Quick question on the subject of no tilling. I was wondering whether no till would get better results than mixing a super soil. My understanding of no till is basically you harvest a plant, cut the stalk, rip up the root ball, throw down some new compost, and plant the new clone directly where the old one was...is this correct? Right now I mix my own super soils and have great success and plan on recycling my soil this next time around to try that out. My main question is if one is better than the other and if so, why? Thank you guys!
The better the environment, the better the plant. That is inclusive of soil and light. From my understanding, you've got the no-till concept down. We use grow soil. It takes so much time just keeping up with what I have, I can't imagine having to amass and put together...then cook my own soil too. Too much work for me. We get superb results with the bagged soil too. Your yield is determined primarily by light...not soil. Though I will be the first to admit that having the proper soil mix is super important. But all the soil and nutrients in it do is feed the plant. Light grows the plant. Of course they both work together to get the job done, but too many people depend too much on nutrients and don't understand the importance of adequate lighting with an indoor grow. That about wraps up my knowledge, or lack thereof, of what "no till" actually means. LOL Have a good one! TWW
I have never used super soil so as far as results i have no idea. Why i chose no till over super soil? No till soil you can use over and over year after year. No till also requires no cooking. Just mix and plant. Can super soil be used over and over? Serious question
Hmm well with super soil you can recycle it and therefore use it year after year as well, no? No cooking? Can you explain how it is able to not be cooked? I honestly don't know due to always having to cook my super soils. I guess my main question is...does no til start as a super soil? Or is it just dirt thrown down and amendments thrown on top of it?
Could you give me a breakdown of the mix you are planning on recycling? When first mixed Knowing what you started with will help a lot. Is anything growing in it? Wet
@wetdog Absolutely! That is another thing I was thinking also that I didn't know if when planning to do a no til you mix the initial mix differently than with super soil. My mix is as follows Per cubic foot of soil -1/1/1 ratio of Promix MP, Worm power EWC/Bu's compost, Perlite -1 cup of kelp meal -1 cup of neem meal -1 cup of gypsum -1 cup of crab meal/oyster shell flour (i do a 2:1 ratio with crab meal being the 2 part) -1 cup malted barley powder -2 cups of basalt If you see anything I should change let me know!
YES!!! Quit calling it *Super Soil*! It's a misleading term and a little used recipe that's .... just not good. What you listed is a fairly basic organic recipe, more like a no till than Sub's Super Soil. This is a very good thing. Reamend this and use it for your no till experiment. I'd also mix another batch like you listed if you have the room and something to grow in it.
IMO no till just means it isn't tilled or disturbed. It's no different from so called "super soil" really except that there are worms added and you don't really need to recycle it if it's mixed correctly. Also sometimes it does require cooking. It all depends on what you put in it that will determine that. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
You're basically already no till man. Like real talk looks just like a no till recipe. Throw down some worms and a mulch and you're in the club haha no need to toss that soil at all. To answer your question about mixing, you would mix it all together as best as you could (no particular order needed) and yes it would have to cook. I did 4 weeks with no problems. Re-amend every cycle with like 1/4 to 1/2 of your original inputs (more kelp and compost) and you can grow for years. People like to put mbp every 1-2 weeks with good results (can't say, just bought some for the first time) and throw all kinds of teas and other amendments of their choosing in to it too, including fermented extracts and organic bottled nutrients galore. Really can't go wrong with amending the soil cycle to cycle as long as you cover the basics. Can make it as simple or complex as you want. I did compost teas and SSTs but I am getting away from giving them anything but water if I can help it. You can put all that into the soil to the same effect (some can argue does take longer tho). I am loosely replacing compost tea with top dressings and SSTs with malted barley powder. Now I'm not saying they're direct replacements, but I'm a busy man raising twins and I can get roughly the same outcomes without spending time brewing teas. Sorry for getting off topic, but do it man! Make the jump to no till! Lol You're already 80% there and it's beyond easy. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
