New User Looking To Meet Other Cool Growers

[Ecompost]

Frostayy

Hows the dank den crew doing? Finding it all warm and toasty at the farm?

all good thanks man, you guys are cool here, thanks for making us welcome

 

[Ecompost]

ya i need to break it down to just make what i need,so im in the same boat,lol

Its hard to estimate, this is true. I make up 200ml a time for about 4-6 plants at about 1g breathe, I have a shaky hand, so it wobbles by .5g at times I cant say its a problem tho. 1g per 200ml is enough for 4 plants, then you shouldnt have too much left.

 

[Steelheader1]

yee har, how did it go?

A bit uncomfortable tbh. It was nice though. Just weird getting stoned after all these years and a completely different life.

 

[Ecompost]

A bit uncomfortable tbh. It was nice though. Just weird getting stoned after all these years and a completely different life.

ah man, well gentle in, peaceful out, blessings brother

 

[Psychonaut47]

Hello Ecompost, I really enjoy your postings and have a question you may have answered somewhere but I have not found your input on planting seeds. I have planted seeds in a homemade vermicompost and wonder if I made a mistake by planting marijuana seed in something that may be too hot or strong?

 

[Ecompost]

Hello Ecompost, I really enjoy your postings and have a question you may have answered somewhere but I have not found your input on planting seeds. I have planted seeds in a homemade vermicompost and wonder if I made a mistake by planting marijuana seed in something that may be too hot or strong?
View attachment 611735 View attachment 611737 View attachment 611741

hello mate, vermicompost can sometimes be a bit fine and so a bit heavy for young delicate roots, it depends on the volume of casts to compost and then the type of material the base compost is decayed from.
Its not bad for the plants, well shouldnt be, but you may find adding some aeration will help the plants get going. May be adding some rice hulls if you are organic, or even perlite to give the media a bit more air space and less overall density. It is more likely your issue is with a reduced access to Oxygen and perhaps some compaction that makes it tough for the little plants to get going. Vermicast can also retain a good deal of moisture, sometimes young plants are better of on the drier side. Especially if you are big on flavor quality in the end product. Keeping young plants searching for water is a good idea used by skilled tomato growers to increase the sweetness of the fruit, equally applicable to our plants here.

Hope this helps, if not ask more
Blessing Eco

 

[Psychonaut47]

hello mate, vermicompost can sometimes be a bit fine and so a bit heavy for young delicate roots, it depends on the volume of casts to compost and then the type of material the base compost is decayed from.
Its not bad for the plants, well shouldnt be, but you may find adding some aeration will help the plants get going. May be adding some rice hulls if you are organic, or even perlite to give the media a bit more air space and less overall density. It is more likely your issue is with a reduced access to Oxygen and perhaps some compaction that makes it tough for the little plants to get going. Vermicast can also retain a good deal of moisture, sometimes young plants are better of on the drier side. Especially if you are big on flavor quality in the end product. Keeping young plants searching for water is a good idea used by skilled tomato growers to increase the sweetness of the fruit, equally applicable to our plants here.

Hope this helps, if not ask more
Blessing Eco

It does help thank you, I use to lurk at the Den and noticed all yall when you guys came here and must say yall are an asset.
So my bedding for my red wigglers consist of recycled coco from organic runs of cannabis and alpaca poo and there's plenty of coffee grounds and eggshells in the mix...I'd say 33/33/33, coco/alpaca poo/ (coffee grounds, eggshell, fruit rhines= wormcastings)....when I squeeze it, it drips water and compacts and when I release grips it expands very well still holding plenty of moisture, if that helps, and it's about a year old sinced worm castings been harvested...Danks in advance

 

[Ecompost]

It does help thank you, I use to lurk at the Den and noticed all yall when you guys came here and must say yall are an asset.
So my bedding for my red wigglers consist of recycled coco from organic runs of cannabis and alpaca poo and there's plenty of coffee grounds and eggshells in the mix...I'd say 33/33/33, coco/alpaca poo/ (coffee grounds, eggshell, fruit rhines= wormcastings)....when I squeeze it, it drips water and compacts and when I release grips it expands very well still holding plenty of moisture, if that helps, and it's about a year old sinced worm castings been harvested...Danks in advance

