Hey guys, so I had some inquiries I know you guys have had more experience with. So like i've been posting in mostly all my threads, i'm starting my first grow and i'm trying to go as organic as I can. I was in the advanced techniques forum and I found a post where Lumper was talking about Kelp extracts. Right now i'm set on using some of the roots organics line. Most of the products include Kelp extract - Ascophyllum nodosum. Is there such a thing as too much kelp extract to use in the mix? The reason i'm asking this is because since its my first grow i'm really not trying to break the bank, and i'm using this first time as experience. Roots has a product called "Extreme Serene" which is their kelp extract so since their other products already contain kelp can I forgo buying a kelp extract formula? And along the same lines i'm going to be using their "HPK" formula during the flowering portion which is 0-5-4 and I know phosphorous is important in flowering and roots also has a specific product called "HP2" which is 0-4-0. Since the "HPK" already has phosphorous in it as well as the grow and bloom formula i'm using can I also forgo the "HP2"? If not is there a better phosphorus component I can add like a fish emulsion? And lastly I took alot of people's recommendations on using Bio Ag and i received their VAM Activator...does anyone know how much I should use when taking my seedling and putting it in its first pot? All help is always appreciated.
The Roots organic line is great! Just use the "Extreme Serene" and never use more than 2-3 times what is says on the label -there's no need for any additional kelp supplements if you use extreme serene You can skip the "HP2" and use the bloom formula you already have And I like to use Roots Organic Oregonism as my Myco and bacteria booster Skip the fish emulsion, trust me also try adding some blackstrap molasses
I think kelp meal is better used if mixed into the soil before you start growing Liquid kelp is better after you start but you could top-dress with a little kelp meal mixed with compost if you wanted
You could always make you own 'kelp tea'. Put some kelp meal in a gallon of water and aerate the water to speed up 'brewing'.
Thanks for the responses bro's. Wetdog and stankie I will be using kelp teas for my next grow. I was so nervous about this being my first grow that I wanted to use something that was more dummy proof even though I have a feeling that using teas and meals wouldn't have been much harder at all in hindsight lol. TexRx thanks for the recommendation...do you think Extreme Serene is essential to add into the mix? Also did you do foliar feeding? Since this is my first go around I didn't want to do foliar spraying especially with the extreme serene since I would be feeding them in veg and right now i'm doing 24/0 through my veg cycle and I don't want to end up burning my plants. All advice I can get from you about the roots organics line along with others is appreciated.
Grimloxk, At 20 bucks + per quart, I can offer a less expensive alternative if you're so inclined. For under 20 bucks, you can make 4 gallons of a concentrate liquid kelp with this product. It is an ascophyllum nodosum soluble powder that will do everything the "Extreme Serene" does, without having to pay good money for mostly water. I'm not knocking the Extreme Serene product by any means, I'm just trying to give you options to get liquid kelp for a helluva better deal. Any kelp is better than no kelp, but 4 gallons is better than 1 quart for about the same money. The above link also has other great deals on organic fertilizers/amendments and is truly worth saving to your bookmarks. I've used their soluble kelp powder, soluble humic/fulvic powder, sul-po-mag and their liquid fish hydrolysate (23 bucks per gallon delivered). HTH chunk
Extreme Serene is high quality but it's also high priced - I honestly don't use that one because of the price I would go with "any kelp is better than no kelp" These days, a good hydro or garden center will have a decent kelp at any price. Kelp meal is a little harder for me to find around here.... If you can get some soluable kelp to make some tea, that sounds good - an option I don't usally have (yet) thanks for your interest ADDED: Roots Organic is expensive for the most part. It's high quality but I only buy their "OregonIsm" myco and bacteria booster. As far as the rest of their line, I can find comparable items at a much better price. Be a smart shopper. You can find quality at a lower price; you just have to look a little
Chunk you always come through with some good advice. The link you posted is great the only problem being I shut down my ebay account years ago. Extreme serene is quite expensive...the cheapest i've found it online is for $35 which is pretty pricey. How do you and Tex feel about other liquid kelp products like neptune's harvest and growmore kelp? Grow More Seaweed-Extract - Natural Organic 0.10-0.10-1.5 Liquified Organic Kelp (16oz) for lawns and gardens. Is there a specific type of kelp that would be best to use?
