Can hydro taste as good as soil??

mjinc

Well-Known Member
I'm all for soil. Not a fan of hydro. But have been to Amsterdam and thoroughly researched their cannabis scene, I have to respectfully disagree. Amsterdam is 99% hydro in my opinion. All grown for weight. In fact, you can get bud labeled "bio" in Amsterdam leading you to believe its organic. It's not. It's just grown in soil. Their "bio" which is synthetic nutes grown in soil, is typically their connoisseur quality.
Definitely. Growing in Holland is still illegal so the vast majority prefer hydro, It's easier to keep hidden then a soil grow.
 

Kronickeeper

Well-Known Member
You really need to run the same clone/strain at the same time in both soil and hydro in the same environment to really be able to compare the two. Having done that the taste, smell and smoke is pretty identical, visually though the hydro looked better and was a light color green compared to the soils darker green color. Like someone else already said if the taste is bad or smoke is harsh it's usually the dry/cure not done properly.
 

GreenTools

Well-Known Member
Ive vaped a lot of herb. And will say, there's a bigger difference between growers than there is strains. Hydro growers don't know that. They only have 1 sense, the sense of profitting off of ignorant people with money.

Hydro is a joke. It makes me sick. And those additives are sugar contaminant. I dont give a shit what big mike told you on a grow forum. The plant soaks up sugars and nutes (theres no micro life in hydro, they are simple molecules ready for uptake) Doesnt provide stomach relief. Soil bud is usually legit, unless the grower is using hydro nutes from the bottles. Thats the only bad tasting soil bud there is.

One mans trash is another man's treasure i guess. But most people defending hydro don't vape, dont know what a green hit is, say that blunts ruin the taste, and never heard of getting euphoric from squeezing buds. Because those things, complex flavors and smells, don't exist in the hydro cannabis world. Hydro smells so bad i cant tell if its fake or not.

Ive seen the attempts at improving hydro. Ive had the best hydro there is in the country, and it still has less flavor than good mexi brick. And how did they get any flavor whatsoever? Its basically a "hybrid" coco operation perpetually fed bottled bens/mycos and saltless nutes like Mills.

So, improving hydro is making it more like soil... What other evidence do you need. The only hydro that ever stunk up my living room had more money in bottled micros and "hybridization methods" than Ive spent on my entire soil.
And then you have the ignorance of someone assuming all hydro growers do the same as what you have experienced...which is what you have done. Props to being a troll with no proof of actual growing experience...lol "best hydro in the country"....explains it ALL right there...
 

Runbho

Well-Known Member
I'm currently running Tahoe OG in hydro. I just ran the same pheno in dirt so I have something to compare it to. I'm only around Day 30 of flower but my hydro plants are definitely as stinky as my soil plants. I've talked a lot of shit about hydro in this thread but I'm really starting to love it! Based on the smell, I don't see it being any less nice than the dirt. We will see!
 

Runbho

Well-Known Member
Just wanted to report back. I only have one hydro grow under my belt but I ran the same strain in dirt as well to compare. The hydro was identical. In smell and flavor. In fact the Hydro even looked better. I think it all comes down to the grower in the nutrients that are using .
 

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
Just wanted to report back. I only have one hydro grow under my belt but I ran the same strain in dirt as well to compare. The hydro was identical. In smell and flavor. In fact the Hydro even looked better. I think it all comes down to the grower in the nutrients that are using .
It all comes down to bias. It is possible your hydro tasted better than your dirt or organic grow, or the other way around, but you don't really know. The only way to know is do a taste test that controls for various forms of bias in addition to having buds grown under controlled conditions. I've never heard of anyone going through the effort, maybe you could be the first?

The "soil/organic tastes better" meme appears to be a myth. There really isn't any good evidence to support it. The last time I challenged someone on this, all they could come up with is an academic meta-analysis of lots of non-Cannabis research that had nothing to do with taste or terpenes.
 

Kronickeeper

Well-Known Member
Just wanted to report back. I only have one hydro grow under my belt but I ran the same strain in dirt as well to compare. The hydro was identical. In smell and flavor. In fact the Hydro even looked better. I think it all comes down to the grower in the nutrients that are using .
Your experience is similar to mine the hydro visually looked better taste and smell were identical mine was a lighter color green vs the soils dark green color
 
Damn these debates have been going on for years. Fact is the substrate doesnt really affect taste. Besides not many people use soil to grow cannabis. They use soil substrates which arent soil at all. Things like sunshine or crap like fox farm. The fact is real soil is tempermental. So from a taste perspective and terpine perspective light water and nutrients are the biggest contributors to so called taste
 

Runbho

Well-Known Member
Well, I’m testing it out now. I’m running my gg4 in ocean forest with earth juice and ewc tea in between feedings. Will compare this versus ocean forest grown with Canna nutes. Really curious to see if the organic really does taste and smell better. Next run I’ll be ditching the bottles altogether and feeding strictly guano teas just to compare that to the earth juice. As far as the bias goes. I don’t feel I have any. I’ve akways been told soil tastes better but I like hydro way more. The work of soil changed my perspective. Lol. My main flower room will be converted to hydro in the next couple weeks. Excited to see how the hydro compares to my synthetic dirt grown strains.
 

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
Dont know how legit harvey smith is

But hes more smart then i am when it comes to plant sciences and hes says he believes hydro can taste better than soil .

He comments on how his porduce comanded the highest prices and that his brix (i need to kearn more on this) count was very high
 

Sureshot2

Well-Known Member
Dont know how legit harvey smith is

But hes more smart then i am when it comes to plant sciences and hes says he believes hydro can taste better than soil .

He comments on how his porduce comanded the highest prices and that his brix (i need to kearn more on this) count was very high
And he's correct. People who tell you soil is of higher quality because hydro can't "absorb sugars" and other such nonsense are grossly misinformed. There's a reason hydro produce can fetch higher prices at a market than soil, and many chef's prefer hydro grown greens due to the higher sugar content (brix, which is the measure of sugar in a solution) in high quality grows. I think most of the anti hydro nonsense comes from people who don't take the time to learn how to properly grow in hydro, and as a result get subpar results.
 

AzraelAngel07

Active Member
first off let me just say all cannabis cup are in soil cuz taste is a part of quality getting real high on weed that taste and smells like chemicals mmmm good quality so as far as the lights go i do a 10x10 ' veg area with 180watts so if u to dumb to relize the future have a good time in the past dino so that being said let me just say :finger: and have a nice day:hump:
Correction many cup winners actually grow hydro
 

swedsteven

Well-Known Member
2.2 p a light Got bigger yield and better looking in hydro but my organic grow yield almost the same little less 1.8 soil with high brix 18 taste is complety different even dry all the way still taste good but the bud are less popcorn ...
 
IMO when you understand how organic vs inorganic nutrients work, you will start to think there really isn't a difference.

Organic nutes are "large" organic molecules that literally cannot fit through the membrane of the roots. This is where the beneficial bacteria come in. They break down these large organic molecules into simpler, smaller elements the plant can absorb and use.

Inorganic nutes are refined, usually from rock sources and purified down to their simplest form. Basically doing what the bacteria does, but in a lab. You could argue that these are also from "natural" sources of nutrients, so the term "chemical nutes" or "synthetic nutes" gets a bad name. I prefer "refined nutes".

In terms of undesirable heavy metals, I argue inorganic is "cleaner"as alot of organic nutes have high heavy metal contents. Inorganic nutes can be "purified" by the manufacture to remove these, so the residual is much less.

At the end of the day, the plant doesn't care. A nutrient is a nutrient is a nutrient. I still think you need to flush organic as well, or rather just feed plain water for the last few weeks to use up all the good stuff in the soil.

As long as it tastes good, smokes to a clean white ash, it doesn't matter what you use. Keep growing that dank.
Flame suit on. :fire:
 

INF Flux

Well-Known Member
Skill of grower in preferred media.
I'm inclined to work to support nature as opposed to claiming superiority, so I'm organic but I'm not going to give anyone shit who's growing differently if it's on point.
 

max420thc

Well-Known Member
i know most of the best tasting bud and almost every amsterdamn grow i have ever seen uses soil... there must be a reason behind it... i hate when people get offended so easy on here.. everyones got something to say or add so just be preceptive
Organic hydro , perfect Ballance between both worlds , actually grows better bud then soil or straight salt nutrients hydro,
A slightly better increase in yeild occurred when salt based nutrients are used in side by side grows.
I do not normally comment on dirt grows or LED grows,
Good luck .
 

max420thc

Well-Known Member
fuck easier. I am having fun tweaking the hydro. Plus I am sick of dirt everywhere. I find the hydro easy as hell. I use reg tapwater and gh hardwater nutes and no probs.
Yea, it's much nicer to carry the end of a garden hose then mixing bags of amendments and dirt and mud all over the place, I agree
 
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