Recycled Organic Living Soil (ROLS) and No Till Thread

207 Grown

Member
At what rates do you apply your fish or crab?
Hey guys, how's it going?

I'd like to suggest ditching the blood meal and adding some alfalfa meal or fish meal with high N

And I wouldn't add that much brown rice unless you plan to cook this soil for at least a month. It just doesn't seem necessary imo, but I'm open to hearing what anyone with experience has to say?

Bloodmeal can contain diseases and is not as nutritious to plants as lots of other fertilizers/meals.

When I amend a soil, I always check to make sure that my inputs have a balanced mix of calcium and magnesium, along with a suitable NPK.

Right now, my dry fertilizer blend is 4-4-4 and working so nicely.
Seaweed meal is important for micronutrients and beneficial hormones.

Just some thoughts.
:leaf:
 

Brandon137

Well-Known Member
Hey guys, how's it going?

I'd like to suggest ditching the blood meal and adding some alfalfa meal or fish meal with high N

And I wouldn't add that much brown rice unless you plan to cook this soil for at least a month. It just doesn't seem necessary imo, but I'm open to hearing what anyone with experience has to say?

Bloodmeal can contain diseases and is not as nutritious to plants as lots of other fertilizers/meals.

When I amend a soil, I always check to make sure that my inputs have a balanced mix of calcium and magnesium, along with a suitable NPK.

Right now, my dry fertilizer blend is 4-4-4 and working so nicely.
Seaweed meal is important for micronutrients and beneficial hormones.

Just some thoughts.
:leaf:
I have a month till my tent is free anyways I had to chop a hermie so I'll be reammending that pot and also at this rate I may have to chop the rest of the plants power has been out since yesterday at 2pm need some water has anyone tried using lake water? That's my only option right now as I dont have enough bottled water
 

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
I have a month till my tent is free anyways I had to chop a hermie so I'll be reammending that pot and also at this rate I may have to chop the rest of the plants power has been out since yesterday at 2pm need some water has anyone tried using lake water? That's my only option right now as I dont have enough bottled water
If the lake is clean with lots of healthy fish then I would think the water would be totally fine, but I'm no expert. I do know healthy aquarium water is awesome for plants so that just sounds like it makes sense to me. If you're in Ontario, I would guess it's pretty clean water, but you would know better than I do.
 

hillbill

Well-Known Member
I have a month till my tent is free anyways I had to chop a hermie so I'll be reammending that pot and also at this rate I may have to chop the rest of the plants power has been out since yesterday at 2pm need some water has anyone tried using lake water? That's my only option right now as I dont have enough bottled water
Lake, river and pond water if reasonably clean is mostly awesome, livewell water is even better
 

SCJedi

Well-Known Member
I've heard of people using rice for fungi food is brown rice not good for that?
If you want to collect native fungus and bacterias put cooked rice in a pantyhose and bury it about 10-12" in the ground next to the oldest tree you can find. Come back a year later and make teas with it.

I collect a lot of fungi from the aging hardwood chip piles under the old oak trees at the park across from our house
 

Brandon137

Well-Known Member
If you want to collect native fungus and bacterias put cooked rice in a pantyhose and bury it about 10-12" in the ground next to the oldest tree you can find. Come back a year later and make teas with it.

I collect a lot of fungi from the aging hardwood chip piles under the old oak trees at the park across from our house
Oh wow cool I will try this this summer can I use it as a top dress?
 

TerrapinBlazin

Well-Known Member
It’s funny I was just about to make a thread asking people about their soil sustainability setups. I hate the term “super soil” because I think it sets the bar really low. All soil should be like it is in nature — a distinct ecosystem of microbes that work to continue the cycle of decay and growth. Nothing “super” about that. Just Mother Nature at work.

I’m an amateur mycologist as well as an amateur horticulturalist, so I’ve been into soil recycling since before I even knew it was a thing. I don’t flush and I add very little liquid nutes throughout the flowering cycle, because most of the magic happens in the big grey bin next to my grow tent. My process is as follows. For building new soil, I start with a dry mix of peat, perlite, and vermiculite, at about 4:3:3. I hydrate that mix with warm water with epsom salt and blackstrap molasses stirred in. I never precisely measure it out, but it’s always about a tablespoon of epsom salt and 1/4 cup of molasses per gallon for new soil.

Once it’s hydrated, I add in some aged, leached horse manure and this stuff from Lowe’s — Jobe’s organic all purpose granular plant food. It’s loaded with good shit, but its main use is as an inoculant because it’s got a lot of beneficial microbes. I mix about a cup and a half of this stuff into the wet soil, and let it sit in the bin for a couple weeks. It’s ready when it no longer smells like shit.

For recycling soil out of pots it is a much simpler matter. I don’t flush, but I do finish with a product that binds salts and apparently triggers a stress response to pump up resin production at the end. It’s called “signal” from true plant science and it seems to do a great job. I’ve got some phenos that I was sure would take 10 weeks that look like they’ll be done in 8.

