amending as you go?

im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
so ive been reading about super soils and organic amendments

coming from 10 years in hydro

it so different its hard to rap my head around not thinking like a hydro guy

question;
amending &
re-amending

is the goal to create 1 time soil amendment hot enough to last the season
or
is it possible to amend on the go

this example may not hold water but
for example

if your re-amandment normally calls for
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
1/2 cup fish meal
1/2 cup gypsum
1/2 cup kelp meal
1/2 cup crab meal

every season/grow cycle (10 weeks)


could you just as easily use 1/4 cup (half) of each and top dress every 4 to 5 weeks?
same deal with the worm castings adding as you go

and if so
would it be necessary to "cook" the medium at all
allowing the grower to just pull the plant at harvest and plug another into the same pot using the same soil as the previous grow with out removing and turning and cooking?
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
you will likely need to do a combo of the two. start with a good amended mix, and then you can amend lesser amounts a couple weeks before important times, like noticing that flowering is supposed to start, and again a few weeks after that to get them through the season indefinitely.

i've noticed that when i have really active fast growing plants, they can really eat through the nutrients. I have been ending up top dressing just before flower and 3 weeks into flower to make sure they get to the end with no def. showing.

and yeah amending as you go for a "no till" grow is definitely good to go! i think it's going to take some adjusting to get used to. I'm working on my first couple 20 gal no till now. looking forward to now having to bust up root balls and mix a new batch of soil every run. even if i can get 4-5 runs out of it before it needs broken up that would sure be a big time and work saver!
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
ShLUbY said:
you will likely need to do a combo of the two. start with a good amended mix, and then you can amend lesser amounts a couple weeks before important times, like noticing that flowering is supposed to start, and again a few weeks after that to get them through the season indefinitely.

i've noticed that when i have really active fast growing plants, they can really eat through the nutrients. I have been ending up top dressing just before flower and 3 weeks into flower to make sure they get to the end with no def. showing.

and yeah amending as you go for a "no till" grow is definitely good to go! i think it's going to take some adjusting to get used to. I'm working on my first couple 20 gal no till now. looking forward to now having to bust up root balls and mix a new batch of soil every run. even if i can get 4-5 runs out of it before it needs broken up that would sure be a big time and work saver!
Click to expand...
for me its a matter of space and concealment
I dont mind the work

im set up to start in 6" pots with clones

the re-pot into 5 gallon pots

finishing with 20 gallon pots

9 weeks veg
 
W

Wetdog

Well-Known Member
@ShLUbY pretty much nailed it with the combo approach.

Like a lot of new organic growers one of the first things you get hit with is *Super Soil, Super Soil, Super Soil* and the concept of a hot enough mix to go start to finish. What they missed in the fine print was that Sub did the SS just for the flowering stage, not the entire grow. Missing this point created a lot of less than stellar results.

Even using chems (Jack's Classic), for over 30 years it didn't take long to figure out that weekly light doses worked a whole lot better than a monthly heavy dose.

The same applies to organics. The tricky part is the 2 week+ lag time for most organics to become available and adding whatever before the plant actually shows a need for that whatever. Again, like ShULby mentioned, you get a feel for it.

But, amending on the go with light doses works way better than the super hot mix at the beginning.
 
W

Wetdog

Well-Known Member
Start a worm bin.

Seriously, the number 1 thing you can do right now for any organic growing is to start a worm bin.

All you need is a 2'x3' space in a corner somewhere to get it going.

redwormcomposting.com for tons of info and worms, but really lots of great info.

It goes beyond game changing.

Wet
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
im4satori said:
for me its a matter of space and concealment
I dont mind the work

im set up to start in 6" pots with clones

the re-pot into 5 gallon pots

finishing with 20 gallon pots

9 weeks veg
Click to expand...
One thing youre going to have to get used to... they wont grow as fast as your hydro did! 9 weeks may not be enough veg time :). my plan for these 20 gal no tills is going to be clones going into a solo size container for ~2 wks, then into 1 gal container for ~3-4 wks, and then into the 20 gal no tills until they reach the size i'd like to start them in flower with. build good root balls before transplanting to larger containers :)
 
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im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
i was thinking it terms of

taking a re amend mix formula and dividing the exact mix into 8 parts od each and dosing it every 2 weeks

for example
if the re amend calls for 1 cup of alfalfa
spilt that into 1/4 and dose it 4x
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
you may even be able to get away with 1/8. generally when i'm topdressing i'm shooting for an even NPK by % weight and doing like 1-2tbsp per ingredient depending on the weight/density of the ingredient
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
find one feeding schedule/mix that works for all of veg and one for all of bloom