@wetdog That makes sense and I must admit I was beginning to wonder what really made the two different lol makes way more sense that they're more or less the same start product anyways. Are there advantages/disadvantages with going with a more basic mix vs. the sub cool mix? I was using a much more complicated mix but dialed it back after seeing all the great results people are getting with the simple mixes. @Herbzilla420 So the basic difference is that in between grow cycles, instead of recycling and re-mixing, you just add the amendments in a top dress fashion and throw another clone right in the same hole, while supplementing with act's and sst's to keep the microbe life abundant? Now when you say worms, do you mean actual live worms or a very good vermicompost such as worm power? @GanjaGregg Haha thanks man! Yeah I've become very interested in the no til methods recently as I have been actively trying to cut down on my cost, and time as well if possible. Sometimes I feel like I think way too much like a human when thinking of new things to try for my plants instead of thinking from a "how did nature intend this to be done?" type method. So, you're saying that I would mix the amendments together and let them cook while leaving the soil alone in the pots I harvested my plants from? Or do I put the dirt back into the big drum, add the amendments, and remix? Just making absolutely sure I understand the point here haha (could be the joint I just smoked). With the mbp, do I topdress with that? I have heard of that before and have some on hand that I could totally do that with this upcoming watering. If I am growing in 3 gallon smart pots, how much mbp would I topdress with? I know its supposed to be pretty miniscule so a rough estimate would be awesome! What are some examples of these fermented options and organic bottled nutrients? I do silica treatments every other watering (I water once a week) and aloe every watering as well as act's with molasses every other week. Could I just do these every week and leave out the plain water? I've heard of this before but don't know if the jury is still out on whether or not this is a good thing or not. So what are the advantages of sst's vs. act's?
You're going the right route. Easiest grows I've ever done. I used to grow with fox farm products and I was in there mixing nutes, PHing, fighting bugs, giving them a new product, etc what felt like 24/7. No tills the bees knees. And exactly, even the widely accepted NPK info we all are familiar with goes out the window for the most part as we get closer to what nature intended. Still needed by your plants in some quantity obviously, but the old way you'll get described to you at the hydro store is gone! Anyway to answer your questions: 1. you only mix all your soil with the amendments the first time you plan on making a batch, then yes need to let that cook. I lay out everything on a big blue tarp then use a shovel and rigid rake to mix everything real good, then into the pots to cook they go with mulch of choice and some cover crop seeds down on top. After that initial mixing, it's all top dresses from cycle to cycle and you never till or mix your soil again. 2. The math I was given from Scoobie Doobie for MBP is 2 cups per 100 gal of soil so doing the math that's about 1 tbsp per 3 gal pot 3. The only bottled organic stuff I bought is Neptunes Kelp extract for foliars that I apply with AgSil. Can't help much there. The types of FPEs, or fermented plant extracts, are also numerous but the 3 main ones people agree on are Yarrow, Comfrey, and Nettle. I'm just getting into this, bokashi, and Korean natural farming so again, I won't have much info for you here. 4. Most people, including myself, water with plain water in between giving them teas and stuff, but it's hard to overdue stuff in organics so you could do it. I don't have any hard facts to give as to why I give water in between, just seemed like a good idea for time and ease 5. ACTs are great for brewing up some microbe herds and getting them into your soil quick, aiding in nutrient cycling. Great for initial mixes lacking in this area. Most soils after a few cycles are in prime running condition and won't need it if compost is top dressed regularly. SSTs provide sprout enzymes (much like MBP) and cytokins that aid in growth and cell splitting meaning bigger plants and fruits. So really you want to use both. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
@GanjaGregg Awesome man, thank you for clarifying all that for me! Yeah, I did the bottled nutrient route for a while also and recognized pretty early on that this could be much better and easier if I just let nature take its course. The plants I have now look incredible minus some yellowing on the tops (i think it may be light bleaching honestly). That also makes perfect sense to me now in that the original mix creates the base and then you give teas and top dress to keep the soil fed and alive and therefore there is no need to til it. Can't believe it took me this long to grasp that concept haha. So I plan on watering thursday and will top dress each plant with a tablespoon of malted barley powder and put molasses in my water at the rate of 1tbsp per gallon unless you think I should do more? Right now I've been alternating between a tea with molasses and then water with molasses but like I said right now I only water once a week as I find that is plenty sufficient in my 3 gallon pots if I water each plant with 8 cups and foliar feed them with the tea as well. Do you think I would be better off watering more frequently with less water instead or is that kind of all based on preference? So with my teas right now I normally add kelp meal and alfalfa meal...do you think id be better off just using the liquid kelp extract? And agsil is something I'm hearing alot about recently, can you tell me a little about it and what makes it so beneficial? I've also just been introduced to the concept of these FPE's...so are these teas also? And how would I go about using them? That makes perfect sense about sst's...do you have a recipe you use for one that I could grab from you?