Check this out. $16 for 100 grams which is enough for about 100 gals depending on how heavy your hand is. As a drench it also contains humic acid that is good for the soil. It also contains the Norway kelp and contains small amounts of 9 plant nutrients not to mention all the benefits from ascophyllum nodosum. Here's the link to the product spec sheet and the providers web site. It will be the best $16 you will spend and that includes shipping. 100 hundred phricking gallons man! lol. Do it! Your friends will be AmAzEd! http://www.bioag.com/images/Cyto_Tech_or-ca.pdf BioAg Humic and Fulvic Products page for Oregon and California customers
The only thing I would add is use the liquid fish hydrolysate and not the fish emulsion The fish emulsion I tried stinks really bad like spoiled fish
And the hydrolysate smells like ...... Except for kelp, just about any marine product has been banned from indoors by my wife. I used that fish emulsion .....once! LOL Wet
Possum my man what's brewing... Dude I bought the VAM & Activator off of your grow journal and your advice to me in my last thread and I looked into the Cyto as well so here's my dilemma now... My Fox Farm Light Warrior soil has humic acid My Roots Organics Grow and Bloom nutrients have Humic Acid My VAM has humic acid And I read a thread posted by lumper that he warned against too much humic acid so now i'm like AAARRRGGGHHHHH. haha.
Yeh, I pretty much listen to everything ole LD has to say esp when he's throwing up a red flag about a substance, product, or method. I think too much humic and fulvic acids can negatively impact growth due to something happening in rhizoshpere. No more than label directions of a single product is worth some math crunching. Though I will readily admit I've followed the VAM directions literally but have had no qualms about adding a prodcut I purchased that the label claims is 73% humic acid. IDK. I've been pimping hell out of the bioag products for no other reason than sharing a quality product. their products just so high quality and reasonably priced. I really don't know how they can be topped by any other product based on a gram for gram, price for price comparison. I'll try to ferret that caveat out from some science research ... unless someone already knows for sure There are many, many purities and classifications of the substances which can be labeled humic 'acid' and fulvic 'acid'. Some states I recall vaguely don't permit labeling fulvic acid any longer for some seemingly bizzare intra-state regulations on plant 'nutrients' or something. In the meantime, for you and anyone else wanting a primer on these remarkable acids, here's a link LD share some time back. Speeking of brother LD... I wonder if he's wandering around with our other MIA brother Sm00ve. They're both off The City radar screen. Ebb and flow of life I reckon... Lemme go find that link. I'll be bahck. that didn't take too long. Good read. EDIT: http://www.bioag.com/images/MY_can_NovDec09_40-44.pdf I can't readily find any cautions againts using "too much" humic acid (HA). Perhaps the caution was thrown out there due the chelating capability of HA to make available certain metals in the plant nutrient menu. "Nutrients" such as Fe, Bo, Al, Cu, etc can become toxic to a plant if absorbed beyond the plants capacity to use it. In that same vein I think you asked a question about VAM innoculation of seeds prior to planting. Personally I will not do this again. The six seeds I innoculated following a 24 hr soak and germinated recently did not fare well post-germination. Could have been the seeds themselves or it could have been the VAM with HA. IDK. Inconclusive for a 'test' but enough of a consistent poor result (all 6 seeds) that I won't do it again esp with prescious, rare, or expensive seed stock. That said, once germinated I most certainly will use VAM at transplant - no question about that!
