Great White & synthetic nutrients, together

Sativajoe · May 17, 2024

Hey growers
What are your thoughts on using great white with standard non organic nutrients. Some articles I've read say using them together is a total waste, as the Nutes will kill off any Mycorrhizae & beneficial bacterial the GW produces.
Others say , not true that won't happen & they will work together
Thoughts please

LoveGrowingIt · May 18, 2024

Sativajoe said:
What are your thoughts on using great white with standard non organic nutrients. Some articles I've read say using them together is a total waste, as the Nutes will kill off any Mycorrhizae & beneficial bacterial the GW produces.
Others say , not true that won't happen & they will work together
Thoughts please

My guess is they would work together, but there wouldn't be much benefit. I don't believe the synthetic nutrients would kill the microbes. They'd need organic nutrients, however, which would be in addition to the synthetic nutrients. That could make it difficult to get the total nutrients right.

dreamnfox · May 18, 2024

Sativajoe said:
Hey growers
What are your thoughts on using great white with standard non organic nutrients. Some articles I've read say using them together is a total waste, as the Nutes will kill off any Mycorrhizae & beneficial bacterial the GW produces.
Others say , not true that won't happen & they will work together
Thoughts please

use the great white when you transplant, after that dont bother. Salt grows dont need microbes to break things down, they are instantly ready for uptake.

Natep · May 18, 2024

Sativajoe said:
Hey growers
What are your thoughts on using great white with standard non organic nutrients. Some articles I've read say using them together is a total waste, as the Nutes will kill off any Mycorrhizae & beneficial bacterial the GW produces.
Others say , not true that won't happen & they will work together
Thoughts please

If you are using synthetic nutrients it will kill the mycorrhizae. The mycelium is going to help break down the nutrients in the soil to become available for your plant. If you have good enough soil there is no reason to use the synthetic nutrients. Much simpler than mixing a few times a week. In my organic grow I drag my water hose in to water

Stokes · May 18, 2024

Microbes do alot more than break down nutrients, they also promote root health and uptake of any nutrients in any form.

With that said, ive never inoculated with anything in coco.

RootFarmer · Jun 22, 2024

When Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria feed on your organic nutrients, they convert organic matter into inorganic matter. Look into the nitrogen cycle. What they are doing is making ammonium, nitrite, nitrate out of organic nitrogen sources. Yep they are making all those "evil chemicals" except not in an industrial complex but in a soil complex. Combine one with a nearby element of an opposite charge (potassium(+) and sulfate (-) for example) and you get a "salt" from a chemistry perspective. Plants can only take up inorganic nutrients. They take them up in 3 different ways one of which is why hydro and soil drenches work with inorganics...to an extent. Ammonium "sticks" to soil. They can only feed on it when you add water again until your soil dries....mostly. PGPR are everywhere. They now sell soil based probiotic (code for bacteria) supplements. They perform a similar function in human digestion as in plant nutrient assimilation. They function as probiotics for plants too.

PGPR perform other important functions. Their metabolites contain important plsnt growth hormones (Indole 3, cytokins, gibberellic acid, etc), insecticides, pathogen suppressors, Any soil you buy will have some amount of microbes. Even the pot you plant them in, your hands. So whether you realize it or not, they are doing all of these important things necessary for plants to live. Adding more simply boosts the efficiency of this micro ecosystem. That means fewer nutrient and water requirements because more microbes make the work easier. Plants feed your microbes too. They have a mutually vested interest in survival. Plants and people need rocks to live but plants can't eat them and if people do.....well probably not recommended....it doesn't do anything to improve your health. We don't have a gizzard like chickens do. They can actually get mineral nutrients from rocks....it's their powerhouse bacterial population. Certain microbes can "eat rocks", they pass those nutrients on to the plant and the plant passes those nutrients on to animals when eaten. Plants and animals die and feed the microbes. It's the circle of life.

Does this make sense?

LoveGrowingIt · Jun 22, 2024

Mycorrhizal fungi (specifically, endomycorrhiza) are in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with cannabis plant roots. The fungal hyphae attach themselves to the roots of the cannabis plant for nutrient exchange and thus can triple the root mass of the plant.

Source: Mycorrhizal Fungi and Cannabis

Natep · Jun 22, 2024

RootFarmer said:
When Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria feed on your organic nutrients, they convert organic matter into inorganic matter. Look into the nitrogen cycle. What they are doing is making ammonium, nitrite, nitrate out of organic nitrogen sources. Yep they are making all those "evil chemicals" except not in an industrial complex but in a soil complex. Combine one with a nearby element of an opposite charge (potassium(+) and sulfate (-) for example) and you get a "salt" from a chemistry perspective. Plants can only take up inorganic nutrients. They take them up in 3 different ways one of which is why hydro and soil drenches work with inorganics...to an extent. Ammonium "sticks" to soil. They can only feed on it when you add water again until your soil dries....mostly. PGPR are everywhere. They now sell soil based probiotic (code for bacteria) supplements. They perform a similar function in human digestion as in plant nutrient assimilation. They function as probiotics for plants too.

