Different between Sea Salt and the Sea Salt used for plants

I've been researching lately on using sea water extracts to use, to remineralize my soil for my garden. There are different suppliers. The basic idea is to go out in an unpolluted area of the ocean and harvest/concentrate the water. Then you put that on your soil, to put back all the minerals.

Without discussing the impact of the sodium, I just wanted to ask a question.

What is the difference between the sea salt you can buy in the store for food, versus this stuff? To me it seems they are the same thing...? Just marketed for different purposes.

Here is what I'm talking about. Here is a link for the Sea-90, which is used for plants.
http://www.seaagri.com/order.html

And here is some sea salt for culinary purposes:
http://www.saltworks.us/shop/product.asp?idProduct=92

I'm tempted to just go make a foliar spray solution using the sea salt I already have, and see how that effects the plant.

Indicad2006

Kosher Salt

What is the Difference Between Kosher Salt and Sea Salt?

Many chefs prefer kosher salt in cooking certain dishes, usually as a topping, to add special crunch or taste to food. Kosher salt is made by similar evaporation processes as cubic table salt, both plain and iodized. However some processes allow their crystals to growth at normal atmospheric pressure which makes a different shaped and larger crystal possible. These are used for Kosher Salt. Kosher salt contains no additives. In other manufacturing processes, Kosher Salt is made by compressing table salt crystals under pressure and then sizing the resulting agglomerates to yield a coarse-type salt.

Sea salt is produced by evaporation of sea water at atmospheric temperature and pressure. The crystals tend to form inverted pyramid shapes not all that different from Kosher Salt produced at atmospheric pressure referred to in the first paragraph. Depending upon the geographic location, altitude, and composition of the salt ponds from which the salt originates, the salt may take on certain colors representing some of the trace minerals in the area. Some of these impart a different taste or flavor, either pleasant or possibly objectionable to the taste of the salt, and hence, the food to which it is added. Mainly, it is a matter of preference and cost. Per pound, sea salt is far more expensive when compared to Kosher Salt or regular cubic table salt.
Are “Kosher Salt” and Table Salt that is Kosher Different?

Kosher Salt is the name of a particular type of salt (sodium chloride) that is available in supermarkets and other stores that sell groceries. It is produced by a manufacturing method explained above and is certified as Kosher by one of many rabbinical inspection institutions that carry out food plant inspections. Table Salt, both plain and iodized, is usually listed as manufactured under the same rabbinical institutions. An identifying emblem will notify the consumer that the salt has been produced and packaged under strict kosher conditions. If the kosher emblem is missing from the label, it is safe to assume that the salt is not necessarily certified as produced under kosher inspection.

With table salt, the size of the crystal is smaller than Kosher Salt, and it is usually cubic in shape. Table salt contains additives to keep the small crystals from caking and clumping. All salts are very prone to pick up moisture, and smaller crystals are capable of adding more moisture than larger ones. As the crystals release moisture with changes in relative humidity, the crystals form new bonds and stick together. The salt crystals must stay uniform for proper ingredient dosing of foods and to fit through the holes in the salt shakers!

There is a thing called the water cure which proposes alot of health benefits using sea salt and water which you would drink daily. Its interesting but basically you have to drink half your weight in oz's of water each day and I could never handle that. You can get info by doing a search for water cure.
As far as plants, I would be interested to find any benefits. Personally i grow organic and would be afraid of having salts in my soil which would inhibit me from re using it.. I will be watching the thread to see what others say.

I don't know what is the differences between the two but if you want to use something that will make your garden flourish, you can use sun chlorella(www.sunchlorellausa.com), which is a seaweed, as a nutrient that has salts as well as high quality proteins and fats that are good for the plants. I do know the main reasons why people rave about sea salts is because they contain trace mineral that table salt doesn't and chlorella also has contains minerals.

It also has something called chlorella growth factor(c.g.f) which speeds up growth and repair in the body as well as plants. I know this because on O.G. there was someone who soaked the powder in water overnight to dissolve it and when he used it on his plants, they were DARK GREEN and grew FAST and BIG. All he did different was add the chlorella.

You can also add rock minerals that are sold for plants. I say this because minerals are catalyst for enzymes to do their job at a high effeciency and is one the reasons why I think most cannabis in the west lacks cbd and is missing something that outdoor bud and bud from eastern countries have which is because most people don't use numerous minerals and in a good amount along with good bacteria to break them down and be used by the plant.

