Mikedin said:

This is mainly a 100% beginners guide idea. The simplist and cheapest way to get from seed to harvest, hydro has nithong To do with experience it’s just a personal choice, I could buy a setup and choose to run hydro first as a beginner. Wouldn’t mean I’m doing anything more expertly than I could with soil on my first run and a complete beginner… you’d be just as clueless to any aspect of it, that’s why we have this topic going. some choose hydro first some choose soil, but if you look back there was talk about separate topics for beginners on all types of setups separately, hydro / soilless / organic / no till, etc, nobody will be left out! this forum has a wide range of growers, to each their own preference. The wide range of experience in different situations and mediums is is what makes the farm a great resource

Now Dutch bucket, I’ve been looking into that for my garden was thinking of running some maters or peppers in some, I saw a pretty sick 50x 5 gallon bucket setup that did hella production

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Pragmatism, whodathunkit?

Brought to you by Carl’s Jr

tgpeters said:

I'm wondering why Hydro is not a significant topic of discussions.

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Probably because I got that base covered, currently working on a video for beginners.

You're right tho, Hydro don't get much love. Coco is hydro, just a little different slightly more difficult. Hydro has a bad rap. Lots of people say DWC is the most complicated grow method and it scares people off from all things Hydro. People still grow with Ebb and Flow. It's called fill and empty or whatever nowadays.

You're welcome to make tutorials your style. Maybe judge the level of experience one may need to follow along and title it properly? For example, Aquaponics for intermediate to advanced growers.

Yeah there are tutorials out there but creators fly solo. Here we can build a solid knowledge base backed by experienced people who can stand together and agree together.

I do both hydro and soil, but I like to tinker with shit. They can both be as hard, or as simple as one wants to make it

ACSippi said:

I don't even get into anything after harvest. To me that's personal in a way of a specialized skill i guess. Either people did their own personal trials or they followed someone else's modern updated guide. Because as we all know, we didnt figure out how to dry weed until 2015. :snickers: Not all of my harvests turn out great, some are absolute doodoo and they go straight to the fire pit lol like a boss so it don't hurt so bad. There's only ONE way I know how to cure my problem, it just doesn't fit my style. Buts that's all I'm going to say about that.

Yo! One of my favorite guys from back in the day, I haven't heard about him in years. I used to loath his way of growing. It was like a hot mess but than man would put out some very good stuff. He's the only guy I know of that can have the worst looking plants that put out the best weed. Just thinking about it makes me cringe but I got a lotta respect for him.

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I have to agree, every grow is an experiment to me. I can't wait until the next one so I can try new things and run new seeds.
I think we have all grown some bad bud be it from genetics or our own fault.
As for as post harvest its kind of more art than science to me. It is a lot of experience telling you when to jar and how you stabilize your buds in jars.
Your buddy is a good example of why I say there are many different ways to grow the dank. We all have different climates, residences, bugs, styles, schedules. So I try to stay open to whatever people do if they are getting results.
Always nice to discuss the plant. ✌

I keep it as simple as possible. Base and Cal/Mag. No amendments or enhancers. The only thing I could say would come close to an amendment or enhancement would be the mycorrhizae and bacteria I inoculate the soil with prior to planting.

Other than that, it's just manipulating the ratios through the grow by blending grow and bloom.

I spent many years working in legal grow ops. Learned a lot as all had Botanist and Master Gardeners so I could ask questions all day long. I also got to watch lots of nutrient line salesmen come through trying to sell their line along with getting to watch side by side comparisons when we were testing out nutrients and amendments. 99% don't really apply to tent growers. Production growers, yes, as a 1% - 2% bump in dry weight is a big deal but the bump in dry weight is minimal on a per plant basis for tent growers.

Captspaulding said:

I’ve ran soil for 25 years. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Also, a preference. It’s nice to have bi products to use out in my garden.
Hydro, I live in the damned swamp.
Running dro is tempting fate here.
Dro is awesome. So is soil. It’s really about what suits your particular needs.

