Third Times A Charm

[Ecompost]

Those strings are from the pulleys the lights are on I'm gonna tie those up too lol ocd

its always good to tie and lock down, there are ever so many hazards in a grow room, one can never really be too careful. I really like your room and vision

 

[Ecompost]

Once there's some ladies transpiring in there the humidity will be a little higher, but its usually between 40-60 rh here so I should be cool

understanding vapor pressure deficit is the key here. You can not say your RH% will be X unless you can say for sure you Temp is Y and your CO2 is Z. They are all interconnected. Learning about VPD is the basis and the hidden force on your plant.

 

[Ecompost]

here are some plants, grown in re used peat, peat originally used because thats what they had at the store with an acceptable trace level of salt.
I amended it with microbes, Bio Media Pro, Root Better and K+AMINO and added some rice hulls for aeration.
Plants are growing in less than ideal conditions, high UV, high temps, low RH, but that is life. The weather dont care about me and my plans, nor even my plants and their plans, the soil biology and its plans, but regardless, we have all seen the weather before. Me, my plants, my biology, we resonate with it daily.
I am about to move these girls, literally this afternoon, but up to the move and for the last 4 weeks only it was being fed a mixed diet of iNititate, Bio Veg, with it having had 2 covers of Nano Breathe.
The feeds to ensure it gets enough N and I am not falling in to N def through extended microbial respiration in a depleted resource.
Microbes use Nitrogen and will take it from others locally if there isnt enough for them to function themselves, this can result in N defs in our plants, I am merely countering this inevitable process as I run out of root space and so sources of organic N from the peat and rice hulls etc.
So re used media, in less then ideal conditions, still putting out...sometimes when we think we know everything, we are quickly reminded we are only just getting started :-)

 

[CaliRooted]

Talking liquid Nutrients my bad should of made myself clearer. I'm not the person asking for advice.

 

[Tearsofshiva]

Awesome news buddy, may be check out David Brandt re cover cropping. yes he is biggish ag, but the principles he holds are the very same foundations of Better Organix. Here is something to get you some extra help :) more further down the mail, lots of content on the tube etc and lots of help here for sure. @Seamaiden is another really great grower here that knows stuff about natural farming, sharing good data, sympathetically delivered at a level we can all hopefully tune in to. many more besides that have given me much to think about. :)

No Till with Cover Crops, this is the way it was, and is the way it should be. not opinion, rather acceptance from me :) (this is the same of course)
Did you know, Russian Soil Scientists were discussing this topic of cover cropping and the impacts on biology and soil fertility at the start of the century, sadly the war interfered and put us on the path we have largely been on since the 1st world war ended. One of entrapment in ruination. The model for the world is the enslave us all in debt. Food debt, money debt, life debt. We can avoid this trap by farming like David and turning our backs on the sale of unused weapons of war as plant food and ownership of biology by corporates whose sole mission is to profit at any cost.

its not just me, GG and a few of us doing this, its not a hippy thing, it is not a leftie thing, it is just a thing that we have chosen to follow since it appears to make more sense than continuing as we have been. :)
We are always here and if not go to the BOX website and ask a question directly, the team will help you with this content, even if the question is not directly related to a better organix product[/QUOTE

Awesome video, I liked the scum test and the liquid carbon pathway he was showing

 

[Tearsofshiva]

I use sst alot malted barley sprout, popcorn, corn all work well for ! I'd add kamino too & add hydrate at the end of 24/36 hrs

I'm gonna use a blend of barley, alfalfa, and corn from build-a-soil, how many cups total of seed I should sprout to blend and mix with 5 gal???

 

[Tearsofshiva]

everyone should be reusing soil where the plants before have had no issues. Heck you can even grow something in bad soil to help recover it. Compost and soil is expensive, it is usually made at distance and so has carbon miles we dont need as frequently as we think. Not reusing soil is a pitch to get you to buy more soil. There is no solid evidence to support it not being used over and over and over again. Most shop soil is pasteurized, this means it can take a while for the biology to host it. Nature doesnt like bare, so rest assured, even if you buy no microbes, but you have shop soil, you will get colonies over time. If you add them before planting, this is better, this allows you to determine the biology with a little more precision than the leave and hope method.

