Who's Growing Tlo Style (the Rev)?

[CallmeTex]

Hey man, looks like you've got everything under control. Great suggestions, already. Really there are a lot of different ways to cook some soil. I've found it easiest to mix or re-mix soil on a concrete slab with a long handled flat shovel and a push broom to clean up. I don't turn again until I'm loading into the final containers.

As per question 1. I like to moisten until you can't find any dry pockets in the mix and well before field capacity (being able to squeeze water from a handful)
Q 2. I keep soil in a large garbage bin with holes in the lid and bottom. Works pretty well.

 

[Perception]

5-day TLO 2.2 Soil Cooking update
Soil temp was at 90deg F yesterday before I turned it, and is now holding at 80deg F, 24 hours after turning. The microbe populations seem to have decreased a little since 4 days ago (30% decrease) Could be sample discrepancies, but not super surprising after seeing the temperature drop. If you compare this microscope photo to the one from a few days ago, you can see that there are fewer microbes.

-> Temp = 80deg F (hand written picture temp is an error)
-> Avg microbes per 400x frame = 1,026

 

[goingtoguano]

Week 8 of flower, TLO -The Rev style update:
Wrapping this grow up.
I am down to one that still doesn't look finished. I dropped the lights to 11/13 on/off and will give it another week and see.
here is a couple pictures:
The last Afghani still growing- big buds
Total yield of other 4 plants that have been drying for a couple days
The Lemon OG buds that were awesome
The top of that Afghani Cola

 

[Perception]

Looks awesome! Nice work. How did they smell while you were growing?

My previous grows didn't have a lot of smell honestly. Not until I got to drying/curing. But my plants were always under-fertilized (I now know).

 

[goingtoguano]

Thanks @Perception, They smelled some during the grow but not too bad, I changed out my carbon filter halfway through and that helped but there is still a little odor. It tends to collect in the top of the stairwells so, when you open the door to go down into the basement, you get hit with some smell but once you go down the stairs you don't notice anything. For the most part, you can't smell it upstairs except that now that I have it drying out in the open (because there is still a plant in the tent), my basement stinks a bit more. Oh well, its just a few days.

 

[Perception]

10-day TLO 2.2 Soil Cooking update
Soil temp is only 3 degrees F above ambient air temperatures now. Looks like the bacterial populations have decreased by half (makes sense with lower temp). The interesting thing is that I found 4 nematodes on one slide! I've never seen this many nematodes before on one slide. I'm also seeing some fungal hyphae starting to kick off. There are a couple photos below of hyphae starting - I believe that one photo is a spore germinating hyphae.

The soil smells GREAT though. My entire garage now smells like rich, earthy soil. I turned soil after taking sample.

-> Temp = 74deg F
-> Avg microbes per 400x frame = 552

 

[Perception]

15-day TLO 2.2 Soil Cooking update
This is two days old, but trying to keep a record organized. Soil temp is 2deg F above ambient air temp. After I took the soil sample, I turned soil and added 1gallon distilled H2O to it. I'm going to try and do another analysis before I go out of down on Saturday, as I'm curious what the added water does!

For this update, the only thing new is that the fungal hyphae that I'm seeing is getting bigger and more established (picture below). In hind sight, I wish I had added some compost with lots of fungal activity. Might still do so.

 

[Perception]

Found a good article. I appreciate the breakdown, although In some instances I feel like they are just trying to poke holes in every aspect of The REVs method. I really like the Build-A-Soil & Clackamas Coots methodology, and I look forward to trying it (after this TLO grow.) I have to see the results for myself before I can make judgements!

Kicking off my TLO grow this weekend. Soil has been composting for 3 months now. Going to add a little water and Malibu Compost tonight (Malibu compost by BuildASoil is awesome) to boost the microbial life, and will sow seeds on Saturday or Sunday.

https://buildasoil.com/blogs/news/9885098-why-tlo-dissecting-the-rev-mix-line-by-line

 

[brazel]

I didn't realize there was a second edition but hopefully he got rid of the layers, Spike's, and changed a lot of ingredients!!

 

[brazel]

Found a good article. I appreciate the breakdown, although In some instances I feel like they are just trying to poke holes in every aspect of The REVs method. I really like the Build-A-Soil & Clackamas Coots methodology, and I look forward to trying it (after this TLO grow.) I have to see the results for myself before I can make judgements!

