Sunshine #4 PLEASE HELP

I wanna use Sunshine mix #4

FISRT OFF WHERE THE FUCK DO I GET IT, i look everywhere and the cheapest shipping i can find is 36.75 and 37.95 for 3.8 cubic feet which should be just enough for a grow but at 74.67 per grow for soil for a 4 x 6 grow?

cheapest at https://www.planetnatural.com/ see for yourrself? :O

also, i looked at places around my house and it says wormsway has it, but they dont i looked >:|

i might just double check with their phone line tomorrow ^


BUT HERE YOU GO V V V

Just some of the good ass info that im sure lots of people got in the ph manifesto email.

from, Advanced Nutrients Owner Big Mike

How about the Sunshine #4 mix that we mentioned earlier? Actually this is a very, very good medium. When it
comes out of bogs, it has a pH of 3.5 to 4. This is actually too low, so dolomite lime is added to it to raise the pH. (We’ll
talk about adding dolomite a bit later.) This brings the pH of the Sunshine #4 to 5.8 to 6.3 for a 6 week period.


More About “Sunshine #4” And How It Can Make Your Life A Lot Easier
So what’s Sunshine #4 mix made of? It’s made of 60% – 70% peat and 30% – 40% perlite. This is the combination
you want and gives you excellent aeration which you’ll need for great big thick root development. And as hundreds of
university studies have conclusively shown the bigger the root system the bigger the yield. And that’s what we’re after
isn’t it. BIGGER YIELDS.
It also has a starter charge of fertilizer that gives it an NPK ratio of 6-5-11 meaning it has a ratio of 6% nitrogen
(N), 5% phosphorous (P) and 11% potassium (K). All you have to do, then, is add a bit more nitrogen to the mix and this
would be a near perfect medium for growing your plants. Sunshine #4 also contains a wetting agent (surfactant) to ease
surface tension and allow for better initial water penetration to the growing medium.

Adding Limestone, Earlier I mentioned adding limestone or lime. When you have a medium that is too acidic, you have to add something
to bring it up into a better range. For example, you will find that sphagnum (pH of 3.5 to 4.0) is very acidic to use as a
medium.

So you’ll want to use limestone to neutralize this acid and raise the pH to a level acceptable for plant growth.
The
amount needed depends on different factors such as sphagnum sources,
types of ingredients, and limestone type.
Another thing, when limestone is added to your growing medium, only a
fraction of the lime reacts to increase the pH to a stable level in 5 to 10 days
after planting. And this is called the reactive fraction.
By hunting down and selecting specific beneficial microbes Advanced Nutrients can now select microbes that either give off
equal amounts of hydrogen ions (pH down) and hydroxide ions (pH up) or more hydrogen ions (pH down) or more hydroxide ions (pH up) in a 24HR period. Obviously the importance of this is significant because we can now use these to help you control
your growing mediums pH. So what happens to the rest that doesn’t react?

Well, this is called un-reacted or residual limestone, and it affects the long-term buffering capacity of yourgrowing medium. It is the residual limestone that you want to
measure regularly in order to test how good your limestone source is. Actually, each limestone source is different, so there is no way to determine the residual
fraction except to test it. There is also a variance in the limestone you get
depending on what part of the quarry it comes from. You will find a variance in pH with sphagnum moss as well, depending on what part of the bog it is harvested from and what time of year or even what year.

The Three Main Features Of Lime
So when you use sphagnum as your medium, there are three main features of lime that determine how much is
needed to raise its pH. These features are limestone type, particle size and hardness.
Limestone Types
In dealing with limestone type you actually have two choices:
1. Calcitic which is straight calcium carbonate.
2. Dolomite which is a combination of calcium and magnesium carbonate.
I do not recommend Calcitic limestone as your optimum choice because it releases too fast and usually raises the
medium pH too high. Dolomite is slower and doesn’t do that, so it is a better choice. With dolomite you get a more even
pH and buffering over a longer period of time.
Just remember that different sources of dolomite will give you different reaction fractions or percentages of the
limestone. The only way to really ensure you have the dolomite lime with the right residual balance and the right reactive
component to it is to test it by doing the following:
· After placing the medium in pots, irrigate with tap water avoiding any leaching to take place.
· Reapply the water daily as needed to keep the medium moist.
· Measure the pH at days 0, 3, 7, 10, 14, and 21.
· Plot your results on a graph. You should see the pH stabilize
after some time and see what the final pH was as well as how
long it took to stabilize.
Pictured above are the different types of limestone it’s important
to be aware of which type you’re using because they all have different
release rates.
Dolomite
Calcium Hydroxide Limestone Screenings
Calcitic Limestone

Particle Size
Now that we looked at limestone type, let’s look at particle size. Particle size also makes a difference in how reactive
the limestone is. The finer the particle size is, the more reactive the limestone is. Just so you’re aware, limestone is sold
in mesh sizes. The higher the mesh size, the finer the particle size.