So what is the difference between our soil and that soil outside our homes, say your garden or the local park?
The difference is our soils in pots are rarely interfacing the lithosphere and are less in contact with the biosphere, so mineral/ organic content can become depleted where it wouldnt in nature, well unless someone removes the bedrock Barney and then kills all the microbes with salts and whatnot treatments, shoots all the animals and sprays all the bugs :)

I never recycle my soil by tipping out the plant and chucking it (the media) in some bin. I simply plant a living root before I cull my existing plant, sunflowers, clover, rye grasses, alfalfa and so on, even another pot plant. This keeps the system functioning. By tipping out the media in to a giant bin, you are missing the point of soil health and this is a modern day Tillage.
Yes it may be you need to add further organic matter to the media to ensure it has enough power for your purposes ongoing, this because it is not connected to the lithosphere and doesnt have herds of higher organisms crossing it (biosphere), or you can use nutrients in bottles.
Imagining this isnt really the same as adding lord knows how many organic inputs to a base peat for example is poppycock. Super soil is adding raw organic nutrients and minerals to a base low cec substrate like peat or coco or both, there is not s single bit of difference between this and adding liquid organics, its only different in minds that are failing to understand the system that is soil and or bio organics.

I am not knocking anyone, it just a fact that super soil is the same as liquid organics, its just one is usually bottles and one is packets and bags :)

Okay so I've been re-thinking my "soil-rotation" for my perpetual. Initially I was going to harvest my plants and dump my soil into a compost bin for in between grows. Now that I understand the biology of no-til a little more I think I'm much better off planting my next set of clones into the 5 gallon pots from the previous harvest. @Ecompost my only question is if I put a clone that's been rooted into a 5 gallon smart pot that has cover-crop and a dead root-system already in it, will it cause a lot of stress for the new roots to grow around all this stuff? Or do the benefits of all the existing biology outweigh the stress the roots face developing in such a packed environment?

 

[Tearsofshiva]

@Ecompost or am I better off planting new cover each cycle? On the first run when can I plant the cover crop? Should I let the Cannabis roots get established first? Or is it a non-competitive environment where it doesn't really matter they will just coexist and mutuaLily benefit each other regardless??

 

[Tearsofshiva]

Also for my IPM foliar spray I was going with
1 oz neem oil
1.5 grams AgSil16H (emulsifier)
5 drops eucalyptus oil
5 drops Rosemary oil

Anybody use jacks deadbug also? I'd prob throw some of that in the mix and too and spray once every 10 days until I flower. I've never done foliar before so I'm not sure how often I'll wanna be spraying neem oil on my buds after week 2 flower... If in flowering at all.

 

[Tearsofshiva]

And while we're at it @GrowingGreen i know you do nematode applications too... Is that only when neccessary? I could do one at the flip would that be good for preventative? Or would more be neccessary? Maybe one after harvest too so they could get started on the old roots nom nom nom lol

 

[GrowingGreen]

I'm gonna use a blend of barley, alfalfa, and corn from build-a-soil, how many cups total of seed I should sprout to blend and mix with 5 gal???

For 5 gallons bouta hand full, let them sprout until taproot is bout 1/2" long then gring up in blender

 

[GrowingGreen]

@Ecompost or am I better off planting new cover each cycle? On the first run when can I plant the cover crop? Should I let the Cannabis roots get established first? Or is it a non-competitive environment where it doesn't really matter they will just coexist and mutuaLily benefit each other regardless??

You can plant covercrop anytime, i start in solo cups

 

[GrowingGreen]

And while we're at it @GrowingGreen i know you do nematode applications too... Is that only when neccessary? I could do one at the flip would that be good for preventative? Or would more be neccessary? Maybe one after harvest too so they could get started on the old roots nom nom nom lol

Nematodes can be applied 1 a month ! I did nematodes bout every 6-8 weeks

 

[Ecompost]

Okay so I've been re-thinking my "soil-rotation" for my perpetual. Initially I was going to harvest my plants and dump my soil into a compost bin for in between grows. Now that I understand the biology of no-til a little more I think I'm much better off planting my next set of clones into the 5 gallon pots from the previous harvest. @Ecompost my only question is if I put a clone that's been rooted into a 5 gallon smart pot that has cover-crop and a dead root-system already in it, will it cause a lot of stress for the new roots to grow around all this stuff? Or do the benefits of all the existing biology outweigh the stress the roots face developing in such a packed environment?

Ok, so short answer is no it wont.

