Roots organic STINKY!!!

hello, I just bought a few bags of roots organics, happy frog, ocean forest, just right xtra,,,,, they all smell earthy, except the Roots organic, it smells like GARBAGE like it's roting, all my other soils smell fine. I dont know if i should use the roots, I want to make super soil with it, but would be Pissed if it f-ed my plants up a few months down the road..... It smells stagnet. the grow shop said all sales are final & no returns.

Your soil should not smell like garbage. ROOTS is a highly credible line of products, though. Sounds like you have a bad batch. I would try to talk to the guys at the grow shop a little more. If they won't take your bags back I personally wouldn't shop there anymore either. As for the bag of roots, I don't really know what you could do to try to balance it back out so it is healthy and earthy. Maybe try to mix it up well and leave it in a breathable sac until it dries out well. Good luck.

describe the smell. i came to this section to make a thread about my soil, which got waterlogged from rain and now and reeks of sulfur. my cat gets sketched out when he walks past the bag. i'm not kidding.

long story short, i used it as is, it stunted my vegging plants, plants recovered nicely, only to both take a major identical shit during flower.

i'm toying with ways to make the soil usable again. i amend it with my goodies while soaked, let it sit out in a bus bucket, and stir thoroughly several times a day, and eventually the delicious earthy smell returns in about 10 days or so. i call it a corn field smell. the soil goes from smelling like hot farts, to smelling "stagnant" as you call it, to earthy. i won't use it until it's just a bit dryer than a typical bagged soil.

i have one plant already planted in it and i'm preparing another batch as we speak. the plant seems to be digging it pretty hard. not so much as a single brown tip.

the moral of my story: if the dirt smells like shit, it's not a good thing, but if you know WHY the dirt smells like shit, it may be worth fixing. my end results with my new method remain to be seen.

The bag of roots I just picked up also smells incredibly bad. Blown away there's no chicken shit in there because it smells very similar to my chicken coop, just worse if you can imagine that.

i had issues with it not draining well, had water logged pots

Gastanker said:

The bag of roots I just picked up also smells incredibly bad. Blown away there's no chicken shit in there because it smells very similar to my chicken coop, just worse if you can imagine that.

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DING DING DING, yep that is what it smells like, chicken shit , not composted chicken shit, Raw shit

if your rootsorganic is smelling bad then most likely its a bad batch. ive used roots organic before (very good stuff imo) and it smelt fresh and earthy. so if i was you medical i would take it back and get a new bag. and if you can open it in the store and check it out before leaving. just play it safe medical you dont want to mix all that and then find out it was bad

i will never use roots again and I absolutely loved the stuff before 2012, the bugs and gnats became a problem a year ago, and the bag I got the other day smelled like raw hot manure like yours.

I mixed super soil up and have never seen so many gnats coming out of the trash cans before. very dissapointing

intensive said:

i will never use roots again and I absolutely loved the stuff before 2012, the bugs and gnats became a problem a year ago, and the bag I got the other day smelled like raw hot manure like yours.

I mixed super soil up and have never seen so many gnats coming out of the trash cans before. very dissapointing

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Jesus I though I was just getting unlucky. We picked up some bags today that smells just like raw steaming hot manure, and had sever rain in my state the last few days. I'm wondering if it hasnt just been sitting outside inviting bugs and pests pre sale.

the roots i just bought smelled like chicken shit also but i also had 10 bags of composted chicken shit too, but i did get a ton of fucking gnats after i mixed it. the soils not giving me any problems i mixed even more smelly shit in too! for the gnat problem just if you dont have a good solution yourself yet there is great product called go-gnats and you do soil drenches with it and sprays and it wipes the mother fuckers out

Improperly draining, excessively wet or waterlodgged soil = depleted oxygen and thus increasing populations of anaerobic bacteria. Just like bad compost tea it will start to smell sulfurous and like sewage\shit.

Anaerobes and known to produce alcohols and other substances toxic to plants.

i just started using roots because the store was out of greenlite and now have gnats (just a few) for the first time ever.

someone alert quality control at roots. i can drive down there if you guys chip in on gas money, they're just down the road an hour.

Yeah i here there are plenty of blends out there that out preform roots organic...just gotta do some searching! Im really like the looks of this organic potting soil from Vital Earth!! Thinking about using this as my base for my SS; hows this look to you weed nerds out there??

http://www.vitalearthsproducts.com/soil-mixes