Long time gardeners (experts) are laughing at us cannabis growers ! I got laughed at today like I'm a clown...

[WhatWouldBobDo]

This has been on my mind. I had a friend in the 80's that decided to grow in his attic. He dug soil from his backyard, planted seeds and grew 6 plants all the way to flower, no problems.. He had nothing, no nutrients, nothing and he pulled it off. How can this be? (I blame LED's, he used high powered halogen bulbs but that's another story).... Point is, he had little to work with and it was very simple...His plants were green and healthy all the way through.

Keep in mind that alot of the bud from the ’80’s and ’90’s that was grown was alot better in memory than in fact.

Bag weed wasn’t the 25% THC that you get now. High THC back then was 15%, but most was probably in the 10% range. And what you got from your local dealer usually wasn’t that good. And we knew nothing about terpenes. So if you could get 7% from a local dealer, if you were able to grow some plants, get a few oz., that’s 5%, it would be like manna from heaven. But today, if you grew something that, with no terpene levels, you’d probably throw it away.

The place I visited is just what you say, competition growers (advanced) growing pumpkins etc...

Their goals of growing are very different from yours. You both want healthy plants, but beyond that it gets very different.

I also grow hot peppers, and am linked into the pepper community. In my area, you typically plant seeds outdoors in April, and hope to harvest in September or October. So about 5 or 6 months. If you start seeds indoors, you start in January or February. But your goal is to give the plants a head start, and transplant outdoors in April. You’ll still harvest in September, but hopefully from a bigger, more healthy plant, with more peppers. But if you baby the plant, you’re actually extending the grow time from 5 or 6 months, to 8 or 9 months. And I don’t know any serious pepper growers that are completing their entire grow indoors (greenhouse, sure).

Contrast that with cannabis growers. If you plant outdoors, yeah you are looking at planting and harvesting around the same time (excluding autos, or really late harvesting plants). But it’s really common for cannabis growers to attempt to shorten the growing time period, making shorter more compact plants, and harvesting in 3 months instead of 7. If you tried to do that with traditional produce (except for your leafy greens) people would be laughing at you too.

So alot of these vegetable, soil guys are looking to mimic what the plant needs, when the plant needs it, and listen to the plant and let it grow. But cannabis growers are looking to push the limits, and give the plant what it needs when we think it needs it (or a little bit earlier). So “slow release” fertilizers are great when you want to have the nutrients waiting in the soil for when the plant decides it wants it. But if you’re looking to finish a plant in 90-120 days, you need to give the nutrients to the plant when they are going to need it. “Conventional” approaches are to say “ok, so the plant needs P and K, here’s a bottle with P and K, so here you go.”

 

[WhatWouldBobDo]

I've been playing guitar for 40 years. Sometimes a new player comes to ask questions....I know how it feels to be on the other side..There is simply no way to explain 40 years of guitar playing to a new player in a quick conversation, it would take YEARS. I know this is exactly the same feeling the gardeners had when I walked in... Dude can you play stairway?

If you’re a guitar player, here’s an analogy that might make sense for you.

What these store growers are doing is like a jazz session, or a jam session. You show up, and feel the beat, and play along. There really isn’t a designated start time, or end time. You just kinda get a feel for it. There aren’t any “right” notes to play, but there are certainly “wrong” ones to play. If at your jam session you feel like you could use more base, then you invite a bass player to the next session. But this session is still going, so you move with the beat. Their style of gardening is alot like that. Forcing nutrients into the soil is “wrong”, but listening to the plant, having all the building blocks there in the soil ready to go when the plant needs it, and going with the flow, is what they’re after.

Meanwhile, what most indoor cannabis growers are doing is like writing a jingle for a commercial. You have a set time period, and a set message you need to convey. Demographics will tell you that the customer will respond more to these notes, over these notes. And you need to hit X, Y, and Z before the 15-20 seconds are over. If you do it right, you’ll have the greatest impact to your customer base for the smallest amount of music time. This style of gardening is alot like what indoor growers shoot for. They want to veg for X weeks, then flower for Y weeks. They have a set time period. In that time period, they want the plant to flower as big as possible, and exert as much cannabinoids and terpenes as possible. But getting out of that grow space quickly, to turn it over, matters. So you don’t care as much about symbiosis, beneficial microbes, or letting the plant grow in the way it was found in nature. You want to get in, get the job done with what previous demographics say gives the greatest improvement over the shortest period of time, and get out.

