Total Beginner: Questions About Soil For Outdoor Grow

[TheDudeMan]

you will be fine bro. Just know you can and do grow, its the same, bit like growing annuals, bit like growing flowers. If you grow roses you will prune well, if you grow tomatoes you wont over water when plants are young,. IMO flavor is lost right at the start with over wet seedlings. This is true of tomatoes I know for sure so i grow my own MJ as I do tomatoes, but i prune as if i am growing flowers eg roses. I prune any crossing branches as i would citrus trees and so on to maintain airflow, I dont remove leaves as a rule, but I have been known to tuck them or interlock them to expose lower bud sites.
Growing with Mycorrhizal fungi will give you some buffers against weather and stressors. We tested our own Mycos at 1% media moisture, we got 6 days at 1% moisture past the time where non treated plants had died. we tested flowering MJ too and harvested 30% in tact buds at 10 days 1%, all non teated plants died every time. Humic acid is a long chain electron donor, it can swap its own ions to attract water, where it binds and holds it in the system. Both HA and Mycos offers over 40% more water holding capacity than soil devoid in either or or both

Thanks, that's really reassuring, I think my experience with tomatoes has already helped with starting the plants and such. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to learn a new plant's "language", but it honestly seems so far like mj is way more forgiving than some flowers, for example. Guess the mistakes show in the final yield though. Yeah the organic ferts I'm using have Mycos so I'm hoping that's enough. I'm also adding worm castings because evidently the beneficial bacteria in those are excellent for preventing pests and disease. Damn, that's a pretty fascinating and really unique chemical property. Now I want some humic acid. I really haven't spent that much money (around $150 without the seeds) and I'm putting in at least 8 really strong feminized plants, 5 regular locals, and probably 6 feminized autos. My wife is already grumbling about the expense since I usually don't spend this much on veggies, all together. If I don't produce at least some really good bud, she's going to kill me. Any idea what I could yield with this for a first time grow? I know there are endless factors to take into consideration, but I'm really hoping for a lb or so.

 

[Ecompost]

Thanks, that's really reassuring, I think my experience with tomatoes has already helped with starting the plants and such. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to learn a new plant's "language", but it honestly seems so far like mj is way more forgiving than some flowers, for example. Guess the mistakes show in the final yield though. Yeah the organic ferts I'm using have Mycos so I'm hoping that's enough. I'm also adding worm castings because evidently the beneficial bacteria in those are excellent for preventing pests and disease. Damn, that's a pretty fascinating and really unique chemical property. Now I want some humic acid. I really haven't spent that much money (around $150 without the seeds) and I'm putting in at least 8 really strong feminized plants, 5 regular locals, and probably 6 feminized autos. My wife is already grumbling about the expense since I usually don't spend this much on veggies, all together. If I don't produce at least some really good bud, she's going to kill me. Any idea what I could yield with this for a first time grow? I know there are endless factors to take into consideration, but I'm really hoping for a lb or so.

No doubt MJ is a weed they say, its pretty easy to grow, but also easy to mess up. It has quite a large number of biological markers in comparison to say a rose bush, but it has far fewer than most native weeds we see about us, so in this case it is not a weed imo :-)
check your nutes, you may have humic or fulvic acid included. many people making nutes do this now, add N but with C. If they dont swerve them because you are literally gassing away your hard earned cash and causing the extra N in the balanced cycle of N, to spill out of the box. N added without C is a mere 8% effective. Not sure but you sound like me a little, and I would never use anything that was 8% effective in any part of my life. We simply have to be more thoughtful right, I mean we dont own this planet, merely rent it while we breathe and have no more right than any of the bacteria falling out of a worms ass :-)
And yes WormCasts contain many antibiotic based microbes (yeasts and so on) and are probably the source of most human antibiotic treatments. imagine that next time you see a worm :-) These have secondary functionality that includes both denitrifying and nitrifying actions, Phosphate mobilization, chelation of common metals etc etc,
Its important to note, at the microscopic level in soil, there is a wide amount of epigenetic activity, ergo whats working now might not work all the time and microbe growing is still a little understood process.
Whats totally mad, when you study soil microbial actors, you see many resemblances in our own human cells, too many to be a coincidence in my opinion. I am soil, I am convinced, and so growing in any other medium seem entirely non resonant, but I guess it sells products to use another type :-)

 

[Ecompost]

something to consider about humates in visual forms

 

[TheDudeMan]