Ah ok buddy, so yes, it may be a little rich for little plants. I suspect most of the material is well mineralised and so there will be abundance available for plants, perhaps a little too much before the roots are sufficiently established.
You might temper the blend by adding more inert material, or amend the cooking in to batches for cycles. For example, it is unlikely your seed blend will need so much diversity. In particular, the manure adds and chitin would be near worthless for at least 7 days in to a seedlings life.
Largely as a consequence of the type and levels of root exudates and the inherent store of all plant seed structures.
However, most cannabis, or plants for that matter, trigger a mass of protein release at or around day 7 of its life, at this stage you might consider moving the plant to a light mix containing most of the inputs you have listed, but at a more diluted rate with a larger portion of inert material such as coco or peat, ie. that is not composted in your system and or passed via your worm bins to a vermicast. So buying and buffering coco blocks or additional buffered peat.
If you cant and dont have the space, you could always consider adding some untreated char to the mix. The char will soak up the mass of minerals, locking it away from your young plant and so reducing the related stresses of high organics and heavy mineralisation. Adding carbon forms of plant feeds may slow overall mineralisation rates, EG raising the C/N ratio in favor of a slower rate of decay.
I assume you arent adding anything in light of the mix, so may be a mollasses and oats brew 24-26 hour max. ( i pre mix my Bio Floret with Steel Cut Oats, I place a damp cloth over these and wait 24 hours. I have been bubbling water for 12 hours with no inputs and then i add this Floret Oats mix and bubble for 24 hours to increase fungal colonies) Clearly increasing fungal mass will increase levels of soil carbons and again these mineralised organics can be stored away on the hyphae preventing any accumulation of unspent food or exchanged free radical ions from saturating your profile.
Planting in over rich organics is a dodgy one mate. Essentially we need primary decayers to breach the binds of organics so that other organisms can benefit from ions.
In a balanced environment, our plants will live in symbiosis with rampant decayers, in fact gaining substantial benefit from the secondary metabolites from these rot causing agents. However, when we increase the rate of organics, we can deplete the O2 as the organics overwhelm the system, overtime this reduction creates imbalance and so conditions for omni present decayers to bloom. in such conditions we invite all those familiar problems we have all seen or had. Botrytis, Fussarium, Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, Pests, pathogenic nematodes and ultimately, ecoli, and far worse.
Young seedling contain everything they need to get moving inside the case, with the genetics of the plant itself. This package includes essential growth compounds and microbes such as Trichoderma and related biomes of bacteria. After about 7 days, our plants will out grow the seeds stores and indeed the microbes themselves will be expanding in number with each passing hour. At this stage we need to consider the options for feeds. Are they in the media, in which case the roots should be allowed to find them over time and not sit in them, like a drunk on a bar stool. Here we can deploy the art of nutrient spiking to assist us if we like. Or we can simply wait the time for the roots to be visible and re pot in to a richer media. Young plants like NH4+ and so prefer acidic conditions in earlier life to prevent this N being process into Nitrates such as NO3-. Your manure inputs will contain plenty of NH4+ nbut this gets processed to NO3- in the presence of large bacterial populations. In order to slow this process, you need to increase the rates of fungus to bacteria in your media. Only by balancing the fungus to bacteria can you properly encourage the conditions to grow top class grade without lots more input your end mate.

Contrary to standard practice, I feed fungus and end with raising my pH to stall these and feeding in more base conditions to increase Nitrate conversion as my plants mature. Or in other words, I grow in increasingly base media as the plant ages. Lots of people would try to prevent the swing i adore :)

 

[Psychonaut47]

