I'm not sure if I should have started a new thread for this, but oh well. I am setting myself up to grow for my first time in the coming months. I have been doing a lot of research, but from experience, I would like to know what people recommend for a first time grower. Is hydroponics easier to get the hang of? Does soil produce better quality buds? Which has the bigger yeilds? Thanks for your help.
Soil is easy and cheap but hydroponics is supposed to give better yields. A short power failure could kill your plants in a hydroponics setup.
yah you can get faster growth and a little more yield from hydroponics they say. i have no personal experience to offer tho. i can vouch for hydroponics being less forgiving though
Hey Bro, I grow ebb and flow hydroponics. I will never go back to soil. Now, it is harder to deal with but not too much harder. The benefiets of hydro are awsome in the strains I grow. The flowering time is shorter, the yields are outrageous and it produces a different high and taste. If done correctly the results can be phenominal. I grow sour d, white widow, ak47, big bud,and PPP. All of which love my ebb and flow sytem from greentrees hydroponics. I use the ebb and flow big plant system with 1000w mh for veg. and then I switch to hps for flowering with 24/0 light schedule then 12/12 for flowering with the general hydroponics flora pack nutes in hydroton medium. Jane can grow almost twice as fast and almost twice as big. I would recommend hydro now so that you learn how to do it. But this is all preference in what people want. You are always going to get people that swear by soil and people that swear by hydro so you kind of have to do both to see what you like. In any decision you do let us know and keep us posted on your grow. Good luck Bro.
Thanks for all your help guys. I have also heard that hydroponics is less forgiving, and I have heard that it requires slightly more maintinence. As a user of hydro, what would you say to that?
Some hydro systems are almost as forgiving as soil. it just depends. the less mechanical parts, the more forgiving i guess. DWC and wick systems are both pretty forgiving. check out the bubble buckets howto in the Indoor Growing section...
i just started growing too with a few of my friends. i started in a cheap hydro set up i built and my friend started in soil. well his are doing much better but then again i didnt study fully into the whole hydro thing and my first set up sucked ass im going to suggest soil for your first grow or two but study into the hydro thing. go to the hydro section and just read everyday you will learn almost eveything. good luck man.
Hydro is way more work then soil. With the right soil mix you can just add water. I got the same yeild with soil but it took twice as long. No question that hydro is way faster. Yeild and High are debateable. I always give the same advice to new growers: Start with a good soil premix and learn to grow weed. Alot more to growing weed then what the roots are in. After you have dialed your grow room in and have put a few harvests behind you, build a hydro system and start asking for advice on that method. A great premix is Vic's Super soil. It will work from sprout to harvest with nothing more then water added. Only problem I had with Vic's is when I added other stuff. 1 Bale sunshine mix #2 or promix (3.8 cu ft) 8 cups Bone Meal - phosphorus source 4 cups Blood Meal - nitrogen source 1 1/3 cups Epsom salts - magnesium source 3-4 cups dolomite lime -calcium source & pH buffering 4 cups kelp meal. 9kg (25 lbs) bag pure worm castings - Mix thoroughly, moisten, and let sit uncovered 1-2 weeks before use. Peace, R.
Thanks for your replies guys. I think as a first time grower, I am going to take the advice I have heard floating around multiple times, and grow with soil first. If I were to make a noobie mistake (which could easily happen on my first grow), I could kill my entire crop at once with hydro. With soil, I have the opportunity to treat each plant individually. Also, Rumpleforeskin, with the mix recipe you have given me is it really true that all you need is water? Do you tend to add nutrients anyway? Would that produce a better yeild/taste? Or is this mix recipe simply all you need minus the water?
Don't add anything. All the ingredients you need are in the mix. Vic's Super soil is one of the better organic premix recipes I tried. If you want to use plant food and stuff, use the sunshine mix/promix plain. I would just keep to what works and stay with the ingredients. Save the plant food for hydro later on.
I chose hydro for my first grow. In my opinion, setting up several bubble buckets and buying some commercial nutrients from my local hydro store and just following the instructions was way easier than trying to follow a soil recipe such as the one Rumpleforeskin gives and mixing all that stuff together. I also really liked the idea of taking total control of the plants environment and raising it where it wouldn't be exposed to any of the diseases and pests that are found in nature. But that's the right choice for me. I'm sure someone else would look at R's recipe (and R is a great tutor, BTW) and think it's way easier than what I do. The great thing about this hobby is there is no one way to do it, and the great thing about these forums is you get to hear from lots of different people who have lots of different opinions. In my opinion hydro is pretty forgiving. It's a bunch of roots in a bucket of water. A short-term power outage isn't going to kill your grow. If the outage lasts a day or so, that's another story, but it's not like a person on life support. Also, if you really mess up on the nutrients, you can always flush and do it again.
The supersoil recipe seems to have a lot of folks who can vouch for it. The mix is too big for what I need and I would like to divide it by four. I can figure out in cups how much I need for all the ingredients except for the worm dookie. Anybody have any idea how many cups of worm poop I'd need if I was divideing this recipe by four (from a 25 lb bag)? Thanks!
Um, about 6.25 lbs. Just buy a 10 lb bag and use about 2/3 of it. And to add, I think you have gotten very good advice here. Soil is "easier" in two ways: 1) it truly is less forgiving, meaning you can get away with more variance in your pH, watering schedule, temps, etc., and 2) soil is more intuitive for most people -- we all grew little plants in soil in kindergarten. Hydro for most is totally foreign, with it's own learning curve and need to be disciplined. Once you get a hydro going and know what your are doing it is pretty straightforward. I completely agree with Rumple, learn how to grow MJ before you complicate things by adding the need to learn about hydro. This can't compare to Vic's soil mix, but a simple one I've used very effectively is: 40% organic potting soil with no nutes added 30% sphagnum moss 20% worm castings 10% perlite
I'm running the GH bucket setup... It was very easy to setup and then I decided to use the lucus formula.. This is also my first grow. Unfortuantily in the begining I screwed up by accidently adding the wrong amounts of nutes and in the wrong order and got a complete lockout killing 3 of the 4 plants.. Fortunatily the one that lived has turned into a huge white rhino female.. I have to say however keeping up is a lot of work, you have to be able to dedicate at least 15-20 minutes a day to keep everything in order (and this is for just one bucket).. I also started flowering and my ppm is dropping about 100 everyday and drinking about a gallon of water, so you have to be able to add back the correct amount of nutes.. So far though I think it is the best way to go and i'm loving it, you just have to research everything and from what i'm seeing with my eyes be sure to invest in a hps.. It is well worth it.. I also have a second bucket in which i'm trying something which will probably fail me because I wanted to see if I could grow two plants in one bucket by putting them in opposing corners. They are doing very well also and are both females (what luck 3 plants that I flowered all turned out female), but I don't know if they will start fighting each other later on in flowering when the roots are more developed. (there in one week flowering and doing fine so far, noticable growth in all my plants each day)