I saw some pictures from people who used rock minerals in their garden and the plants were HUGE. I'm not growing so I don't have personal experience on this but considering what I've learned about minerals and their effects on the bodies enzymes and seeing how cannabis grown with different nutrients can cause the same plant to have cbd while the other doesn't, seeing those pictures with rock mineral used, and noticing a big difference from bud grown in the outdoors and from the caribbean, africa, and eastern countries, I think minerals and bacteria play a BIG part in plant quality and it's different ratio of nutrients.

Also, when you take into account that thca(no psychoactive effects) is an enzyme which make thc(psychoactive effects), I think minerals will make the herb more potent. Now which mineral works on which enzyme, I have no idea on that although you might can connect minerals that have a relaxing effect to cannabinoids which do the same thing such as cbd and minerals that stimulate with cannabinoids that stimulate such as thc. Peace.

Indicad2006 said:

I've been researching lately on using sea water extracts to use, to remineralize my soil for my garden. There are different suppliers. The basic idea is to go out in an unpolluted area of the ocean and harvest/concentrate the water. Then you put that on your soil, to put back all the minerals.

Without discussing the impact of the sodium, I just wanted to ask a question.

What is the difference between the sea salt you can buy in the store for food, versus this stuff? To me it seems they are the same thing...? Just marketed for different purposes.

Here is what I'm talking about. Here is a link for the Sea-90, which is used for plants.
http://www.seaagri.com/order.html

And here is some sea salt for culinary purposes:
http://www.saltworks.us/shop/product.asp?idProduct=92

I'm tempted to just go make a foliar spray solution using the sea salt I already have, and see how that effects the plant.

Indicad2006

Click to expand...

the use of sea salts as fertilizer is not terribly common . . . but there is a fair amount of research showing it can be beneficial in some circumstances . . .

there's an old text on the topic you might find helpful if you are interested in doing some independent research . . . look for the title Sea Energy Agriculture by M.D. Murray Maynard . . .

Lotty - that makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of my 2nd grow. Aurora Indica, under floros. The whole thing was horrible. I used synthetic fertilizer (in the soil already) for veg, and for flower I used synthetic bloom stuff. There was probably no bacteria or fungi in the soil (synthetics kills that stuff), and probably zero minerals.

Needless to say the weed was horrible. Gave me a really paranoid reaction...very racy etc.

I think it was probably because I was smoking all that synthetic stuff, more or less.

I really want to do an all organic grow with soil that has been really kept up and nourished for a few years. Lots of bacteria, worms, organic matter, and fungi. Add trace minerals to it every and stuff. Then plant some good genetics and after the plants grow a bit, mulch.

I bet I would come up with some really good pot.

I wonder how much the raciness, or bad highs of pot, have to do with what was in the soil. I'm sure its related.

By the way, I didn't know that some plants grown in different conditions have CBD, then the same plant in another condition. Do you have a link for that?

The Flintstoners - Yeah I'm aware of that book, thx.

Here it is:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3158.html

The nutrient challenge
by Pete Brady (06 Jan, 2004)

Advanced Nutrients says they have the best pot plantfood, and they are challenging the competition.

In the last issue of Cannabis Culture, I told you about a Canadian marijuana nutrients company called Advanced Nutrients (CC#45, The Ultimate Pot Plantfood).

The information I provided about Advanced Nutrients was in the context of an article that discussed Marijuana Growth Deficiency Syndrome (MGDS), which is characterized by plants that grow poorly and produce low yields.

I wrote that Advanced Nutrients products might well cure MGDS, because the company's product research, formulations, and quality control seemed to be setting a higher standard than that already seen in the marijuana nutrients industry.

The company makes its nutrients in a huge industrial facility near Vancouver. When I toured the facility with Cannabis Culture editor Dana Larsen, we saw how Advanced Nutrients' scientists and production managers chemically manipulate essential nutrients to make them more bioavailable to cannabis plants.

We were also impressed by the company's Sensi Pro flowering formula, which features separate pouches of targeted week-specific nutrients that are combined by the grower every week during the grow cycle.

Company founder Mike Straumietis explained that the flowering formula ingredients are kept separate until use, because some of the products are biologically active and/or symbiotic, and could be degraded if shipped pre-mixed.

When I started telling people I thought Advanced Nutrients had superior nutrient products, I got various reactions. One of my colleagues in the marijuana industry accused me of having "sold out" because the company was advertising in my magazine. He also alleged that "synthetic chemical" nutrients produced "chemmy," inferior weed.

Representatives of rival nutrients companies told me that their products were superior to Advanced Nutrients products, but they could not offer any proof of that, and indeed, those company reps were unwilling to even let me state that their products were designed for marijuana cultivation!