Hardness
Hardness is the third important feature of limestone. A soft crystal reacts more quickly with acid than a hard crystal.
Of course, there is no real way to tell if the limestone being used is soft or hard except by testing it. You have to add it to
your growing medium and raise the pH to 5.3 – 6.8 and observe what happens.
You can conduct a test for determining the reactivity of your limestone by adding 4 to 6 pounds of limestone per
cubic yard of growing medium. If this adequately brings the pH up to 6.0, you know that the limestone is reactive, and
there is little residual left once a stable pH is reached.
Needing to add 8 – 12 pounds of limestone indicates the limestone is moderately reactive. Adding more than 15
pounds per cubic yard indicates an un-reactive limestone and that is not good.
Hydrated Limestone (A More Volatile Option)
If you use hydrated limestone, it’s another story. Hydrated limestone is known as calcium hydroxide and is a white,
crystalline, slightly-soluble alkali used in the neutralization of acid soils.
It reacts completely and rapidly and does not have any available residual limestone. You have to be careful with it
because it will quickly shoot your pH way up.


Some Challenges You Should Be Aware Of
Now you might run into a problem with adding limestone. Because adding too much limestone adds alkalinity to
your growing medium which could raise the pH levels too high.
In limestone, the bicarbonates settle around a pH of 6.5 to 6.7 and this is dangerously close to the pH where
precipitation of iron and manganese start to happen unless they are properly chelated.
If you use Sunshine #4 growing mix, you don’t want to add limestone as it already has sufficient limestone in it, and
adding more will increase your growing medium’s pH.
Be careful...if you’ve been using limestone in your Sunshine #4 mix you might end up with your pH going high. You
might even cause your nutrient elements locking out in the growing medium. However, if you use fully chelated macro,
micro and secondary nutrients, this won’t happen.
We will talk about chelates in a bit. Many of the nutrient companies don’t bother with using any chelates and the
ones that do usually only chelate the iron and manganese. Properly chelating nutrients is an expensive endeavor. And
the lack of proper chelation is likely costing you bigger yields, and you end up having to monitor your nutrients and
growing medium continually to get the right pH.

 

i looked, all that isnt actually saying they have it, im giving each a call, because fuck paying that kind of shipping!

 

actually


yeesSSS!

Defiance, looks like its 41 minutes away after i stopped being stubborn and loooked every place up on google maps .

im calling Nursery Frisella tommorow to see if they stock it or i might ask wormsway to start stocking it

 

i respesct your opinions and all but youve got it ass-backwards Gh,botanicare, floranova and the rest of the big guys out there are seriously insecure about scientists and big teams of workers in labs and shit, seriously have you honestly tryed their nutrients

read up on all the work they go through i think its incredible to judge someone so abrubtly

 

he does, i definitely didnt post it


and its not mollasses its science and well put together blends of things like "poo".


everyone get over it

 

talk about stubborn.

 

and for the record, even if it is this "watered down blend of molasses, potash, guanos, earth worm castings, fish emulsions, etc, etc, etc.."


its fuckin 200 x more potent than my fox farms but perfectly in line with ph fluctuation and not burning plants, and i simply dont have the time to mix up blends that arent proven to work.

and my fox farms used to call for whats seemed like an overload of nutrients to get that kind of potency so im honestly saving money imho.



i guess we can do it our way, you do it yours, stay stubborn or catch on. ill keep smokinn

 

truely proven indeed, i meant mixing my own soil and nutes together, too complicated, well im just too lazy really.

someday i might amount to all that

 

Agreed, but really,in my own opinion [for everyone out there, not singling anybody out because apparently everybody hates the nute companies], i honestly dont givva fuck about throwing money out there for nutrients, but in other words, i made this thread for sunshine #4



Any info or help out there on anything regarding this soil that i should know?

 

Same here!