Ah ok buddy, so yes, it may be a little rich for little plants. I suspect most of the material is well mineralised and so there will be abundance available for plants, perhaps a little too much before the roots are sufficiently established.
You might temper the blend by adding more inert material, or amend the cooking in to batches for cycles. For example, it is unlikely your seed blend will need so much diversity. In particular, the manure adds and chitin would be near worthless for at least 7 days in to a seedlings life.
Largely as a consequence of the type and levels of root exudates and the inherent store of all plant seed structures.
However, most cannabis, or plants for that matter, trigger a mass of protein release at or around day 7 of its life, at this stage you might consider moving the plant to a light mix containing most of the inputs you have listed, but at a more diluted rate with a larger portion of inert material such as coco or peat, ie. that is not composted in your system and or passed via your worm bins to a vermicast. So buying and buffering coco blocks or additional buffered peat.
If you cant and dont have the space, you could always consider adding some untreated char to the mix. The char will soak up the mass of minerals, locking it away from your young plant and so reducing the related stresses of high organics and heavy mineralisation. Adding carbon forms of plant feeds may slow overall mineralisation rates, EG raising the C/N ratio in favor of a slower rate of decay.
I assume you arent adding anything in light of the mix, so may be a mollasses and oats brew 24-26 hour max. ( i pre mix my Bio Floret with Steel Cut Oats, I place a damp cloth over these and wait 24 hours. I have been bubbling water for 12 hours with no inputs and then i add this Floret Oats mix and bubble for 24 hours to increase fungal colonies) Clearly increasing fungal mass will increase levels of soil carbons and again these mineralised organics can be stored away on the hyphae preventing any accumulation of unspent food or exchanged free radical ions from saturating your profile.
Planting in over rich organics is a dodgy one mate. Essentially we need primary decayers to breach the binds of organics so that other organisms can benefit from ions.
In a balanced environment, our plants will live in symbiosis with rampant decayers, in fact gaining substantial benefit from the secondary metabolites from these rot causing agents. However, when we increase the rate of organics, we can deplete the O2 as the organics overwhelm the system, overtime this reduction creates imbalance and so conditions for omni present decayers to bloom. in such conditions we invite all those familiar problems we have all seen or had. Botrytis, Fussarium, Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, Pests, pathogenic nematodes and ultimately, ecoli, and far worse.
Young seedling contain everything they need to get moving inside the case, with the genetics of the plant itself. This package includes essential growth compounds and microbes such as Trichoderma and related biomes of bacteria. After about 7 days, our plants will out grow the seeds stores and indeed the microbes themselves will be expanding in number with each passing hour. At this stage we need to consider the options for feeds. Are they in the media, in which case the roots should be allowed to find them over time and not sit in them, like a drunk on a bar stool. Here we can deploy the art of nutrient spiking to assist us if we like. Or we can simply wait the time for the roots to be visible and re pot in to a richer media. Young plants like NH4+ and so prefer acidic conditions in earlier life to prevent this N being process into Nitrates such as NO3-. Your manure inputs will contain plenty of NH4+ nbut this gets processed to NO3- in the presence of large bacterial populations. In order to slow this process, you need to increase the rates of fungus to bacteria in your media. Only by balancing the fungus to bacteria can you properly encourage the conditions to grow top class grade without lots more input your end mate.

Contrary to standard practice, I feed fungus and end with raising my pH to stall these and feeding in more base conditions to increase Nitrate conversion as my plants mature. Or in other words, I grow in increasingly base media as the plant ages. Lots of people would try to prevent the swing i adore :)

Great info and makes so much sense, now that you mention fungus I did add about 5+ gallons of top soil from the mountain forest about four months ago, and that was added to about 30 gal of the the vermicompo mix I detailed earlier. Would that be considered forest humus, what I did was, I raked with a shovel, a 4x4 area of the top 4 inches of what looked like black rich airy soil with a white fuzzy growth.....is it safe to assume that that's enough fungus added to the vermicompost? It's been about a week since the seeds started and I have them in the shade and I've watered only with rain water....I'll put up a couple more pics if it's alright with you? I wouldn't want to clog the thread or maybe you have another thread started with similar advice or something....Danks again m8

 

[oldskol4evr]

i would dig in there with my hands and transplant a cup full around the plant and go into solo cups,when they get to third set of leaves back into your mix,add 30%perlite and magic will happen

 

[Psychonaut47]

i would dig in there with my hands and transplant a cup full around the plant and go into solo cups,when they get to third set of leaves back into your mix,add 30%perlite and magic will happen

What about leaf compost that consist of mostly brown 1yr old leaves and some grass 10% maybe....I guess if I'm trying to be clever I could mix in some native rock, clay, Sandy soil....well this reminds me that the recycled coco in the vermicompost has crushed recycled clay pebbles and small perlite that can be seen in the fine mix....isn't there a chance that they grow with decent momentum, the alpaca poo had tons of straw in there....the majority of the compost components are well aged...I'm ranting now, please excuse what might be an excess of optimism/excuses

 

[oldskol4evr]