Straumietis reacted to these criticisms by asking a Health Canada-licensed medical marijuana grower to set up a test grow room that compared nutrients produced by six companies: Advanced Nutrients, GrowTek, Canna, Supernatural, General Hydroponics, and Dutch Master.

I visited the grow room four times, interviewed the licensed grower and an on-site grow expert named "Remo," and also examined records and videotapes that documented the comparison grow from start to finish.

The results were fascinating, so let's examine how the different nutrients fared.

Berlin clones

The test grow room used a marijuana variety known as "Berlin." This is a bushy, high-yielding, mostly Afghani-Indica plant that produces large buds and a powerful high. It's very popular in British Columbia because it grows well in a variety of conditions and is easy to maintain.

Some marijuana is difficult to grow because it requires an extremely careful balance of nutrients administered with precise timing; Berlin is a resilient and forgiving variety that grows well when it has access to adequate levels of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and micronutrients.

"If a Berlin plant has problems with vigor due to nutrient deficiency," Straumietis explains, "then the nutrients have to be very poor indeed. We wanted to be fair to everyone in this contest, so we chose a variety that does not have unusual nutrient needs."

To begin the comparison grow experiment, the grow room managers made 48 clones from one Berlin mother plant. It is possible to introduce some unintended variation into an experimental grow room at the cloning level, because clones from different parts of a plant can have different growth characteristics, even if they are taken at the same time.

The grow managers minimized that variation by randomizing the clones so that all 48 Grodan-rooted clones were randomly placed in a single grow room that had six areas with eight plants each – each area was designated for one of the six nutrients companies that were being compared.

The grow room was a professional, white, sealed enclosure with eight 1,000-watt Hortilux bulbs, a CO2 generator, and dehumidifiers. The interior temperature was at a constant 78 degrees F (25 degrees C), with humidity between 50-60%. The room was monitored 24 hours a day to guard against any environmental variations.

After the clones were thoroughly rooted, they were placed into one-gallon pots containing Sunshine Mix #4, which is a popular BC growing medium that contains peat moss, sphagnum moss, perlite and other components.

The newly-repotted, rooted clones were immediately placed on a fertilizer regimen that followed the written instructions for vegetative growth fertilizers as provided by each company.

After the plants had been in 18-hour light per day vegetative growth for seven weeks, they were placed on a flowering schedule and the growers followed the bloom formula protocols specified by each company. At the start of the flowering period, the plants were transferred from one-gallon pots to seven-gallon pots filled with Sunshine Mix #4.

The grow room supervisors claim that they did not modify any of the company's nutrient protocols, and they made sure that pH and PPM were uniformly maintained so that water supplies, nutrient density, and pH were identical during the test.

Not all the same

Remo said that he was surprised to see that there were big differences in how the plants were growing.

"I've seen a lot of problems in grow rooms, but I had never seen a situation in which identical clones began to look not identical. By the time we got to the flowering cycle, it looked like we had three or four varieties of plants in that room, even though all clones had come from the same plant," Remo explained. "It wasn't as bad as having Indica-fat leaves start looking like Sativa leaves or anything that drastic, but the leaf shapes on some of the plants were totally different than the leaves on the mother plant, as were the branching and growth patterns. It just shows you how nutrients affect the look of a plant."

There were other differences as well, Remo says. During vegetative phase, some of the plants under different nutrient regimes exhibited symptoms of deficiencies in elements such as calcium, zinc, potassium, and manganese.

The same problems manifested under flowering, with symptoms related to deficiencies in elements such as phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, manganese and potassium.

In both phases, the Advanced Nutrients plants exhibited the most robust and uniform growth. The only problem visible was a small amount of leaf tip burning.

Some nutrient formulas had even worse problems.

"We were shocked by what happened with the Dutch Master plants. They got really dark green and the leaves curled over all weird. They didn't even look like Berlin clones anymore. And they dwarfed out and just stopped growing. They looked like mutants!"

Unjustified cynicism?

When I visited the comparison grow room during the fifth week of the flowering cycle, it was obvious that one set of plants – the Advanced Nutrients set – were the healthiest and biggest in the room.

I realized that cynical people would accuse the grow room managers of manipulating the grow environment so Advanced Nutrients would win, but Straumietis says he used the comparison grow for product research and development purposes, not as a scam situation designed to make his company look best.

"We are totally open to the possibility that some other company might make better products than we do," he said. "If somebody else had products that grew better cannabis than ours did, I would be interested in that because I am all about growing the best cannabis. I would also try to figure out how their products were better than ours, and make our products the best. Some people say that's greedy or competitive, but that's how products improve – different people try to make better stuff than the other guy, right?"

As it turned out, Straumietis didn't have much to fear from the other big nutrient companies.