Kicking off my TLO grow this weekend. Soil has been composting for 3 months now. Going to add a little water and Malibu Compost tonight (Malibu compost by BuildASoil is awesome) to boost the microbial life, and will sow seeds on Saturday or Sunday.

https://buildasoil.com/blogs/news/9885098-why-tlo-dissecting-the-rev-mix-line-by-line

No one is trying to poke holes, their trying to help you by showing you something better! Coot doesn't benefit by poking holes and Jeremy will sell you a tlo soil minus bat guano because that's horrible process to obtain.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say Malibu compost by buildasoil but buildasoil does not produce Malibu compost.

Please share these instances where you feel they might be poking holes at rev.

Please understand I'm not trying to attack or be rude or anything but by doing this, we can learn. If we can't exchange our thoughts ideas and understandings how can we grow?

Cheers

 

[Perception]

No one is trying to poke holes, their trying to help you by showing you something better! Coot doesn't benefit by poking holes and Jeremy will sell you a tlo soil minus bat guano because that's horrible process to obtain.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say Malibu compost by buildasoil but buildasoil does not produce Malibu compost.

Please share these instances where you feel they might be poking holes at rev.

Please understand I'm not trying to attack or be rude or anything but by doing this, we can learn. If we can't exchange our thoughts ideas and understandings how can we grow?

Cheers

I hear ya - that article is well thought out and I know that the author has good intentions. Don't get me wrong, I really like all the Build-A-Soil theory, and I have nothing against the authors. My gut reaction is that their technique sounds superior on paper. The Rev's stuff is interesting too. I look forward to trying both techniques and comparing. And yes, there is no denying that some of those animal byproducts sound nasty!

Here is a little more detail on what I was saying about poking holes: the Rev promotes using organically sourced amendments, and repeatedly talks about the importance of using quality amendments from good sources - local if possible. The author of the article on BuildASoil gets in to a lot of detail about how nasty some of the amendments can be - but if you sourced organic amendments, they "shouldn't" have these nasty drugs or chemicals in them (I'm mostly referring to the feather & blood meal here). He also states that un-composted manure can still have antibiotics - although the line item ingredient specifically says "composted" steer manure, and in his book, the Rev recommends organic, so it "shouldn't" contain antibiotics. There is always a chance that something labeled "organic" could be untruthful - but short of going to the farm and watching production, we have to trust the people packaging these products to a certain degree. It could be said that Malted Barely shouldn't be used because non-organic uses high amounts of Glyphosate for dessication (are you 100% sure that your MB doesn't contain glyphosate?), or that Peat Moss is unsustainably harvested, and lowersPH too much. But I think most growers would look for organic Malted Barley (and have to trust that it is really organic), and also know how to compensate for the PH changes peat can bring. I also didn't understand why he said that rice would "rot". To me, it seems that the breakdown of rice by micro-organisms would be beneficial.

But I think that it's the organic growers responsibility to spend the extra time sourcing their amendments, and doing their best to make sure their products come from legitimately organic sources. Ideally local. On the other hand, I agree that those animal by-products sound kind of gross. Also, the TLO 2.2 recipe calls for A LOT of amendments, and my initial gut reaction was, "couldn't this all be done with just a few products?". So, I still feel that the author did a great job of pointing out some of the pitfalls of the Rev's amendments, but I feel that almost anything can be picked apart if you really want to.

On the Malibu compost
I see - you are correct. I saw the Malibu Compost for sale on the BuildASoil website, and I assumed that they were making it. I see after looking closely at the picture of the bag that is says it is made in California though. Regardless, after comparing several bagged composts under a microscope, the Malibu compost had the best bacterial & fungal counts I've seen!
https://buildasoil.com/collections/composts/products/malibu-compost

 

[brazel]

I hear ya - that article is well thought out and I know that the author has good intentions. Don't get me wrong, I really like all the Build-A-Soil theory, and I have nothing against the authors. My gut reaction is that their technique sounds superior on paper. The Rev's stuff is interesting too. I look forward to trying both techniques and comparing. And yes, there is no denying that some of those animal byproducts sound nasty!

Here is a little more detail on what I was saying about poking holes: the Rev promotes using organically sourced amendments, and repeatedly talks about the importance of using quality amendments from good sources - local if possible. The author of the article on BuildASoil gets in to a lot of detail about how nasty some of the amendments can be - but if you sourced organic amendments, they "shouldn't" have these nasty drugs or chemicals in them (I'm mostly referring to the feather & blood meal here). He also states that un-composted manure can still have antibiotics - although the line item ingredient specifically says "composted" steer manure, and in his book, the Rev recommends organic, so it "shouldn't" contain antibiotics. There is always a chance that something labeled "organic" could be untruthful - but short of going to the farm and watching production, we have to trust the people packaging these products to a certain degree. It could be said that Malted Barely shouldn't be used because non-organic uses high amounts of Glyphosate for dessication (are you 100% sure that your MB doesn't contain glyphosate?), or that Peat Moss is unsustainably harvested, and lowersPH too much. But I think most growers would look for organic Malted Barley (and have to trust that it is really organic), and also know how to compensate for the PH changes peat can bring. I also didn't understand why he said that rice would "rot". To me, it seems that the breakdown of rice by micro-organisms would be beneficial.