 

[WhatWouldBobDo]

Even after being obsessive with reading PH PPM's and following feedcharts, I'm still not sure if I'm over feeding or underfeeding. (Mid flower) I simply dont know.

Hell, this is how it is for me. 6 weeks into flower, bottom leaves yellowing and starting to show spots. Seeing purple stems.. Could be hungry, could be over fead....

My solution. Flip a f ing coin ! Its that bad, I just dont know.

So, keep in mind, if you go the organic, traditional route, this type of issue is probably going to be harder to solve.

For most cannabis growers today, if you get some yellowing leaves, you pull up a chart (or go to your local hydro store) and see that you can add in X nutrient or product, and in a few days see if it goes away. In alot of organic gardening, you can’t really do that. You can add some guano, or compost, but you can’t directly inject into the soil what nutrient you think you need at that time. So instead, you take notes on what went wrong, and adjust for the next grow. Maybe you learn to add an extra half a cup of oyster shells or kelp meal. But that’s for next time.

It’s not uncommon for it to take you two or four years of growing to find the right soil mix for the plants you grow.

Particularly in prohibition time/states, you don’t have three years of test grows to figure it out. Which is why liquid nutes are so common/popular.

 

[HerbalEdu]

oh and i have tried similar tablet with one of my grow while i was in the hospital and someone else was watering my plants. i still had to add some liquid nuts when out of the hosptial because the plant were yellowing bottom to top a bit too much.

i m very suspicious regarding how this tablets evenly dissolve and spread across the whole pot and rootball once put into the soil and watered. Also i m very doubtfull they deliver exactly what the plant need at different stages in term of amount and ratio in an accelerated growing context with smaller container than the plant would need.

tho my mom used some of thoose tablet for some flowers in the garden and she said they liked it a lot.

BioTabs Fertiliser Tablets

NPK 15-7-8 Organic slow-release fertiliser tablets for plants. BioTabs condition the soil through microbiological activity while fertilising the plant. Organic cultivation becomes child's play for beginners and advanced growers alike. The tablets contain organic fertiliser NPK 15-7-8 AND...

biotabs.nl

​

 

[FungusGnat]

anyway, lets see what these big silly pellets do

Ha ha! Up till now not much new! But being a Guerrilla grower in your own house! Now that is something new!

Sigh. tell me about it.... Its a long story, but I have teenagers and a wife that doesn't need to know. Although I don't think weed is a bad thing, smoking weed as a teen can get out of hand and in the way of life... (It sure did for me)... I'd rather my kids stay away from weed until they finish college. I have Indica skeletons in my closet !

 

[FungusGnat]

i m more or less in the same boat, feeding more or less the same each grow session and having very mixed result with plant health near the end depending strain and phenotypes. from perfectly healthy with very little fading to fading like crazy or showing this or that burn or deficiency. i m totally at lost with what went wrong with some of my grows or just some phenos or why some other are perfectly fine. like you i tried investigating feeding solution and run off ph and ec and that didn't really helped identifying or solving the issue(s) and adjusting more or less the feeding regimen for the plants with issue(s) without much success most of the time.

( always been growing in soil with organic liquids nutrients )

i have been thinking about trying slow release organic dry amendment for the same reason getting tired of mixing nuts each watering the idea of just top dressing a few time along the grow and just watering with plain water rest of the time is appealing to me as well, also tired of passed out/contaminated liquid nutrient bottle once in a while powder nutrient store much better.

YES !!!!

You have explained myself better than me ! Its like walking an invisible tight rope, left underfeed, you fall, right over feed, you fall. Staying right on the middle of the rope, impossible to see !!!! The rope is different every time !

So, we are in the exact same spot. I'm just tired of stabbing in the dark, would rather start experimenting with other grow options....

 

[FungusGnat]

So, keep in mind, if you go the organic, traditional route, this type of issue is probably going to be harder to solve.

For most cannabis growers today, if you get some yellowing leaves, you pull up a chart (or go to your local hydro store) and see that you can add in X nutrient or product, and in a few days see if it goes away. In alot of organic gardening, you can’t really do that. You can add some guano, or compost, but you can’t directly inject into the soil what nutrient you think you need at that time. So instead, you take notes on what went wrong, and adjust for the next grow. Maybe you learn to add an extra half a cup of oyster shells or kelp meal. But that’s for next time.