I was thinking id just mix the ingredient into a blend
one for veg and one for bloom

da, I think I repeated myself, lol

basically blending my own tomato tone, if you will

if you look at the listed materials its derived from it seems you could easily blend your own
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
im not positive these numbers are exact but if

alfalfa meal is 3-1-2
kelp meal is 0-0-10
crab meal 2-3-0
fish meal is 9-0-0


if you blend equal portions of each except half the fish meal

your blend would be

10-7-13
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
im4satori said:
i was thinking it terms of

taking a re amend mix formula and dividing the exact mix into 8 parts od each and dosing it every 2 weeks

for example
if the re amend calls for 1 cup of alfalfa
spilt that into 1/4 and dose it 4x
Click to expand...
that's the reason i emphasize slow release forms of nutrients, it essentially matches the growth of the plant
everything slow release
a big concern would be If you rely too much on topdresses it may create issues in the topsoil, too many organic inputs can create issues with anaerobic pockets, acidic areas, etc.

Remember topdressing isn't immediate at all, those nutrients need to be cycled just like in the soil.
so if the topdress needs three weeks to fully cycle, and the next topdress is being added every two weeks...
you see the dilemma?
i know i sound like a broken record, but this is why i prefer compost as a topdress, loaded with microbes and the nutrients are cycled and ready to go.
steer manure is a great topdress because it's available immediately
more soluble nutrients like guano are somewhat available immediately
to a degree blood meal is too, but these are nitrogen inputs, which usually are the quickest to be cycled anyways

I guess what my point is, is that topdresses are best left to nutrients quickly cycled and used, like nitrogen.
conversely an example would be for phosphorus where you need/rely on mychorrizae to mostly process, you want that type of phosphorus available to ALL the roots, not just the top where the myco may not be as proliferate.
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
for middle/late bloom you could eliminate the fish meal and the blend would be 2-7-13
desired to leach N

or you could use fishbone meal to up P (if that's what you want)
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
greasemonkeymann said:
that's the reason i emphasize slow release forms of nutrients, it essentially matches the growth of the plant
everything slow release
a big concern would be If you rely too much on topdresses it may create issues in the topsoil, too many organic inputs can create issues with anaerobic pockets, acidic areas, etc.

Remember topdressing isn't immediate at all, those nutrients need to be cycled just like in the soil.
so if the topdress needs three weeks to fully cycle, and the next topdress is being added every two weeks...
you see the dilemma?
i know i sound like a broken record, but this is why i prefer compost as a topdress, loaded with microbes and the nutrients are cycled and ready to go.
steer manure is a great topdress because it's available immediately
more soluble nutrients like guano are somewhat available immediately
to a degree blood meal is too, but these are nitrogen inputs, which usually are the quickest to be cycled anyways

I guess what my point is, is that topdresses are best left to nutrients quickly cycled and used, like nitrogen.
conversely an example would be for phosphorus where you need/rely on mychorrizae to mostly process, you want that type of phosphorus available to ALL the roots, not just the top where the myco may not be as proliferate.
Click to expand...

yesterday I top dress some happyfrog organic mix for tomatos 2oz per 20 gallon pot

hydrolized fish emulsion

tea (made by local garden center) cut 4/1 water/tea

and 3 cups EWC

the plants grew 6" over night.... no bullshit
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
greasemonkeymann said:
don't do that man, don't take nitrogen away from the plants, it's the most used during ALL stages.
even flowering.
you don't need two different nutrient regimens
Click to expand...
ok

I gotcha

im just saying you can tailer the mix to what your personal needs are

im not saying id specifally do that

as you pointed out the numbers I put out aren't even correct,, its more about the question "can this be done proper" than the exact numbers being correct at the is point
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
maybe it was the tea idk

maybe it just responded to the re-pot from a a week+ ago

maybe it was the amino acid spray from 3 days ago

but mann they just exploded
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
oh I also chucked some azo beneficials in there

1x thing
tryng to off set the damage to microbes from chem ferts that im trying to minimize
 
im4satori

im4satori

Well-Known Member
greasemonkeymann said:
don't do that man, don't take nitrogen away from the plants, it's the most used during ALL stages.
even flowering.
you don't need two different nutrient regimens
Click to expand...
so you guys don't leach N like many are prone to do in hydro?

I personally (in hydro) didn't leach N in hydro but I did feed a different ratio of NPK during bloom

but I suppose with the natural buffering system theres less reason to do something like this

and it would be easier to keep your mix more reliable if your not changing the ratio
 
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