Plants use the channels and passages left by older decaying roots, further the microbes can use this organic matter to boost their numbers through ready access to organic matter. 80% of a plants carbon mass is to be found under the soil, and so any older root networks will boost carbon and so help enable longer term soil fertility, these old roots also provide many other critical nutrients, usually in a resonate form by the time we regrow in media. this just means our plants know what to do and the interactions with the elements can be completed with higher efficiency. Living root companion plants need to be studied, this way we can ensure there arent any risks planting two or more plants that really dont like each other. There are lots of resources on line reference which plants like which plants. I can tell you clover, alfalfa, rye, barley, many legumes, many weed plants like hogwort, daisies, etc all work well from my experience.

The only potential hazard I imagine is likely to be found in increasing carbon to nitrogen ratios, this can cause a deficit of Nitrogen in some rare cases, where microbes and plants compete for a limited amount of soil N, but this can easily be countered through the addition of vermicasts, compost, or liquid organics, all of which have plant ready N from day dot. Legumes etc can be used so long as you have an active fungal mass, we can see legumes sharing Nitrogen resources with other plant types with some regularity, so its always a good idea to perform regular CO2 burst tests to ensure you microbes are active, monitoring your plant for overall yellowing or slow growth, reddening stems etc, since this may well point to you needing to add further nitrogen at source. iNitiate is a good source and will be Bio Veg :)

When we grow any plant with biology in an organic system, we likely know the average PPM requirement of our target crop, what we must do in the circumstance is not only deliver the plant needs, but also the needs of the microbes, who use Nitrogen to decay organics in to plant food themselves. To ensure you have enough Nitrogen for both plant and soil system, we simply add 8% to the overall known plant PPM requirement, and this way we be sure to never go in to a deficit of N for our plants.

Hope that helps. Just remember, plant N ppms, plus 8% for the biology :)

 

[Ecompost]

@Ecompost or am I better off planting new cover each cycle? On the first run when can I plant the cover crop? Should I let the Cannabis roots get established first? Or is it a non-competitive environment where it doesn't really matter they will just coexist and mutuaLily benefit each other regardless??

depends on the chosen plant right, if you choose understorey plants like clover, then you wont get competition since cannabis is more vertical, if you use rye grasses etc, you will need to terminate these before planting a new crop of pot since these can get very tall and so might compete.

But this is about ensuring you are understanding what is cover and what is companion.

if we plant a plant at the same time, this is companion,
cover cropping happens between your target harvest as a way to maintain soil system health.

Once we remove a plant from a system, all the microbes dependent on the carbon sources supplied by said plant will also perish, decay, deplete, even if some go to spore like states awaiting new plants, never the less its like playing snakes and ladders right?. i have been known to pre sow covers before harvest and move rooted companion plants in to pots post transplant if you get me :)

 

[Ecompost]

Also for my IPM foliar spray I was going with
1 oz neem oil
1.5 grams AgSil16H (emulsifier)
5 drops eucalyptus oil
5 drops Rosemary oil

Anybody use jacks deadbug also? I'd prob throw some of that in the mix and too and spray once every 10 days until I flower. I've never done foliar before so I'm not sure how often I'll wanna be spraying neem oil on my buds after week 2 flower... If in flowering at all.

I use nematodes, cracking soil biology, then i foliar only specific fungus such as beauvaria bassiana. i rarely get problems, but if i do, Beauvaria usually deals with it. You might also look at Bti and Bti-K for caterpillar control, all biological and safe from residues and taste hazard

 

[Tearsofshiva]

Ok, so short answer is no it wont.

Plants use the channels and passages left by older decaying roots, further the microbes can use this organic matter to boost their numbers through ready access to organic matter. 80% of a plants carbon mass is to be found under the soil, and so any older root networks will boost carbon and so help enable longer term soil fertility, these old roots also provide many other critical nutrients, usually in a resonate form by the time we regrow in media. this just means our plants know what to do and the interactions with the elements can be completed with higher efficiency. Living root companion plants need to be studied, this way we can ensure there arent any risks planting two or more plants that really dont like each other. There are lots of resources on line reference which plants like which plants. I can tell you clover, alfalfa, rye, barley, many legumes, many weed plants like hogwort, daisies, etc all work well from my experience.