It’s not uncommon for it to take you two or four years of growing to find the right soil mix for the plants you grow.

Particularly in prohibition time/states, you don’t have three years of test grows to figure it out. Which is why liquid nutes are so common/popular.

Understood, I must admit that they (liquid nutrients) make more sense when going directly after a deficiency...

And now, you've ruined all my fun...

I'm thinking with liquid nutrients you know what's in them. Advantage Liquid Nutrients.

Organic soil- You "kinda" know whats in there....

Sigh. I think I quit, maybe I'll start oil painting.... If these big silly tablets work, it might save me..

 

[FungusGnat]

Keep in mind that alot of the bud from the ’80’s and ’90’s that was grown was alot better in memory than in fact.

Bag weed wasn’t the 25% THC that you get now. High THC back then was 15%, but most was probably in the 10% range. And w

So, he dug soil from his back yard. Stuck it in large plastic and clay pots, grew them in an attic... I watched the plants make it through flower, they were huge and green, VERY healthy without losing a single leaf...

Here I am with all the latest gadgetry coming nowhere close to him way back when, (he only grew one time too)..

hat you got from your local dealer usually wasn’t that good. And we knew nothing about terpenes. So if you could get 7% from a local dealer, if you were able to grow some plants, get a few oz., that’s 5%, it would be like manna from heaven. But today, if you grew something that, with no terpene levels, you’d probably throw it away.

Their goals of growing are very different from yours. You both want healthy plants, but beyond that it gets very different.

I also grow hot peppers, and am linked into the pepper community. In my area, you typically plant seeds outdoors in April, and hope to harvest in September or October. So about 5 or 6 months. If you start seeds indoors, you start in January or February. But your goal is to give the plants a head start, and transplant outdoors in April. You’ll still harvest in September, but hopefully from a bigger, more healthy plant, with more peppers. But if you baby the plant, you’re actually extending the grow time from 5 or 6 months, to 8 or 9 months. And I don’t know any serious pepper growers that are completing their entire grow indoors (greenhouse, sure).

Contrast that with cannabis growers. If you plant outdoors, yeah you are looking at planting and harvesting around the same time (excluding autos, or really late harvesting plants). But it’s really common for cannabis growers to attempt to shorten the growing time period, making shorter more compact plants, and harvesting in 3 months instead of 7. If you tried to do that with traditional produce (except for your leafy greens) people would be laughing at you too.

So alot of these vegetable, soil guys are looking to mimic what the plant needs, when the plant needs it, and listen to the plant and let it grow. But cannabis growers are looking to push the limits, and give the plant what it needs when we think it needs it (or a little bit earlier). So “slow release” fertilizers are great when you want to have the nutrients waiting in the soil for when the plant decides it wants it. But if you’re looking to finish a plant in 90-120 days, you need to give the nutrients to the plant when they are going to need it. “Conventional” approaches are to say “ok, so the plant needs P and K, here’s a bottle with P and K, so here you go.”

Thanks man, explained well and this is giving me a different perspective into the entire growing thing.

There are many different directions to go, and many different reasons to go in different directions.... Word salad, with a tomato on top !

 

[FungusGnat]

If you’re a guitar player, here’s an analogy that might make sense for you.

What these store growers are doing is like a jazz session, or a jam session. You show up, and feel the beat, and play along. There really isn’t a designated start time, or end time. You just kinda get a feel for it. There aren’t any “right” notes to play, but there are certainly “wrong” ones to play. If at your jam session you feel like you could use more base, then you invite a bass player to the next session. But this session is still going, so you move with the beat. Their style of gardening is alot like that. Forcing nutrients into the soil is “wrong”, but listening to the plant, having all the building blocks there in the soil ready to go when the plant needs it, and going with the flow, is what they’re after.

Meanwhile, what most indoor cannabis growers are doing is like writing a jingle for a commercial. You have a set time period, and a set message you need to convey. Demographics will tell you that the customer will respond more to these notes, over these notes. And you need to hit X, Y, and Z before the 15-20 seconds are over. If you do it right, you’ll have the greatest impact to your customer base for the smallest amount of music time. This style of gardening is alot like what indoor growers shoot for. They want to veg for X weeks, then flower for Y weeks. They have a set time period. In that time period, they want the plant to flower as big as possible, and exert as much cannabinoids and terpenes as possible. But getting out of that grow space quickly, to turn it over, matters. So you don’t care as much about symbiosis, beneficial microbes, or letting the plant grow in the way it was found in nature. You want to get in, get the job done with what previous demographics say gives the greatest improvement over the shortest period of time, and get out.