But I think that it's the organic growers responsibility to spend the extra time sourcing their amendments, and doing their best to make sure their products come from legitimately organic sources. Ideally local. On the other hand, I agree that those animal by-products sound kind of gross. Also, the TLO 2.2 recipe calls for A LOT of amendments, and my initial gut reaction was, "couldn't this all be done with just a few products?". So, I still feel that the author did a great job of pointing out some of the pitfalls of the Rev's amendments, but I feel that almost anything can be picked apart if you really want to.

On the Malibu compost
I see - you are correct. I saw the Malibu Compost for sale on the BuildASoil website, and I assumed that they were making it. I see after looking closely at the picture of the bag that is says it is made in California though. Regardless, after comparing several bagged composts under a microscope, the Malibu compost had the best bacterial & fungal counts I've seen!
https://buildasoil.com/collections/composts/products/malibu-compost

To me it sounds like you're on the right path. blood meal is not ideal cuz you don't know the source of it. SPM, I believe there are laws to having it sustainably collected but I'm not positive.
Barley, yes get organic:)
Yeah you don't need a lot of amendments to be honest coot original recipe is all you need. Rice hulls.. rot or decompose would be a better word but yes it's beneficial.
Like I said I haven't followed the Rev updates but I do believe he was on the right path he just wasn't fully there

 

[Perception]

To me it sounds like you're on the right path. blood meal is not ideal cuz you don't know the source of it. SPM, I believe there are laws to having it sustainably collected but I'm not positive.
Barley, yes get organic:)
Yeah you don't need a lot of amendments to be honest coot original recipe is all you need. Rice hulls.. rot or decompose would be a better word but yes it's beneficial.
Like I said I haven't followed the Rev updates but I do believe he was on the right path he just wasn't fully there

Do you buy your organic barley online? I have a couple friends who are really in to home brewing, and they told me that most home brewing supply stores haven’t really gotten on the organic train yet (which amazes me). I haven’t checked on organic barely at my local store, but when I asked him about organic rice hills he looked at me like I was crazy!

I can’t wait to try coots’s recipe! If I had the money and space, I’d be doing TLO and Coots side by side to compare! When I decided to try TLO, the sheer number (and type) if amendments didn’t fully sink in until I had purchased all and was mixing them.

Let me help you understand the difference. Sound like rev is going for a bacteria dominant soil. Does he have you counting bacteria? Bacteria are good but fungus is superior in nutrient bioavailability and transport.

The difference is coot basically allows enough nitrogen to get the cycle started.

Bat guano is horrible. Dont support the harvesting. They wipe out bat colonies. Once you disturb guano it releases such toxic gas the bats can't live there anymore. Its also a fast burning nitrogen source.

You can fix nitrogen from the air. LOS and a mineral and carb source will send microbes to work. While they eat they fix nitrogen. Now you see guano is worthless.

Yeah, looks like he is definitely pushing lots of bacteria with all that fast burning nitrogen. I did the microscope analysis on my own, because I’m a card carrying nerd! But it showed that we didn’t have a lot of hyphae from his recipe. I should have used a more fungally dominated compost at the beginning - like Alaskan Forest Humus or Malibu Compost. But that’s why I added a little bit of the Malibu right before planting.

 

[brazel]

Do you buy your organic barley online? I have a couple friends who are really in to home brewing, and they told me that most home brewing supply stores haven’t really gotten on the organic train yet (which amazes me). I haven’t checked on organic barely at my local store, but when I asked him about organic rice hills he looked at me like I was crazy!

I can’t wait to try coots’s recipe! If I had the money and space, I’d be doing TLO and Coots side by side to compare! When I decided to try TLO, the sheer number (and type) if amendments didn’t fully sink in until I had purchased all and was mixing them.



Yeah, looks like he is definitely pushing lots of bacteria with all that fast burning nitrogen. I did the microscope analysis on my own, because I’m a card carrying nerd! But it showed that we didn’t have a lot of hyphae from his recipe. I should have used a more fungally dominated compost at the beginning - like Alaskan Forest Humus or Malibu Compost. But that’s why I added a little bit of the Malibu right before planting.