The only potential hazard I imagine is likely to be found in increasing carbon to nitrogen ratios, this can cause a deficit of Nitrogen in some rare cases, where microbes and plants compete for a limited amount of soil N, but this can easily be countered through the addition of vermicasts, compost, or liquid organics, all of which have plant ready N from day dot. Legumes etc can be used so long as you have an active fungal mass, we can see legumes sharing Nitrogen resources with other plant types with some regularity, so its always a good idea to perform regular CO2 burst tests to ensure you microbes are active, monitoring your plant for overall yellowing or slow growth, reddening stems etc, since this may well point to you needing to add further nitrogen at source. iNitiate is a good source and will be Bio Veg :)

When we grow any plant with biology in an organic system, we likely know the average PPM requirement of our target crop, what we must do in the circumstance is not only deliver the plant needs, but also the needs of the microbes, who use Nitrogen to decay organics in to plant food themselves. To ensure you have enough Nitrogen for both plant and soil system, we simply add 8% to the overall known plant PPM requirement, and this way we be sure to never go in to a deficit of N for our plants.

Hope that helps. Just remember, plant N ppms, plus 8% for the biology :)

So if anything the old roots are gonna help keeping nutrient content in my containers since its limited (no access to lithosphere). That means less amendments, just gotta make sure I'm using teas to keep my nitrogen supply where it needs to be to maintain balance. I'm gonna use the cover crop package from build-a-soil so ill cull anything growing too tall and leave the rest.

I feel like a kid on Christmas I just keep envisioning the plan over and over I'm too excited for this run lol

 

[Ecompost]

So if anything the old roots are gonna help keeping nutrient content in my containers since its limited (no access to lithosphere). That means less amendments, just gotta make sure I'm using teas to keep my nitrogen supply where it needs to be to maintain balance. I'm gonna use the cover crop package from build-a-soil so ill cull anything growing too tall and leave the rest.

I feel like a kid on Christmas I just keep envisioning the plan over and over I'm too excited for this run lol

ha yes, just try not to get too many things going at once, this way you will be sure to notice what is what and what is doing what. you have plenty of time. :-)
Covers are to retain soil nutrients and to enable the soil fauna to continue to function, covers are one thing, companion plants another. Companion plants are those which can gently share the same space, so i companion plant many things, this allows me to grow on three planes, by using each plant in the system as a tool for the other, or to promote more ideally suited conditions. For example, planting peas, with corn and peppers or tomatoes, so i have a tall a and mid range and a low plant crop from a single plant pot or area of outside space. thus maximizing my foot to yield returns.

Covers i use contextually, so this means I decide what the objective is and why before i use any number of diverse plants. Eg do i want to add organic matter, do i want to boost nitrogen, do i want to de-compact heavy soils, do i want to boost a specific biology, do i want to raise or lower pH. these are based on testing of course to ensure this is needed and then plants are chosen to add what is missing in theory. I have had many failures, but the key is to keep going and not to give in. We use up to 17 plants at present in mixed CC planting

If i dont have a reason specific, then I use a wide variety cover crop as above just to ensure the space is not left bare and that the soil profile remains intact over down periods if you follow.

 

[Tearsofshiva]

ha yes, just try not to get too many things going at once, this way you will be sure to notice what is what and what is doing what. you have plenty of time. :)
Covers are to retain soil nutrients and to enable the soil fauna to continue to function, covers are one thing, companion plants another. Companion plants are those which can gently share the same space, so i companion plant many things, this allows me to grow on three planes, by using each plant in the system as a tool for the other, or to promote more ideally suited conditions. For example, planting peas, with corn and peppers or tomatoes, so i have a tall a and mid range and a low plant crop from a single plant pot or area of outside space. thus maximizing my foot to yield returns.

Covers i use contextually, so this means I decide what the objective is and why before i use any number of diverse plants. Eg do i want to add organic matter, do i want to boost nitrogen, do i want to de-compact heavy soils, do i want to boost a specific biology, do i want to raise or lower pH. these are based on testing of course to ensure this is needed and then plants are chosen to add what is missing in theory. I have had many failures, but the key is to keep going and not to give in. We use up to 17 plants at present in mixed CC planting

If i dont have a reason specific, then I use a wide variety cover crop as above just to ensure the space is not left bare and that the soil profile remains intact over down periods if you follow.

Yes I totally follow. For my purposes I'm going with cover crop NOT companion crops, as this is just a Cannabis garden and my sole intention is for the cover crop to ensure the space is not left bare and to maintain the soil profile. But I like learning and appreciate all the info you pass onto me regardless of whether I use it for this grow or not, as I hope to eventually be able to farm as my full time legal occupation and that would hopefully include a bunch of new kinds of plants. I do have a small fruit and vegetable garden that I started three years ago, been using my supersoil from indoors and recycling it into this garden.....

 

[Tearsofshiva]

The birds got my cucumber and zucchini plants but they are holding on lol