a 50/50 pumice/coir mix. If nothing else coir has a lower CEC than spanghum. However I think it would work well with spanghum. We'll see when I get my grow on.
in my view coir is a great stand alone medium if it's amended correctly. I've used coco/compost/perlite with great results, but I was also using botanicare for veg and age old bloom/humboldt for flower... i think the benefits of coco can also be seen with organic amendments instead of bottled nutes
Howdy Grim. I couldn't let this pass twice. I thought the first time you were just short handing perhaps but now with the second time... Rice hulls is the areation component you are thinking, not regular off-the-shelf rice. The rice hulls are not commonly found in most GPS locations but they are easily sourced online. I'll go counter thought process here and suggest that you ditch the vermiculite and add additional perlite - perhaps 25% by measure (cup, qt, handfull, etc). If I'm reading your Q correctly you are looking for an easily sourced, inexpensive, and suitable alternative. Perlite may not be popular nor may it be "best" but it's a very viable alternative for a grow cycle of a few months. The one drawback specifically for perlite and one that maps directly to your situation is the amount of watering you do with run off. One of the biggest complaints about perlite is that it stratifies in the soil settling in the upper layer and often floating on the top. That's just the characteristic of perlite. Anyway ... ... no rice, rice hulls
Well I just scored! I found an old bag of granular AZOMITE in my garage. About 30-40 lbs worth from Down To Earth. When I bought it I didn't want it at the time as I figured the breakdown time would be to slow for my standard indoor grow cycle. But now! It will be a part of my soil mix as well as my composts. Since I plan a no till, 3-5 year running system, it should work well. For aeration as well as mineralizing my mix. It even had a very good list. 0-0-0.2 Soluble Potash (K, O) .2% Calcium (Ca) 1.85% Magnesium (Mg) .5% Chlorine (Cl) .1% Sodium (Na) .1% Derived from natural volcanic ash (Hydrates Sodium Calcium Aluminosilicate). 1-2 Tbs. per gallon of indoor soil. It's natural!
Spot on like always P. I was thinking regular rice would do the job...didn't know about this rice hull. I thought of regular white rice at first because it's almost omni-present in my household. Your right, I was looking for a cheap way to aerate my soil. I actually went into my local hydro store and bought a bag of the FF perlite. I agree with you that perlite floats to the top...I think it was also why my pots weren't drying out well the last grow around because I kept finding a mass of perlite on the top of my pot. This time around I'll try and make sure there's extra around the base and in the middle. Replies much appreciated!
Yes, ditch the vermiculite. You need to mix/blend the perlite in with your mix. It sounds like you are layering it and that's not the way it should be used, or any other aeration ingredient you use (pumice, rice Hulls). What good is a layer of anything if the mix above or below is too dense? It's that dense mix that needs to be lightened up and layers don't accomplish that. A bottom layer doesn't do anything either, other than clog with silt. I speak from long ago experience on that score. Wet