Yes from kis organics or build a soil.

 

[FunkyG]

Do you buy your organic barley online?

You can get it locally at any beer brewing store.. they're going to have all you need. I bought a 10lb bag of it some years ago and am still working off of it for a 4 pot 15 gallon grow..

 

[Minitiger]

Do you buy your organic barley online? I have a couple friends who are really in to home brewing, and they told me that most home brewing supply stores haven’t really gotten on the organic train yet (which amazes me). I haven’t checked on organic barely at my local store, but when I asked him about organic rice hills he looked at me like I was crazy!

I can’t wait to try coots’s recipe! If I had the money and space, I’d be doing TLO and Coots side by side to compare! When I decided to try TLO, the sheer number (and type) if amendments didn’t fully sink in until I had purchased all and was mixing them.



Yeah, looks like he is definitely pushing lots of bacteria with all that fast burning nitrogen. I did the microscope analysis on my own, because I’m a card carrying nerd! But it showed that we didn’t have a lot of hyphae from his recipe. I should have used a more fungally dominated compost at the beginning - like Alaskan Forest Humus or Malibu Compost. But that’s why I added a little bit of the Malibu right before planting.

One thing I've noticed about all of my grows using Coots mix is that that peat moss flavor is pretty apparent in the finished product. Obviously, there are other flavors present, too, but the peat moss is always there. Sometimes it's more noticeable in certain than others. I'm kind of getting sick of it (not really). I dunno what buds grown in the Rev's mix taste like, but yeah, man, that fucking peat moss flavor.... haha.

That Bu's blend (Malibu compost) is good shit. I used that for the humus third of the second batch of Coots mix that I made a year and a half or two years ago (has it been that long...?), as opposed to the EWC I used for my first batch. One thing I noticed, though, was that I developed a little fungus gnat problem that never happened before I used that compost. I can't say definitively that the Bu's was the reason, just something I noticed. I like the Bu's for compost teas for sure. And now both batches of soil have been mixed together and recycled, doubt I'll have any issues with gnats in the future (they were super-east to deal with anyway, just some nematodes and diatomaceous earth).

Anyway, I'm stoked that you're starting this grow. Keep us updated.

 

[Perception]

Small delay - I killed 5/6 seedlings by direct seeding and not using a humidity dome. I'm a stubborn learner (The Rev's book said to use humidity dome to pop seeds, but I was afraid of heat in dome, so tried it without).

Running some test seeds (old hermie seeds) right now to solidify my technique and make sure it works, then I'll pop some of the KOS seeds again. So delayed a few weeks now.

 

[brazel]

Small delay - I killed 5/6 seedlings by direct seeding and not using a humidity dome. I'm a stubborn learner (The Rev's book said to use humidity dome to pop seeds, but I was afraid of heat in dome, so tried it without).

Running some test seeds (old hermie seeds) right now to solidify my technique and make sure it works, then I'll pop some of the KOS seeds again. So delayed a few weeks now.

Yo, you don't need a humidity dome. A seed only needs water to pop... no grow medium, no light, no humidity dome

 

[brazel]

One thing I've noticed about all of my grows using Coots mix is that that peat moss flavor is pretty apparent in the finished product. Obviously, there are other flavors present, too, but the peat moss is always there. Sometimes it's more noticeable in certain than others. I'm kind of getting sick of it (not really). I dunno what buds grown in the Rev's mix taste like, but yeah, man, that fucking peat moss flavor.... haha.

That Bu's blend (Malibu compost) is good shit. I used that for the humus third of the second batch of Coots mix that I made a year and a half or two years ago (has it been that long...?), as opposed to the EWC I used for my first batch. One thing I noticed, though, was that I developed a little fungus gnat problem that never happened before I used that compost. I can't say definitively that the Bu's was the reason, just something I noticed. I like the Bu's for compost teas for sure. And now both batches of soil have been mixed together and recycled, doubt I'll have any issues with gnats in the future (they were super-east to deal with anyway, just some nematodes and diatomaceous earth).

Anyway, I'm stoked that you're starting this grow. Keep us updated.

I've never experienced that, what SPM are you using?

 

[Minitiger]

I've never experienced that, what SPM are you using?

Haha.... No idea. The last time I made a batch of soil was probably two years ago, maybe more. I made two different batches about six months apart and just been recycling those two batches since I mixed them up. Been a while....