Hi everyone! I followed the easy organic soil recipe from ITG and I LOVE it! The first time around I was all worried about pH and adjusting this and that! Now all I do is water every once in a while and the plants look totally healthy. Before my plants looked awful! Just had to give that props because this is carefree growing. I didn't add the rock dust, and I should have because my mixture doesnt drain well, but so long as I don't over water the plants seem to like it. I will add the rock dust soon though. _____________________________________ The Question At Hand I really like the ease of this organic soil. Hydro seems to be the way to go if your looking for big yield, but I'm also in it for the quality. Don't want anything giant either for the time being, just want to build experience. Right now I have a 4x4 tent, with a 600 hps for flowering. Been doing CFL veg's in there too. My question is what is the best way for me to maximize yield and quality, short of adding c02, with what I have? I'm willing to maybe invest in a small mom/veg/clone area? Should I just scrog the 4x4 and 600w? Stealth isn't too much of an issue, but I don't want too much of a giant crazy op. All this makes me learn towards scrog. What if I just scrog 3 plants? If I scrog in 3 gal buckets, what's a way to deal with water? I was thinking maybe put blocks under the buckets, and let them drain into a tray. When watering I could use a shop vac to suck out excess water, or possibly let it evaporate and make humidity if I need it? I just want to have really high quality and maximize my yield preferably with something as care free as organic soil. Perpetual ideas are a big plus. Input?
I hope you get some answers for this. I'm a newb and am just in the research phase of organic growing. I wish there was a beginners guide to organic growing that detailed soil mixtures and set ups. In the mean time, I just learn from you guy's posts.
What size pots are you using? This matters even more with organic soil because we can't just increase the dose of our nutrients just by adding more like you would with the bottle. Upgrading your hps light to a 1000 watt light would increase yield for you a little bit also.
Right now I'm in 3 gallon buckets. The only thing about 1000w is I don't know if I could control the heat well enough with that. As far as my mix, it's just InTheGarden's easy soil mix, but I didn't even add the rock dust. I highly reccomend it. I've barely paid attention to my plants, and they ook great the whole time. Nice healthy green. I can't wait to taste the smoke in about 5 weeks I'm thinking maybe 4! If I post some pics will that entice some more answers
The 1000 watt lights do put out a lot of heat. In the spring you would need AC to offset the heat from one of those, but the increase in yield that you get from it would pay off in the end. You also may want to look at increasing your pot size. Go with at least 10 gallon pots.
Yes. I have 3 tents of that size and I am running 1000 watt lights in all of them. I veg with my 600 mh, but then switch to 1000 watt hps for flower because its much more intense than a 600. Even if you only increase by 1 oz per plant, its still worth it. I have hit about 24 oz in a 4x4 so far between 4 plants by using my 1000 watt hps. That is probably even a little bit low for yield. That was only with using 10 gallon pots. I am using in the gardens recipe also, so I have since switched to 20 gallon pots in my 4x4 in hopes of a higher yield. I know that I maxed the 10 gallon pots as far as yield goes. But yes, it is easily worth it to upgrade to a 1000 watt hps. You don't really need it until flower, but even if your gain is only an oz per plant, its still worth it.
If I was scrogging 3 plants under a 600w I would use 7 gal pots, 10 gal would work fine as well (that's what I'm currently using) If you liked ITG's thread then you'd love Noobwannab's swicking thread in the same forum. If you're into organics then you should go with a self-irrigating system. Organic soil works best when it's kept at the same moisture levels at all times, wet/dry cycles can cause some microbes to go dormant. This makes it important to have a good amount of aeration amendment in your soil, I go with 1:1:1½ peat/compost/perlite. These saucers are pretty deep and durable: http://www.hydroponics.net/c/577 and they come big enough for any size fabric pot. Inch, inch and a half of perlite on the bottom , sit the fabric pot on top, and now you can water from the bottom up, or top down without having to deal with runoff. I just did this with a 25 gal pot in a planter under a 600w and I was amazed at how well the perlite transferred the water in the basin to the pot, and on up. My pots would be wet a good 4" up from the bottom, and damp above that. I also gave teas from the top with no problem. The perlite aerates the water perfectly as it transfers it to the pot, so no worries about root rot or suffocating the roots. Mycorrhizae... noticable difference in size, growth rates, overall health. There are a lot of different species of myco, and some products come with a bunch of different mycos for general gardening. Glomus intraradices is the species that is specific to cannabis and Xtreme gardening sells it. http://www.xtreme-gardening.com/products/mykos (I don't like to promote a brand unless I've had success with it) Silica/silicon... also made a noticable difference for me. There are organic sources for it that are preferred by the purists, but I used the bottled stuff. Pro-tekt from Dynagro and Rhino Skin from Advanced have worked well for me. Are you going to start a wormbin? They're ridiculously easy to take care of, nearly impossible to kill, and they provide the best compost. How about teas? I'm by no means an expert or trying to come off as one, I'm definitely amateur but I just love talking about my favorite hobby with like-minded people. Sorry for rambling like that
Thansk a bunch not sure. Just chopped most of my crop down, went for a heady high on this chop gonna let the rest go for a week maybe. When I start getting ready again I'll be back to read your post for sure. 600w went out the other week dk if I mentioned so had to finish with less than 200w of CFL in the wrong spectrum lol. Needless to say I was pissed and my buds ended up fluffy for it. They were going to be dense so it's like a crazy mix of oh hey this is dense but also leafy? Im sure some of you guys can imagine. Also it's crazy, all three plants are the same strain but they're pretty different from each other. Supposedly a S-I hybrid, but one plant was dominant indica for sure and it was the smallest, but the densest, fattest nugs. The other two are sativa dom for sure, being tall and scraggly. Not as much yield as I expected, the first chop was about a quarter pound wet. I still have most of one plant (far behind the others?) and a little on the other two. I'm expecting 1.25 - 2 ounces only off three plants. Not bad. And I can tell from how good the microwave dry was that the slow dry and cured buds will taste phenominal.