Once the plants are chopped down, I just break up the root mass, sift out as much root material as possible, and return the soil to the bin and mix everything really well. I don’t usually re-inoculate the used soil with the Jobe’s granules because I always keep enough leftover soil in the bin to act as a starter culture. If I think the nutes have been used up I’ll hit the soil again with everything. After another two weeks any remaining root mass is decomposed and the soil is ready for another round.

The soil that I’m using for these plants has already been recycled twice, and it really seems to get better with age. At this point I only have to buy an occasional bag of perlite or vermiculite. I bought a bale of peat moss at the beginning of the year and I’ve only used about half of it.

2C760CE6-EF68-4F71-8160-AA2D90490104.jpeg

Does anyone here have any feedback? After reading about my process can anyone think of anything I could be doing better or differently? My method obviously works but just because something works doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. I’m going to start adding supplemental silica into the mix with the next grow. I’m wondering if I should just mix in some DE into the soil and if that will be enough or if I should use the liquid supplement I use for clones in addition.
 
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PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
It’s funny I was just about to make a thread asking people about their soil sustainability setups. I hate the term “super soil” because I think it sets the bar really low. All soil should be like it is in nature — a distinct ecosystem of microbes that work to continue the cycle of decay and growth. Nothing “super” about that. Just Mother Nature at work.

I’m an amateur mycologist as well as an amateur horticulturalist, so I’ve been into soil recycling since before I even knew it was a thing. I don’t flush and I add very little liquid nutes throughout the flowering cycle, because most of the magic happens in the big grey bin next to my grow tent. My process is as follows. For building new soil, I start with a dry mix of peat, perlite, and vermiculite, at about 4:3:3. I hydrate that mix with warm water with epsom salt and blackstrap molasses stirred in. I never precisely measure it out, but it’s always about a tablespoon of epsom salt and 1/4 cup of molasses per gallon for new soil.

Once it’s hydrated, I add in some aged, leached horse manure and this stuff from Lowe’s — Jobe’s organic all purpose granular plant food. It’s loaded with good shit, but its main use is as an inoculant because it’s got a lot of beneficial microbes. I mix about a cup and a half of this stuff into the wet soil, and let it sit in the bin for a couple weeks. It’s ready when it no longer smells like shit.

For recycling soil out of pots it is a much simpler matter. I don’t flush, but I do finish with a product that binds salts and apparently triggers a stress response to pump up resin production at the end. It’s called “signal” from true plant science and it seems to do a great job. I’ve got some phenos that I was sure would take 10 weeks that look like they’ll be done in 8.

Once the plants are chopped down, I just break up the root mass, sift out as much root material as possible, and return the soil to the bin and mix everything really well. I don’t usually re-inoculate the used soil with the Jobe’s granules because I always keep enough leftover soil in the bin to act as a starter culture. If I think the nutes have been used up I’ll hit the soil again with everything. After another two weeks any remaining root mass is decomposed and the soil is ready for another round.

The soil that I’m using for these plants has already been recycled twice, and it really seems to get better with age. At this point I only have to buy an occasional bag of perlite or vermiculite. I bought a bale of peat moss at the beginning of the year and I’ve only used about half of it.

View attachment 4442711

Does anyone here have any feedback? After reading about my process can anyone think of anything I could be doing better or differently? My method obviously works but just because something works doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. I’m going to start adding supplemental silica into the mix with the next grow. I’m wondering if I should just mix in some DE into the soil and if that will be enough or if I should use the liquid supplement I use for clones in addition.
Beautiful plants. The only thing I could think to add is that I would use pumice or lava rock instead of the perlite or vermiculite. It doesn't brake down like the perlite, only thing is it's heavier.
 

TerrapinBlazin

Well-Known Member
That’s good to know. If I could find real pumice that would be cool. I think lava rock is a little too heavy and non-absorbent. The perlite actually holds up pretty well but even the coarse vermiculite that I use pretty much disintegrates after a couple runs.
 

TerrapinBlazin

Well-Known Member
So here’s another question. I was reading back down this thread two things really caught me.

Number one is water. I use tap water from the city supply. There is a well that pulls pure groundwater from the aquifer on the property where I live, but it’s a pain in the ass to start. The plumbing is really shitty and I’m leery of running it in the winter.

I live about a quarter mile from the Rio Grande and I would rather use tap water. My only options are the well, an RO dispenser, or tap water, and I’ve been using tap water for convenience. My mom lives close to me and her house is on a well also.

The second thing I was wondering about was harvesting native microbes. I live around a lot of cottonwood trees. When we get enough moisture in the spring they can explode with oyster mushrooms. I would be worried about introducing pleurotus mycelium into my grow because it’s incredibly aggressive and will eat everything, including living plant tissue. I’ve grown oyster mushrooms on newspaper in a plastic shopping bag, I shit you not. The big beneficial fungus in soil AFAIK is Trichoderma harzanium, which is the worst enemy of any psilocybin mushroom grower. Trichoderma is one of the best recyclers around, but it is also parasitic of other fungi, and if you have trichoderma and another genus of fungus growing in the same susbstrate, the trichoderma will always end up eating the other fungus and become dominant. Since trichoderma is everywhere, in every soil and compost, I’ve always felt like getting a good trichoderma population established in the soil is a lot more direct a means to the same end as cultivating more exotic soil microbes.
 
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