What about leaf compost that consist of mostly brown 1yr old leaves and some grass 10% maybe....I guess if I'm trying to be clever I could mix in some native rock, clay, Sandy soil....well this reminds me that the recycled coco in the vermicompost has crushed recycled clay pebbles and small perlite that can be seen in the fine mix....isn't there a chance that they grow with decent momentum, the alpaca poo had tons of straw in there....the majority of the compost components are well aged...I'm ranting now, please excuse what might be an excess of optimism/excuses

nah bro you got me wrong,what i was saying if it really is bothering you,do it,personally i think if they live ,there could be phenos amongst them. think about it,if they can take off in that soil they done been stress tested and i for sure would be keeping a close eye on her or him for breeding,let them be ,feed them when they show they need it,the babies dont want no food they get it from what they legs are stretching in,i cant even remember the last time i feed in veg,when i flip i start working a small dose up to just get a tad of tip burn,when the tip burns i back off ,to half i was putting in when they burned,feeding veg to the first 2 weeks of stretch helps a lot,let them babies show you they wont to be something,weeds out potential problems sometimes,you find a stud and a female breed that bitch for seeds,and then you can play all kinds of shit with this plant,lmao

 

[Psychonaut47]

nah bro you got me wrong,what i was saying if it really is bothering you,do it,personally i think if they live ,there could be phenos amongst them. think about it,if they can take off in that soil they done been stress tested and i for sure would be keeping a close eye on her or him for breeding,let them be ,feed them when they show they need it,the babies dont want no food they get it from what they legs are stretching in,i cant even remember the last time i feed in veg,when i flip i start working a small dose up to just get a tad of tip burn,when the tip burns i back off ,to half i was putting in when they burned,feeding veg to the first 2 weeks of stretch helps a lot,let them babies show you they wont to be something,weeds out potential problems sometimes,you find a stud and a female breed that bitch for seeds,and then you can play all kinds of shit with this plant,lmao

Right, I didn't plan much for this one but I agree it could be worth it, thanks m8

I think on the new moon im going to pop some seed in a more aerated/inert mix to see if they catch up with these which are two weeks older...I know it's late and it's just for shits and giggles ya know....maybe I'll move em inside if the first freeze comes too early...

 

[oldskol4evr]

Right, I didn't plan much for this one but I agree it could be worth it, thanks m8

I think on the new moon im going to pop some seed in a more aerated/inert mix to see if they catch up with these which are two weeks older...I know it's late and it's just for shits and giggles ya know....maybe I'll move em inside if the first freeze comes too early...

shit bro cheap ass soil till they get roots to bottom of cup and into the soil your using,i used half a solo cup full of ocean forest,then water to i get to third set of full leaves,under 24hr light,at third set flip them suckers in flower in 10 to 14 days of the flip they will be showing there sex,after they show sex ,right back to veg and grow them as big as you like,i let mine get about 18 in tall and flip to flwer

 

[Psychonaut47]

shit bro cheap ass soil till they get roots to bottom of cup and into the soil your using,i used half a solo cup full of ocean forest,then water to i get to third set of full leaves,under 24hr light,at third set flip them suckers in flower in 10 to 14 days of the flip they will be showing there sex,after they show sex ,right back to veg and grow them as big as you like,i let mine get about 18 in tall and flip to flwer

I here ya, see I really don't think my vermicompost is hotter then Ocean forest but I've ripped through a ton of ocean forest and i agree that it's too hot for seeds but something took me by surprise with this vermicompost I'm working with ...I put about two shovels of this vermicompost into a tote of FRESH fruit scraps and rhines and alpaca poo, coffee, leaf mold and eggshells and two days later tons of cantelope, watermelon, honey dew are growing lol so I'm doing a tad bit of experimenting.