Hey, WetDog, Along with kelp, there's another good vegan plant booster It's called Leonardite - also called rare earth Comes in solid and liquid form ALso known as humic acids and fulvic acids From online What is Leonardite? Leonardite is a low rank coal derived from terrestrial plant matter. Leonard Dave of the University of North Dakota discovered it in 1919. Leonardite is found in North Dakota, Utah and New Mexico. It is found as outcropping of lignite deposits, usually very close to the surface. There are two theories on the origin of Leonardite. The first one is that it is an oxidized lignite. Compared to Lignite it has about 30-35% of oxygen whereas Lignite has about 25-30%. The second theory is that it is predominately Humic acid leached from topsoil by alkaline waters and subsequently precipitated into subsurface soil strata. (Humic acid is a form of organic plant matter). Leonardite Characterization: Humic Matter: Humic matter is complex organic molecules formed by the breakdown of organic matter. Humic matter is a class of compounds with variable structure, functionalities and reactivities. Leonardite typically contains greater than 85% Humic acid. Humic Matter Characterization: Three types of organics are identified in Leonardite. They are Fulvic Acid Humin Humic Acid
This whole thread is a pretty good read on humic acid and should get the noodle firing off neurons. Enjoy! http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/620897-too-much-humic-acid.html
^^^^You should never just dump some nutrient into your soil in large quatities These are like supplements - not soil drenches Too much of anything is bad really -
I need to do more research. Was thinking of some BioAg products, but my EWC supply some humic acids. I'm just not sure how much and even if the BioAg was even needed. Wet
Your EWC doesn't supply the 'acid' of humus. The EWC is humate, aka, humin, and quite possibly most commonly referred to as 'soil organic matter'. The acid is produced chemically from humus. Two different things in the end. I'm not arguing that too much isn't a bad thing but I am suggesting that we should understand the differences between these easily bantered about words. It is important to us esp when reading labels and shopping products. Me... I dont really understand it all but I'm getting a little bit closer to doing so. And so far I'm still 'thumbs up' on all sources of soil organic matter, humus, HA, and FA. I have been digging and digging and digging in the .edu and .org clouds to try and find a study that quantifies 'how much is enough' for humic acid (HA). I have been able to find nothing that even addresses the question of too much HA and its negative impact on crop physiology or crop yield. One exception I found indicated a near even yield response to a control group when 1000lb/ac of HA was applied to trees - not a good comparison for MJ, but 1000lb/ac! That's a LOT of material when compared to major nutrients in the N-P-K realm which are typically applied at much lower rates for <180 day crops. I think LD's response and offering on humin, HA, fulvic acid (FA) is only the tip of the iceberg. While a great primer there's no way he or anyone else can easily define the limits of benefits of HA or FA application because science and academia are still scratching their heads regarding what they describe as the 'supermolecular' organization of a "typical HA" molecule. It's deep and heady stuff and believe you me we are all in some very high and esteemed company trying to figure this out. The top PhD's are still working on this and as you've probably already guessed there is Humic Acid Society and many spinoff similar groups devoted near 100% still trying to dissect the molecule! I think at the base level we need to understand completely these words; "humus, humate, humic substances, humin, HA, and FA". These will in all likelihood be the names we encounter on the labels of products we purchase and use. There is a tremendous molecular difference between the "acid" form of humus as compared to the pure organic form of humus which is what we encounter with EWC, peat, and other 'brown' substances we add to our soils. The overriding majority of science and academia, if not 100% in total, make claim and stand behind the multiple benefits adding of HA and FA when used per manufacturers recommendations. Exceeding those recommendations would not be wise and I think everyone agrees with that. The chelation ability of HA is by far the greatest benefit to plant health and that in itself may be the achilles heel of overusing the HA (NOT to be confused with humus or humate) - it is the acid form and this chelation capability that may (operative word) cause an excess of certain metals (Cu, Al, Fe, for example) to become 'free' in the soil. It does NOT mean that the plant will take up any abundance of these chelated metals. It just means that HA has a chelating effect on them. HA is used in a wide variety of medical applications, agriculture, horticulture, environmental disaster cleanup, water cleansing, holistic health, and the list of use goes on. Humic substances are not clearly understood quantifiably even after 100 years of research. HA The Supermolecule! They're still scratching their heads but universal agreement is that HA and FA added to a growth medium (soil and now some promoting hydro use as well) will greatly improve plant nutrient availability AND nutrient uptake and nutrient transport, as well as some studies indicating a significant ability to hold H2O AND prevent other ++cations of plant nutrients from precipitating from the soil and "going away". Bottom line is, use HA, use FA, use EWC, use peat (unless you're environmentally opposed to doing so), but use the HA and FA per the manufacturers recommendations and don't exceed it. Food crop producers are using HA just about everywhere in the world where crops are grown to feed the hungry masses. It is still a field of intense scientific study. How much is enough...? Understand first if that question is regarding humic substances, humate, "humin", humic acid, fulvic acid, or one of the other forms of this wonderful carbon substance ..... the list goes on - about 50 substances total. Whew! I'll keep looking in my so-called "spare time" because I'm intrigued by these topics and themes but I gotta tell ya, so far NOTHING has arisen in my searches cautioning against their overuse except for those listed by the manufacturer. Just go easy but I think one is short changing themselves by not adding HA and FA to your garden maintenance and grow routine. Just my $1.00 worth. EDIT: I guess one could simply send an email to BioAg or the international humic acid research foundation and ask the question: how much is enough, particularly BioAg sinve three of their availble products used by "us type" each contain a fairly significant percentage of HA and FA.