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Funny memories --- Hydro, I live in the damned swamp. My first grows were outside in 5 gallon buckets on pallets in a swamp. Many good memories. The things we had to do ... when it was illegal.
Thanks to all for the good comments. i really appreciate the forum.

I got about a 30 minute video done so far, covering about 10 days, from before seeds arrive in the mail thru to potted and in their grow spots.

What do I do now? Make day by day clips of me testing my water and adjusting it? Merge them all together in one video? Sounds boring but might be good to show new growers day by day activities. Like if the PH is perfect for three days then the fourth it's off and I have to adjust it then the 5th day everything is normal or maybe I gotta adjust again.

I kinda like that idea now that I think of it tbh.

The real question is, who's going to critique my video? I'll need to hear opinions so I can maybe add them in or maybe make foot notes on deviations. Anything really, I can decide how to go about it if I think I should.

Mikedin said:

Pro tip, chloramine does not evaporate, very important to know what sterilizer your municipality uses, 24 hours to evap chlorine, but for chloramine you’ll need to filter it out, I use a hose bib in my basement and run my water through one of these type filters, they are made to remove chlorine/chloramine and VOC’s (just a carbon filter basically) I usually pick them up on Amazon some are sold as RV in line filters, some are for pool water etc just check that they remove chloramine (I’m probably spelling that wrong )

But even with that I still let them sit out for 24 hours, here’s mine, yes those are the misquito bits in the bottom (BTI)

Cool tip I learned awhile back from an old member here

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I might be wrong here but I seem to remember when I was brewing, that to remove chlorine and chlorarmine you can use potasium metabisulfate, I think it was under a half a gram per 5 gal. I think some aquarium shops also sell a type of water conditioner as well.

All nutrients, be they "Synthetic" or "Organic", break down to the same ion. The plant doesn't know or care how it was derived. The only difference is synthetically derived nutrients are immediately available whereas organic needs to be broken down to be available.

If you don't like using products that are chemically derived(Bosch Haber Process) and use a lot of petro products to execute that process then go organic but to say that one is better than the other is not accurate.

BuffNuts said:

It would in my soil. All that garbage Nitrate based boof master bullshit is the same, would turn into ammonia and attract pathogens in a healthy medium.

I'm assuming you have just as many or more pesticides and root warrior products as you do cheap nasty garbage Nitrate fertilizer?

Oh lord, when will a topic for experienced growers actually have experienced growers.

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well you wouldn’t be part of the club

PooToe said:

All nutrients, be they "Synthetic" or "Organic", break down to the same ion. The plant doesn't know or care how it was derived. The only difference is synthetically derived nutrients are immediately available whereas organic needs to be broken down to be available.

If you don't like using products that are chemically derived(Bosch Haber Process) and use a lot of petro products to execute that process then go organic but to say that one is better than the other is not accurate.

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it’s about the raw materials

We really need to dumb down everything to tomato level. Here's some history.

Do you know who wins the nutrient game? Businesses. As we debate, argue and lose our minds arguing about nutrients. The truth is, cannabis only needs 16 components to grow. Anything else is just fluff, Bullisht or PGRs.

Everyone wants that edge over the other guy. Nutrient companies know that. It's good for business. Whether a product is needed or not business will make it. Whether it's legit or not salesmen will sell it.

Many of yall don't know how things have progressed through the decades, why things are the way they are. For example Calmag. Anyone remember when it hit the market like a shining star and hero for growers? I bought a bottle like a fool. After a bit I realized 'DOH!' The wat am I doing? I got tricked.

Okay so continuing my story, before calmag became a star it wasn't even talked about. Dirt growers were the only ones talking about calcium and magnesium. Wat me worry?

As hydro growers if we had a calcium problem or any micro nutrient problem we'd just up the micro nutrients as we built feed schedules. Magnesium was never a problem because we pumped as much flora nutrients we could into the plants without burning them.

As men, we do stuff. Always looking for that special trick. Circa....early 2000s(?) cheap RODI water systems became popular or were popular in reef tanks. I was right in there since I had a Saltwater fishtank.