No doubt MJ is a weed they say, its pretty easy to grow, but also easy to mess up. It has quite a large number of biological markers in comparison to say a rose bush, but it has far fewer than most native weeds we see about us, so in this case it is not a weed imo :)
check your nutes, you may have humic or fulvic acid included. many people making nutes do this now, add N but with C. If they dont swerve them because you are literally gassing away your hard earned cash and causing the extra N in the balanced cycle of N, to spill out of the box. N added without C is a mere 8% effective. Not sure but you sound like me a little, and I would never use anything that was 8% effective in any part of my life. We simply have to be more thoughtful right, I mean we dont own this planet, merely rent it while we breathe and have no more right than any of the bacteria falling out of a worms ass :)
And yes WormCasts contain many antibiotic based microbes (yeasts and so on) and are probably the source of most human antibiotic treatments. imagine that next time you see a worm :) These have secondary functionality that includes both denitrifying and nitrifying actions, Phosphate mobilization, chelation of common metals etc etc,
Its important to note, at the microscopic level in soil, there is a wide amount of epigenetic activity, ergo whats working now might not work all the time and microbe growing is still a little understood process.
Whats totally mad, when you study soil microbial actors, you see many resemblances in our own human cells, too many to be a coincidence in my opinion. I am soil, I am convinced, and so growing in any other medium seem entirely non resonant, but I guess it sells products to use another type :)

Yeah, I think our modern obsession with chemicals is related to our need to control nature and feel superior to it. Just look at the neat little totally unnatural way we plant out crops in perfect lines. Again, thank you so much for all the info. I've taken some chem and botany, so I love the actual science backed info brother. You, know even though I'm not religious, I've always found the imagery of god creating humanity from the dirt of the earth so beautiful. "From dust you are made, and to dust you shall return."

Anyway, you've convinced me, just ordered some organic humic acid from Amazon. Should be here in a few days. Another question if you don't mind, and I might also put this on a separate forum, but all three of the Afghan Kush I started the other day with my weird setup have popped up. Looking great, and right now they're under 24/0 with two 100w cfls (I put a bulb splitter in my ancient lamp). Anyway, is it ok to leave them on 24/0 for a while? When they're a bit bigger, I'll just put em out in the greenhouse. Will they get shocked or go into sudden flower from the huge decrease in daylight?

 

[Ecompost]

Yeah, I think our modern obsession with chemicals is related to our need to control nature and feel superior to it. Just look at the neat little totally unnatural way we plant out crops in perfect lines. Again, thank you so much for all the info. I've taken some chem and botany, so I love the actual science backed info brother. You, know even though I'm not religious, I've always found the imagery of god creating humanity from the dirt of the earth so beautiful. "From dust you are made, and to dust you shall return."

Anyway, you've convinced me, just ordered some organic humic acid from Amazon. Should be here in a few days. Another question if you don't mind, and I might also put this on a separate forum, but all three of the Afghan Kush I started the other day with my weird setup have popped up. Looking great, and right now they're under 24/0 with two 100w cfls (I put a bulb splitter in my ancient lamp). Anyway, is it ok to leave them on 24/0 for a while? When they're a bit bigger, I'll just put em out in the greenhouse. Will they get shocked or go into sudden flower from the huge decrease in daylight?

I would drop the light to 18/6 brother. No plant needs 24/0 imo so save your bucks and drop the timer.
So long as the light outside is greater than 12/12 the plant should stay in veg mode, but i have seen plants go to flower after having been on high light on levels and moving outside too early, the shock of the drop in amount of light can trick them but just wait until you are sure you get more light than dark before moving them.
I use the outside sun and then drag them back under light to get the 18/6 at this stage of the year, we are about 13/11 right now here outside, end of this month we will be more suited.

Certain plants can be grown on a constant 12/12, these being equatorial strains typically which you dont have with an Afghan, and there are light recipes for Haze strains for example, but the science is that a plant has to collect x amount of light energy in any one 24 hours period.
Plants subjected to inconsistent levels of light, say on cloudy sun interrupted days, will overclock the collection of light to meet the levels they need, eg it may be possible for a plant to get what it needs from 6 hours of good light. This being the case with any summer veg right? Zucchini typically collect all they need in 6 hours of sunlight but if they are living in 12 hours of full sun, they just work at half the speed if you feel me, but the NET effect is the same amount of energy collected for Y plant.

Hope that helps, but honestly turn down your bulbs to 18/6 and save your money.

 

[Ecompost]

added, if you are an undereducated farmer, and a man with papers turns up with data from the university, what chance do you have?

 

[Smerb]

Be the soil