I like your thought process and ability to understand. You hit the nail on the head here !!!!

The folks in the classic store are trying to do Beethoven, or if in the Art world, Rembrandt...

The folks in the Hydro store are trying to do Pop music, or in the Art world Bob Ross...

Both have a place and reason to be there....Growing a plant in 3-4 months to get some bud to smoke is a good reason to make pop music !!!!

I guess I'm a perfectionist trying to make to high art if that makes sense. But for now l am Bob Ross student !

 

[Ninjadogma]

Just a quick thing about Perlite... in general container gardening, you SHOULD ditch it because it's not ideal. Perlite floats, so when you're giving the soil a good drench, all the perlite can float to the top of the soil and then you don't have the aeration going on that you were hoping for. Except for one thing. Us cannabis growers don't water that way, we water slowly and the perlite doesn't get displaced. But if you ARE a shitty waterer with your cannabis, I'd suggest something like pumice instead.

 

[Galgrows]

Once again i agree with the above. At first i thought he was negitive on the perilite but the explanation about how to water properly gave me hope LOL I love using it and yes i've seen dozens of pics of thick layers of perilite on top of pots. I've also seen folks using it for medium to grow in?? Lesson..........Don't be a shitty waterer LOL

 

[HerbalEdu]

another thing about perlite is it's not much reusable over many grows due to possible salt built up and pathogene contamination. Should be replaced every year or two.

people reusing their soil will surely prefer alternative

 

[Oldchucky]

I’ve been reusing old O F, and perlite for four years now and in my experience, it works fine! Outdoors! I guess a lot depends on your circumstances!

 

[HerbalEdu]

I’ve been reusing old O F, and perlite for four years now and in my experience, it works fine! Outdoors! I guess a lot depends on your circumstances!

yeah should be replaced every year or two to minimize risk of potential issues to be more precise

but yeah also some producers report reusing the same perlite for several consecutive years without issues.

 

[Oldchucky]

When you’re talking two or 300 gallons it’s not economically feasible to replace any of it! So you have to roll with it. And amend. Outdoor plants don’t seem to be quite as sensitive! lol! You lay out a smorgasbord for them during the winter, and they pick and choose what they want or need! I trust them! And that seems to be the premise when using the slow release pellets.

 

[WhatWouldBobDo]

I’ve never replaced any of the perlite I’ve used, in probably decades. Although I doubt any of the original perlite I have from back then is still the same I’m using now. Seems like I’m always buying new.

I do prefer pumice over perlite. Although it’s over twice the price. It seems like pre-flu that stuff was cheaper than dirt, but post-flu prices went through the roof (and availability became non-existant). In a pinch, I’ve used lava rock and hydrotron (expanded clay pellets) instead of perlite as well.

 

[Oldchucky]

I use the cheap small stuff! 22 bucks for 4 ft.³! I just use it to keep the root zone Cool! And I use a lot of it! I think it just breaks down into silica anyway, if it does break down! It’s kind of a form of man-made pumice. And it’s organic! For what that’s worth!

 

[Grownsince95]

Perlite is nature's gift from the volcano! Has low-key revolutionized agriculture. Is also really sustainable and made in the USA. Please don't shit on perlite, you sound like idiots.

Perlite and Sustainability - Perlite Institute

Sustainability Fact Sheet The Perlite Institute defines sustainability as the process of making decisions and taking actions to create economic,

www.perlite.org

 

[Oldchucky]

You won’t hear me shitting on it! It’s the key to my success! I think it’s way under used! Indoors and out!

 

[HerbalEdu]

Understood, I must admit that they (liquid nutrients) make more sense when going directly after a deficiency...

you also need to differenciate organic nutrients (liquid or powder) that need to be processed by soil bacteria to be available for the plant with mineral/synthetic nuts (liquid or powder) wich are readily available in their final form for the plant to absorb. both are usable in soil with pro and con for each

And now, you've ruined all my fun...

gonna ruin your fun even more