 

[oldskol4evr]

I here ya, see I really don't think my vermicompost is hotter then Ocean forest but I've ripped through a ton of ocean forest and i agree that it's too hot for seeds but something took me by surprise with this vermicompost I'm working with ...I put about two shovels of this vermicompost into a tote of FRESH fruit scraps and rhines and alpaca poo, coffee, leaf mold and eggshells and two days later tons of cantelope, watermelon, honey dew are growing lol so I'm doing a tad bit of experimenting.

thats just it,all those are great,but they also need to be broke down threw cooking first,i think your good to go,i use nothing but ocean forest from seed to first transplant and then they go in my soil mix,hell yea anything thats not acidic is great for compost pile,got to cook it first,you wasnt clear on that just said fresh,like i said let them babies go on see what happens,a lot of folk think they have problems and stunted growth,becaus they dont have patientence,when i do half cup ocean and get to 3rd set of full leaves that root ball is another half cup full of nothing but root ball and into my soil mix they go,they dont consider the tap root of a seed ,when it hits bottom then that bitch takes off,for this faster growth spurts they transplant 2 or 3 times,i dont,they go from solo cups to 5 gal bucket,the shock if any and the transition from veg to flower to veg,gives it time for that ball to open up and seek loving,if you dig me,real good friend of mine showed me the solo cup trick to sexing and i havent grown a male except looking for studs if you dig,gt 21 sharp cat ,and im never to old to learn something new,i have cut down on the fuck its a male shit,i hope for them now,lmmfao

 

[Psychonaut47]

thats just it,all those are great,but they also need to be broke down threw cooking first,i think your good to go,i use nothing but ocean forest from seed to first transplant and then they go in my soil mix,hell yea anything thats not acidic is great for compost pile,got to cook it first,you wasnt clear on that just said fresh,like i said let them babies go on see what happens,a lot of folk think they have problems and stunted growth,becaus they dont have patientence,when i do half cup ocean and get to 3rd set of full leaves that root ball is another half cup full of nothing but root ball and into my soil mix they go,they dont consider the tap root of a seed ,when it hits bottom then that bitch takes off,for this faster growth spurts they transplant 2 or 3 times,i dont,they go from solo cups to 5 gal bucket,the shock if any and the transition from veg to flower to veg,gives it time for that ball to open up and seek loving,if you dig me,real good friend of mine showed me the solo cup trick to sexing and i havent grown a male except looking for studs if you dig,gt 21 sharp cat ,and im never to old to learn something new,i have cut down on the fuck its a male shit,i hope for them now,lmmfao

I can dig it....

 

[oldskol4evr]

I can dig it....

pm gt21 and that feller there can give you tips from seed to dabs,thaught this old ass man a few things,tell him oldskol sent you

 

[Ecompost]

Great info and makes so much sense, now that you mention fungus I did add about 5+ gallons of top soil from the mountain forest about four months ago, and that was added to about 30 gal of the the vermicompo mix I detailed earlier. Would that be considered forest humus, what I did was, I raked with a shovel, a 4x4 area of the top 4 inches of what looked like black rich airy soil with a white fuzzy growth.....is it safe to assume that that's enough fungus added to the vermicompost? It's been about a week since the seeds started and I have them in the shade and I've watered only with rain water....I'll put up a couple more pics if it's alright with you? I wouldn't want to clog the thread or maybe you have another thread started with similar advice or something....Danks again m8

White fuzz could be lots of things buddy, it might not mean fungus, but it could. white fuzz in the top soil might be Streptomyces but it could be Trichoderma or any other DSE fungus. it could be a colony of Azotobacter, some yeasts or may in fact be a glomus or other mycorrhiza fungus. There is lots going on in soils as you know.
I tend to collect my fungus for cannabis from perennial grasslands mate, rather then a forest per say. Actually, you can collect really good Mycos for cannabis from most tomatoes grown in decent natural soils. If you know people that cover crop, you can collect awesome microbes from these fields also. I will collect samples in systems as high as 5:1 F:B but i tend not to go for really mature forests, pine forests for example, well at least not for microbes, but i do use pine needles as mulch :-)

 

[Ecompost]

What about leaf compost that consist of mostly brown 1yr old leaves and some grass 10% maybe....I guess if I'm trying to be clever I could mix in some native rock, clay, Sandy soil....well this reminds me that the recycled coco in the vermicompost has crushed recycled clay pebbles and small perlite that can be seen in the fine mix....isn't there a chance that they grow with decent momentum, the alpaca poo had tons of straw in there....the majority of the compost components are well aged...I'm ranting now, please excuse what might be an excess of optimism/excuses

wood chips, liberal spread of fungal spores via inoculate, add rock dust like Azomite, wait 3 years for it to rot down in to deep rich humus, apply liberally to the land or in deep containers, plant, water. Stand back and say wow wtf, woodchip rock dust and fungus soil is awesomeness. By all means add some kelp meal or other if you want but doubt you will need it