I foolishly switched to RODI while thinking I've made my life easier, pure water I could manipulate however I wanted. Immediately I had problems. Iirc PH stabilizing was a b-werd but that was the least of my problems, upping nutrients to try and fix stuff along with having unpredictable PH I was spinning.

Now that I remember I almost gave up on DWC. I recently started growing that style and no one else was so I had to figure out everything on my own. So many problems to iron out and now I threw RODI into the mix and went backwards. I stopped using RODI and got back on track.

Many others were still using RODI and did whatever to fix their problems. Then here comes CalMag to save the day. Growers need and nutrient companies deliver! There's nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong is its promotion. Calmag is a supplement for those that actually need it yet it's promoted by the masses that have no idea of why other than it boosting cal/mag, critical elements for growing weed, without them your plant is isht. That's intimidating to new/newer growers and even experienced. Everyone else is using calmag so that's what you need! Right?!? Erm...NO! You need to buy it because it's business.

That story goes for most everything on our cannabis world. I can do a history of LEDs too...

The  ONLY thing i care about nutrients is if theyre safe, legit and have the 16 critical components to make my plant grow. Everything else what I said earlier...bullisht, fluff or PGRs. That's really the bottom line for all types of growers.

How can any legit nutrient line no matter the grow style be discredited? Other than it being a scam but that's another story, fraudulent nutrient lines.

What we as experienced growers should be talking about is exactly what the plant needs and focus on criticizing stuff we don't need. Your line has everything a plant needs 100%, my line has 75% and I gotta buy more stuff to meet the 100%. Why even promote the brand I'm using? It's obviously not made for me, it's made to take my money by buying extra stuff.

Too many growers don't know history, they've jumped in in the middle or late and they think they're following the SOP. Bad trends create bad habits that are passed on day by day to new growers. That's where we are today. Those bad habits created by marketing and spread by word of mouth got us all messed up.

Look at my grows, since I've started using GH Trio in 95ish I've had great grows, come 2005ish I fell into the marketing game with RODI and calmag and messed my stuff up. Went back to tap water and GH and never looked back. I'll put my plants up against the most scientific grow, perfect specs, done in a $50b NASA lab and you'd quickly see they spent all that money to barely out do me, probably.

So if I can do that with a $35 pack of GH nutrients...why is there even a debate? Why not dumb it down to the base level with me?

GNick55 said:

it’s about the raw materials

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Please explain your post. Are you saying the fact that organic starts out with more natural raw materials and isn't chemically derived makes it better?

Not trying to argue with you but would love more context on your thoughts.

PooToe said:

Please explain your post. Are you saying the fact that organic starts out with more natural raw materials and isn't chemically derived makes it better?

Not trying to argue with you but would love more context on your thoughts.

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no just saying the source of the raw materials differs in quality

GNick55 said:

no just saying the source of the raw materials differs in quality

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I will attest to this. Two bags organic soil. Build a soil. First bag no fungus nats. Second plenty.

GNick55 said:

no just saying the source of the raw materials differs in quality

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HUGE difference, the raw material is everything really,
especially when using dry amendments in a living soil of sorts.

PooToe said:

Please explain your post. Are you saying the fact that organic starts out with more natural raw materials and isn't chemically derived makes it better?

Not trying to argue with you but would love more context on your

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Are you talking dry Amendments or liquid nutes?

PooToe said:

Please explain your post. Are you saying the fact that organic starts out with more natural raw materials and isn't chemically derived makes it better?

Not trying to argue with you but would love more context on your thoughts.

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This is calcium supplements for people but it doesnt matter. It breaks down all the forms of calcium. Imagine but for the rest as well, hope it helps a little

I realize that supplements can be derived from different types but at ion level the plant doesn't know that you derived that calcium ion from phosphate or carbonate. It just sees calcium.

PooToe said:

I realize that supplements can be derived from different types but at ion level the plant doesn't know that you derived that calcium ion from phosphate or carbonate. It just sees calcium.

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We know so little about plants that is a very shaky statement at best.
From what we do know that's not how nature works and that's been working well for a hell of a lot longer than we have even existed as a species so I give nature the nod.