Soil recycling thread

howmanymoreyrs

Thanks for starting this thread. There are any number of benefits on 'recycling' potting soil with the main one being that it makes sense. Things making sense is important in my view of the world.

Basically, here's what I've been doing for a couple of years and have gotten a dozen or so medical growers around here to put it into their process and all agree that the potting soils only get better over time.

Once the plants are harvested, I remove the root ball (intact) from the pots and they're hit with 4x strength of EM-1 solution which breaks down the root hairs but leaves the aerobic microbe colonies pretty much intact. Besides breaking down the dying/dead root hairs, the EM-1 also provides food for the microbe colonies so that they're expanding and not dying.

After about 4-6 weeks, the root balls are no longer intact and at that point I add 1/3 the amount of seed meal that I would use on a new soil. I don't believe that there's much need to reapply minerals because these take years and years to break down.

Before this soil is used, I add in some organic rice hulls because it takes them about 4-6 months to break down so when that occurs I know that on the next flip I'll want to add more EWC and thermal compost with the appropriate amount of pumice (50-50), regular amount (1.5 - 2 cups) of the seed meal mix, etc.

I then hit the recycled potting soil with a good solid AACT and let the soil batch sit for several weeks/months.

If I could I would like to offer you a suggestion on using the Rubbermaid products for this process, you will have far better results and little chance of causing problems in the soil if you drill some holes all over the tub to allow for aeration. This will require that you pay closer to the hydration levels while you're recycling the soil but the end result will have been well worth the effort.

Thanks again for the thread!

LD

 

Nice post + rep to ya!!

 

LD, wondering if you will weigh in on this. I was accidentally successful recycling the soil from my winter grow. This was not an organic grow. Nutrients were supplied by plastic container. Yuk! I kept the root balls and all the soil as well, and just kinda helter-skelter had it sitting in a container. More as an act of frugalness than that of other purposeful intent. After a couple of months the root balls were pretty much gone except for what was left of the meristem. Anyway, I used this soil with all manner of vegetable seedlings and other gardening plants after it setting for about 3 mos and it was great. No problems with seedlings, germination etc. Having witnessed what happened to the root mass convinces me to do a much more controlled effort next time.

The questions I have are really related to keeping the soil conditioned while it is recycling itself. What do we look for in the sense of molds or fungi that might not be good ones and should we stir it up once in a while for aeration etc.? How moist should it be kept expressed as a “wag”? I was misting mine with a spray bottle about every 4 – 6 weeks or so and that seemed to be fine but that was just a wag as well.

And finally… I'm guessing you'll throw down on me for this…gulp… but would you offer an opine on adding something like a Bonide Compost Starter (kelp and fish meal content) in lieu of not having anything else to kick start it.

Thanks.

 

Possum

Bonide Compost Starter is a very good product and will give you great results.

Keeping the soil about as moist as you do during the growing/flowering cycle will insure that the microbial colonies will be able to live and thrive to a certain degree.

As far as fungi that you might see, as long as it doesn't smell bad I wouldn't be all that concerned about fungi strands or even small mushrooms. It's the smell of the soil that will give you the best idea that things are working correctly.

The reason that I started using the lactobacillus mother culture products is that when a plant is growing it is a complete eco-system. When you cut the plant the real life force of the plant, the leaves specifically, are no longer moving nutrients down to the root zone in the form of exudes resulting the roots dying and rotting. The root system contains the overwhelming majority of nutrients that were fed by the soil foodweb. When these roots begin to die off they will decompose or rot. By adding the lacto strains they will consume the roots and eventually they will eat themselves into extinction.

By applying the aerobic microbes via an AACT the dead and dying lacto colonies are now a food source resulting in a soil that is richer than what you started out with.

OTOH, doing it with Bonide or a similar product will get you to the same end result but it's just a different process. Probably easier in the whole scheme of things actually.

HTH

LD

 

Farmers recycle their soil.

And I recycle mine - I boost last years soil with wormcasts and horse shit, and some ground eggshell. Seems to work OK

 

howmanymoreyrs

They certainly will break down using other methods like Possum's method of doing a modified thermal composting process (aerobic).

The reason that I began using the EM-1 mother culture technology is that the lactobacillus strains will prevent rotting and will speed up the process but it's not necessary as Possum noted.

There is another process (and probably a better method) and that is to grow your own lactobacillus culture that would include what are called 'Beneficial Indigenous Micro-Organisms (BIM) developed by Gil Carandang.

Here's his basic method:

This process has several advantages over using EM-1 and it's free to boot.

HTH

LD

 

New to the board, great info, I was just speaking to a friend that recyles his soil, he runs the used soil/rootball through a wood chipper and then starts to reseason the soil. Would you recommend this? or do you see any advantages/disadvantages in doing so/

Thanks for the great info

 

Where I live there's a recycling center, and you can get a whole truck full of rich recycled soil for mad cheap. Like 20$...

 

So i'm wondering about soil recycling and have been reading for a few hours now...

If this were to be done on a large scale (collection from multiple sources, a great variety of both soil and soilless mixtures) what could be done to clean it of any bad bugs without destroying the colonies of good bacteria and fungi?

I'm thinking of putting my grodan into the chipper/shredder this time instead of manually ripping it apart. What about adding used coco to this mix?

 

Me thinks the worse problem you would encounter to figure out if sourcing "soil" and "mulch" from unknown sources would be, "What's in the soil that someone has applied (ferts, cides, etc) that might "poison" things"? I'd be leary of grabbing soil from an unverifiable source.

Just a thought.

 

howmanymoreyrs

RE: Lacto Culture

A gallon would be a good amount to make. It would give you a number of options including making bokashi bran which is a very good soil amendment.

RE: Aeration

Your soil will be fine without the aeration holes if you turn the soil every couple of days. It's just that with the holes you can go with turning it every 7-10 days. Not a big deal if your do the work-around.

HTH

LD

 

howmanymoreyrs

Bokashi is beneficial for a number of reasons though you don't have to apply bokashi bran, per se, as you can apply the BIM that you're planning on brewing up. You'll end up with the same deal, i.e. lactobacillus strains.

In recycling your potting soils the roots will rot which is a result of anaerobic microbes that will cause you problems. Lactobacillus strains will ferment the dead and dying roots which then becomes food for the aerobic microbes.

Adding lactobacillus cultures to your soil, in moderation, has the same effect on roots that die off (a normal part of a plant's cycle) but more importantly is that these specific bacteria strains produce lactic acid.

Lactic acid and citric acids accelerate the breakdown of the minerals added to your soil - particularly soft rock phosphate. It is true that the plant produces both lactic and citric acids through its exudes but having a strong colony to 'pre-digest' these minerals can move that process forward fairly easily.

There's a ton of other reasons to use lactobacillus strains besides the ones that you asked about specifically.

HTH

LD

 

howmanymoreyrs

Chunkdaddyo has a new grow journal testing out a fermented fertilizer mix I made up and he was kind enough to begin running test which I really appreciated. Chunk's Organic "Test" Grow and Other Random Shenanigans

Basically I used the EM-1 process with a couple of minor tweaks.

LD