read the first 20-50 pages of this No-Till Gardening then get the updated recipe and water schedule from here. No-Till Gardening: Revisited
Live worms will break down your top dresses and mulch. Way better than just castings. Sent from my SM-N910P using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Yea man no till isn't that complicated once you learn the basics. A decaying mulch layer and lots of good compost is key. As for your watering I think you're good. I started at 4 L once a week and am now down to 3L every 3 days. Are you getting runoff? If so dial back the amount but increase the frequency. And your soil shouldn't be drying out completely, that's an old bottled nute thing. Keep it moist (not sopping wet) at all times and your soil will love you. As for your teas it really doesn't matter. I only use liquid Kelp, molasses, and EWC/compost in my teas when I used to make em. Don't get too complicated on those. Compost, a food source for both the bacteria (molasses, brown sugar, etc) and the fungi (Kelp), and a good air pump are all you need. The aim is to quickly multiply bennies to get them into your lacking soil quickly and efficiently, not to "feed" them if that makes sense. Feed your soil with the proper amendments and use the tea to get it going. A simple tea every 4 weeks is more than enough. AgSil is just potassium silicate. Plenty info out there on benefits of silica, but I like AgSil because it's a concentrated powder that makes about 3 bottles worth of protekt for half the price of one protekt bottle bought at the store. As for the FPEs, no they are ferments made anaerobically vs teas that are aerobic. I have very little experience here, but I do know that brands like Earth Juice products are simply processed and preserved ferments. Supposed to be good stuff, but imo it starts getting back into the whole veg/flower cycles and mixing solutions and what not, which I'm trying to get away from. Google "Korean Nature Farming" or check the hashtag #knf on instagram. I am very interested in the LAB (lactibillus) concoctions and IMO (indigenous microorganisms) ones, which are just good overall for soil health. I do have comfrey, nettle, and yarrow that I planted and grow for this very purpose, and I'll eventually try to make a ferment extract from them but I don't think I'll be following Master Cho's schedule. Again all I worry about is feeding my soil what it needs to be healthy, cycle nutes, and feed my plants regardless of what "stage" we try to categorize them into. Finally, I just use Coots version of SSTs. I soak the popcorn kernels for 24 hours, drain and rinse, then into a dark cabinet until they sprout checking daily for mold or rot. I like to mix around and sometimes do another rinse while they sprout. Once sprouted about 1/2" or more, into the food processor they go with a bit of water until it's a slurry/paste. I then bubble for two hours and apply. 1/2 cup of dry kernels will make a 4-5 gal buckets worth of tea. Don't bubble too long or you'll start fermenting and that's not a good thing in this case. Hope that helps. Check out Scoobies links. They are gold mines. Peace, GG Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
@Ancient3328 If this helps answer question about whether recycled or no till is better. I recycle using a mix very similar to yours with a few little extras. Ten days ago I transplanted 2 identicle size and variety of tomatoes. Both into 7 gal containers. One container I just chopped a canna plant and stuck the transplant next to the old stem no till style. The other I placed in cooked mix like yours. The no till is at least 3x bigger and healthier. For the record, these were from the same batch of soil. The no till I ran a plant thru to harvest first, 75 days. I was really amazed at how obvious it was. Every single tom I stuck in a pot that I just ran canna in and no tilled, has flourished like crazy. Sold me on the deal, and like I said, these are all 7 gals that I would think would be to small. But not. hth os
@deathlesszero So when you mention live worms, are you referring to them in your vermicompost from a worm farm or are you speaking of actually putting them in the mixed soil? @GanjaGregg So for the topdress, am I going to be putting all the amendments and compost in a separate bin to cook before putting them into the pot as a topdress? Or do I just mix them day of and topdress them? I imagined the watering was fine as long as it didnt look as if the plants were suffering from being too dry. That does make sense about the drying out part being more beneficial with bottled nutrient growing rather than organic growing since the microbes i am sure prefer the moist soil rather than dry. Sounds good about the teas and yeah I figured the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method was preferred because, as ive seen first hand with soil mixing, less