PGPR perform other important functions. Their metabolites contain important plsnt growth hormones (Indole 3, cytokins, gibberellic acid, etc), insecticides, pathogen suppressors, Any soil you buy will have some amount of microbes. Even the pot you plant them in, your hands. So whether you realize it or not, they are doing all of these important things necessary for plants to live. Adding more simply boosts the efficiency of this micro ecosystem. That means fewer nutrient and water requirements because more microbes make the work easier. Plants feed your microbes too. They have a mutually vested interest in survival. Plants and people need rocks to live but plants can't eat them and if people do.....well probably not recommended....it doesn't do anything to improve your health. We don't have a gizzard like chickens do. They can actually get mineral nutrients from rocks....it's their powerhouse bacterial population. Certain microbes can "eat rocks", they pass those nutrients on to the plant and the plant passes those nutrients on to animals when eaten. Plants and animals die and feed the microbes. It's the circle of life.

Does this make sense?

Yes but with synthetic nutrients there is no need to break down anything. I have a living organic grow. Mine are working on a constant mulch layer. If hydro guys seen the amount of bugs in my soil they would freak out.

RootFarmer · Jun 22, 2024

I see your point. I think maybe it is more a matter of less work to reduce organic matter into inorganic matter and further reduced from there. They can skip some steps. Also any nutes bound in soil can be freed up by microbes. Technically mykes and roots deal in ionic exchange, in positive and negative charges. If the roots need a negative element, a negative ion from say phosphate it must exchange a positive one to maintain equilibrium and the fungi must trade with them. Mykes are thieving little buggers. If they need a positive ion , they look around, see a candidate molecule nearby and are like i think ill just take that. They pinch a little from that dude's stash and the soil chemistry is altered. The root zone is in constant flux. When metabolizing phosphate they produce phosphoric acid. That effects the pH of your medium whether soil or water. When I grew hydro i wanted to see pH drift. This is why I monitor my soil pH from time to time. I want to see that flux. It tells me they are feeding. No fluctuation could indicate a root health issue. By the time you see signs above ground that there is a problem it has been going on below ground even longer.

This is just my thinking about the subject. Not a definitive statement. I just try to learn from people who know more than me and do my best to sort it all out. Buddha said believe nothing that anyone tells you, even me, if it doesn't stand up to your own common sense. I'm paraphrasing.

Budtirement · Jun 22, 2024

Sativajoe said:
great white with standard non organic nutrient

Learning curve says, choose a system after careful study, follow it and tweak it until you find that it works for you or doesn't suit you.

If you grow a few plants and add both mycorrihzae and liquid nutes you probably wouldn't know if that alters outcome. There are many variables and adding mycorrihzae to a synthetic grow is either going to do nothing at all or improve or impare outcome a tiny bit. It's not like it's going to create Godzilla Kush, and if you were to water incorrectly or have something other than a perfect grow, that would obscure any resulting data points. The only way to actually know if it is beneficial or harmful is to perform large scale tests and compare growth with various soil compositions, mycorrhizae and nutrients against control groups.

The carbon cycle utilized for organic growing is philosophically and for practical purposes, shown to work. The synthetic nutrient system also works if you don't mind the "thought" of putting the products of synthetic chemicals in your body when you don't need to. To mix the two is going to strike some in either camp as less then optimal because it fails to strictly follow the parameters of a system. You are either willing to wait for microbes to breakdown organic material naturally or damn the torpedoes, you want to get to the finish line as fast as possible with soluable nutrients. There's no clutch in a Tesla for a reason!

As Mr Miyagi said, "Walk down street. Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk in the middle, sooner or later get squished like grape."

The grape.....The folks who make Mycorrihzae and the folks who make Liquid Nutes will gladely accept your payment.

RootFarmer · Jun 22, 2024

@Budtirement

I like your thinking. I grow organically but I'm not a strict adherent necessarily. I consider myself organi-flexible. Mother nature has been at this for a minute. I try to keep myself out of the equation as much as possible. I like to understand the science behind things but thats just my way. I like to figure out how things work, a puzzle.In the end we all want as much connoisseur grade smoke as possible. I've done a hybrid approach before. Organic up until finishing and then using inorganic to close it out. When I was a kid my dad would dig a hole, throw in a couple fish he caught into it, cover them with a little soil, transplant and water. That's it. That's how my people had done it forever. Whatever works for you....within reason of course.

Great White & synthetic nutrients, together

Great White & synthetic nutrients, together

Sativajoe

LoveGrowingIt

dreamnfox

Natep

Stokes

RootFarmer

LoveGrowingIt

Natep

RootFarmer

Budtirement

RootFarmer

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