In vegetative and bloom cycles, Advanced Nutrients plants outperformed the other plants. They were the tallest and healthiest. Their leaves were green without being too dark or light, and their buds were both longer and thicker than the buds from any other plants. However, their plants had a small amount of tip burning, which Straumietis said was because his formulation is at the upper end of the PPM scale.

"I found the that the Advanced Nutrients products were easiest to use," said Remo. "They have it all in one package and it self-adjusts for pH. What happened when we measured the harvest didn't really surprise me."

Weigh way more

Harvest day came 14 weeks after the clones were rooted.

"Our plants outdistanced the second place finisher by 65%," Straumietis said, after explaining how all the buds were cut and cured the same way. "Our six plants with one light produced 2.16 pounds of bud. We did two other comparisons. In one we took a 454-gram sample from each group and made water hash out of it. Our bud produced 12 grams of extracted glands, while Grow-Tek's came in second with 11.3 grams; even though they were the smallest plants overall."

Straumietis says he ran another comparison test that measured percentages of three cannabinoids. Again, Advanced Nutrients came out on top, producing 21.2% THC, and very low percentages of two other cannabinoids (cannabinol and cannabidiol, known as CBN and CBD), that limit marijuana's psychoactive effects.

The second place finisher in the cannabinoid percentage category was GrowTek, which produced 18.7% THC while also producing a whopping 9.09% CBD and 5.84% CBD. While CBD and CBN have some medical applications which THC does not, in practical terms important to those who want potent recreational marijuana, these cannabinoids can also reduce the psychoactive effects of THC.

The nutrient challenge

It's now obvious that not all nutrients are the same. A grower can do everything right in regards to lighting, climate control and genetics, and still have crop failure.

There will still be those who believe Advanced Nutrients rigged the grow test, or that the results were tainted because the grow was not run by a neutral, third-party agricultural testing service, or that the results were from a one-time grow situation that might not be generalizable for other grow situations.

Straumietis says he tried to find a third-party testing service to run the grow op for him, but that all of the ones he contacted refused to test nutrients when they were being used to grow marijuana plants.

"There are always going to be doubters," Straumietis says, "and we expect that. We have issued a worldwide challenge to all nutrients companies, asking them to share the cost and the work involved in doing more nutrient competitions. None have taken us up on our offer, even though many have criticized our intentions and products.

"If we're not making the best nutrients available, we want to know about it," concluded Straumietis. "We think we are, and we think the grow room contest proved it. If somebody wants to prove us wrong, let's set up a grow room and compete head to head. We're sure Advanced Nutrients will produce higher yields of more potent buds. If somebody doesn't believe that, let's grow plants side by side. We're ready for the competition. Bring it on!"

Cool article. See for me, I would want some of that CBD and stuff. I think it works in my system better. I would be interested to see if a good organic soil would produce more cbd compared to hydroponic stuff.

Indicad2006 said:

Cool article. See for me, I would want some of that CBD and stuff. I think it works in my system better. I would be interested to see if a good organic soil would produce more cbd compared to hydroponic stuff. I wonder how much the raciness, or bad highs of pot, have to do with what was in the soil. I'm sure its related.

Click to expand...

Aside from which strain being grown, it no doubt also has to come down to what was feed to the plant during the grow. Had some organic that was stronger than the one treated with a high P/K fertilizer sampler. The P/K treated one was more bud but like candy in nature in that you could just smoke a bit more of it but it was more addictive in a physiological sense in that you would crave it more while the organic was immediately satisfying and more than enough with less. Wonder if chemicals attribute to any negative side effects of regular smoking, perhaps paranoia or otherwise? Sometimes I try dried tops of various phenos to see what I am working with and if it is a younger (10 nodes) or generic plant the raciness can be undesirable. Perhaps it is a little insight as to what those genes have to offer as am trying the same thing on a few Flo phenos and the effects are nothing but desirable and smooth for a 60/40 strain. Am off to update my Flo grow log, and would love to hear some new ideas about feeding the plants and how it might affect their effects. Would think that organic hydro might be nice producing, but is not for me as soil is simpler. Perhaps compost, amino acids, carbs, yeast, and all that good natural stuff will definitely provide for all the rounded out nutrition needed to produce the best well rounded effects if not boost the production of active trichome mass. Now if their were certain nutrients in themselves that would boost certain cannabinoids like CBD, then lets find out what those are or may be as we do not know them yet.

Here's a 4 month old thread back from the dead .

For salt just get some Grain and Salt Society Celtic Sea Salt available at most any health food store if you want to use true sea salt. Don't get the dry white 'sea salt' stuff in the bulk bins .