is definitely more in most cases. Ahh okay I figured that was the case with the agsil. I had heard it mentioned quite a bit lately and knew it must be related to silica in some way. I use silica every time I do a tea (every other week) and use a half tsp-1 tsp per gallon...what is the ideal rate of silica per gallon? So are comfrey, nettle, and yarrow examples of these FPE's? And are these good to be used all throughout the grow cycle? So with the sst's, should they be used more than compost teas? I know this is probably dependent on what the soil is looking like it needs but I just didn't know if you had previously figured out what timing was better to use sst's vs. act's. Should I alternate between the two? For example, use a act one week and an sst the next week? Wow! I never knew you could use popcorn kernels for an sst but I will definitely be trying that method for my first sst. @Organic sinse I am very glad you did that demonstration so that we could all learn from it! It definitely makes sense that an already established soil would do better than soil that had been disturbed but its great to have the evidence to show it! I am so excited to try no till this next time around! I just mixed a new soil for my second batch of 8 plants and I will be no tiling both until I switch into 7 gal pots at which point ill combine the two and then no till for the rest of eternity lol. Is there any idea on how long you can no till the same soil? It seems like it could go on forever but I feel like it's good to check haha.
@Ancient3328 worms are usually added right to the no till pots. There are multiple benefits to this. The worms distribute castings throughout the soil, they create a series of tunnels that help improve drainage and aeration, soil structure, break down organic matter, increase microbial life etc. I remember Chunk saying that last he heard MOFO ran 19 cycles (I think) in his no till pots. That at least gives you an idea anyway how long you can go. Eventually your pots will be mostly just worm castings. Then when you do decide to mix more soil you can use your old mix as your hummus portion in the next batch. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Just throw the amendments on top of the soil under your mulch and scratch it in. Then replace mulch and water it in. Simple as that, no need to cook. You can mix prior but not needed. Scratching it in mixes it pretty well. And yup the microbes like it moist and will go dormant if it gets too dry. As a disclaimer, I do recommend you letting your pots dry out a bit more if you are a beginner. It's easy to overwater, and finding that balance is an art only learned with time. But the goal is to apply just enough to keep it moist without runoff while simultaneously not watering too frequently. And yup people concoct all these crazy teas that I see as a waste, especially with harder to break down nutrients like phosphorus. There's no way a 24 hour brew will break all that down. And unless you dump the sludge on your plants, all that excess is wasted. I'd much rather put my amendments in my soil directly and use a simple tea to inoculate it and start the breakdown process, if at all. An established living soil won't even need that. You'll find this is becoming the trend around here And yup Silica is great. I use 1 tsp per gallon with some liquid Kelp as a biweekly foliar/drench. And yup the comfrey, yarrow, and nettle are all fast growing plants that mine nutrients from the soil and store them in their leaves (see biodynamic accumulators). We harvest those nutrients by mulching the leaves or making the fpe. A simple recipe is 2:1 ratio of leaves to brown sugar put in a jar and covered with a paper towel. This just sits until it ferments, creating a liquid. You then dilute 1:800 with water and apply. Some people add water to the jar and know its done once it stops bubbling. That's the method imma try, both with and without water. And yes you can apply whenever. I know the hardcore knf'ers apply certain extracts at certain times, but again not how I'm trying to grow so I don't know much. I just know they're good to apply as my soil will love them. Yarrow, comfrey, and nettle have properties that I am after (silica, micronutrients) so that's why I chose them, not because of a veg or bloom stage. And you use SSTs for growth enzymes, so an application at the beginning of veg and then again after preflower is what I do to boost growth. Kelp also had cytokinins and growth enzymes which I apply biweekly, so no need to over do it. The same can be said of the ACT. I used to apply every 4 weeks, but I'm too busy now which is why I'm not making either anymore. Coconut H20 and topdressings of malted barley and compost/EWC accomplish the same goal with less effort. And yea man freekin popcorn kernels lol crazy huh? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum