Organic no till, probiotic, knf, jadam, vermicomposting, soil mixes, sips etc... Q & A

sudshead

Well-Known Member

sudshead

Well-Known Member
I add a splash of labs and flower power in the resi once a week or when I refill the resi. Then I top feed flower power once a week and top feed labs once every 10 days.

I would dump the 4 month curd. The whey probably went bad. Start over. It only takes 2 weeks to separate
when you say you add labs - you mean labs before its activated correct?
 

hyroot

Well-Known Member
when you say you add labs - you mean labs before its activated correct?
no. raw lab goes bad at ropom temp pretty quickly I used actuvated lab

hello hyroot -- I have a dual 315 cmh I got for free and was planning on using it for a 4x4 tent. Just started looking at micromoles in terms of lighting. I think this will be fine for veg but possibly 50% under power for flowering. Curious as to what footprint is under your 315cmh?
i get 3.5 feet x 3.5 feet with other lights over lapping I can do a 4x4

Better late than Never I suppose lol
 

hyroot

Well-Known Member
great thread, about halfway thru
thanks hyroot
question is it ok to use alfalfa hay cubes made to feed horses? could i use this instead of buying alfalfa meal? its alot cheaper $20 for 50lb
would i have to do anything to it to be able to use it? i am starting a worm bin soon maybe it would be good for them?
or should i just buy regular alfalfa meal? theres also a animal feed store on my way home that sells all different feeds for farms and pets but unfortunately the website doesn't list what they have, ill have to stop in and check to see what they have. would rabbit food be alfalfa pellets?
any info would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
alfalfa cubes are fine.
 

OneHitDone

Well-Known Member
no. raw lab goes bad at ropom temp pretty quickly I used actuvated lab



i get 3.5 feet x 3.5 feet with other lights over lapping I can do a 4x4

Better late than Never I suppose lol
Damn, just noticed you are back posting.
Nice to see and hopefully your around more frequently! :peace:
 

OneHitDone

Well-Known Member
I agree rice hulls are a really good amendment. I find they are the best to break up either compacted or gummy, clay like soil and on a volume per volume basis are highly effective, even more so than coco. Where coco shines is it's moisture retention. But where rice hulls really shine is when they decompose their NPK is 1.9-0.48-0.81, C:N is 14:1, ph is 7.0, it's like the gift that keeps on giving, and especially good flower ratio and since it's there in volume it's overall amount for npk is actually quite a large reserve of slow release nutrients. All really good numbers along with micronutrients, the same can't be said for coco. When coco fibres break down they end up consuming more ca,mg which if your in tune with shouldn't matter but you have to babysit the soil with coco. Rice hulls also feed the food chain with a mycelium mat but coco when mixed with soil 40:60 ratio has given me earthworms.

Research article on rice hulls:
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Its got me thinking from my two soil recipes, one a coco based modified subcool soil and the other a rice hull soil in the SIPS that a 10-15% coco, 10-15% rice hull, 10-15% pumice would be an ideal soil for a 12" high pot, sip or no sip. My subcool soil in a plastic 15" high pot is moist right to the top and plants are waterlogged a little too much. My fabric 10 gal (12" high) rice hull soil is dry for first 3-4 inches, my modified subcool soil in fabric 10 gal pots (again 12" high) is moist to the top with surface roots under the plastic cap. Possibly too wet below but plants seem to be doing good in it.

The roots don't circle the pot in my rice soil and in a plastic pot it acts more like a fabric pot. Coco does circle the pot moreso but nowwhere near as bad as a heavier soil. Pumice, perlite don't even come close to providing this as rice hulls. I do add pumice just to keep a base level of aeration once the hulls decompose and it works well in a sip wick. A 60% dry peat to 40% pumice sems to work well as a wick.

Find rice hulls at a brewers store, not all carry it ime, about a third of the places I contacted do and two places were willing to sell a 50 lb bag to me, one of which I picked up for $50.
When purchasing rice hulls that are not "par boiled", do you have any tips for keeping the random seeds from germinating? :peace:
 

OneHitDone

Well-Known Member
whenever I top dress with hay I always boil it for like 5 minutes, mostly to kill pathogens, bugs, mold, etc. since doing that I’ve never had grass seeds pop. You don’t have to do it for that long but long enough to kill whatever is in it
I'm gonna give it a go - out comes the commercial size crab cooker. Need to do at least a cu ft per batch to make it not so labor intensive :peace:
 

DankTankerous

Well-Known Member
I'm gonna give it a go - out comes the commercial size crab cooker. Need to do at least a cu ft per batch to make it not so labor intensive :peace:
oof, is the amount of rice that didn’t get boiled negligible? May not be labor intensive, still another task
 

Week4@inCharge

Well-Known Member
I got a quick question here regarding No Till. I'm reusing the soil of my 10 gallon pots right now. After I harvest I just pull the root ball out and add a little soil to replace the small hole where the root ball was and that's it. My question is, the roots underneath, what do they get broken down too? Phosphorus?
 

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
Imo indoors, no till has no benefits. The main idea behind no till is to stop soil erosion in farmers fields.... and when you till, the bottom layer where the tiller blades are, compacts which is not good for a variety of reasons. Indoors you aren't mixing your soil with a tiller, and you aren't compacting the bottom layer by mixing the dirt around. How do you re amend the soil? You need to mix so the food is around the rhizosphere. Certain elements are not very mobile and can take along time to work their way into the area where the plants roots can get at it efficiently (the rhizosphere)
Cover crops, no till, both on my naughty list for indoor. Lol
Don't get me wrong, I believe in these practices, but in the proper scenarios. Not in a pot indoors.
 

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
No till
needs mass as above ain’t going to happen in a 10 gallon fabric
I think alot of people just follow the heard instead of finding out why no till is used and where and how.... Same with cover crops. Farmers use cover crops in between cash crops for all of the obvious reasons, fixing nitrogen, bringing up deeper nutrients into the rhizosphere, deterring pests, organic matter of the biomass etc etc etc... Yadda yadda.
In a pot, having a nitrogen fixing cover crop can lead to over abundance of nitrogen in the soil especially when you're amending or using teas in the grow cycle. So really you're just putting on a blindfold and shooting in the dark if you aren't getting your soil tested. And not just a standard test but a saturated paste test too. I dunno that's just what I think about the whole thing on cover crops and no till. I think things just get twisted around in the cannabis community, and little cult followings begin. Like the knf guys (ps USA is the only place in the world that calls it knf everywhere else it's just called natural farming. But USA likes to slap labels on stuff so ya). Gosh. Now I'm just baked up and rambling away again like some crazy old coot.
At least I can still recognize it, although the voices are getting louder
 

loco41

Well-Known Member
I remember reading somewhere that the roots provide a good source of carbon for the soil. I'm sure they add some sort of npk or micronutrients as well but can't provide any info on that. I like to think the rootmass is just another source of organic material for the microbes to stay active and thriving.

Personally I've never done a no-till type grow, mainly because I can never grow one after the other like I would prefer. After each grow I just dump everything in a big tote and mix it up lightly until its next use. My totes are pretty much just compost/aeration at this point but everything I plant in them seems happy enough for me. Currently have some kale plants doing their thing in my mixes.
 

loco41

Well-Known Member
I think alot of people just follow the heard instead of finding out why no till is used and where and how.... Same with cover crops. Farmers use cover crops in between cash crops for all of the obvious reasons, fixing nitrogen, bringing up deeper nutrients into the rhizosphere, deterring pests, organic matter of the biomass etc etc etc... Yadda yadda.
In a pot, having a nitrogen fixing cover crop can lead to over abundance of nitrogen in the soil especially when you're amending or using teas in the grow cycle. So really you're just putting on a blindfold and shooting in the dark if you aren't getting your soil tested. And not just a standard test but a saturated paste test too. I dunno that's just what I think about the whole thing on cover crops and no till. I think things just get twisted around in the cannabis community, and little cult followings begin. Like the knf guys (ps USA is the only place in the world that calls it knf everywhere else it's just called natural farming. But USA likes to slap labels on stuff so ya). Gosh. Now I'm just baked up and rambling away again like some crazy old coot.
I think part of the beauty of diving into the whole organic soil approach is how many different ways you can go about things. I read all sorts of interesting things I'd like to try but never follow all the way through. For me, I always ended up just top dressing some fresh ewc and a tablespoon of this or that and called it a success. Probably wasn't getting the full potential out of the grow but I was happy with the simplicity and end product.
 

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
I think part of the beauty of diving into the whole organic soil approach is how many different ways you can go about things. I read all sorts of interesting things I'd like to try but never follow all the way through. For me, I always ended up just top dressing some fresh ewc and a tablespoon of this or that and called it a success. Probably wasn't getting the full potential out of the grow but I was happy with the simplicity and end product.
Ya hey I'm not saying 'do this don't do that' I'm just spitting my 2 pennies for what it's worth. (Prob about 2 pennies)
 
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