Living organic soil from start through recycling

[ixnay007]

So I've got this greenhouse.
I've spent a ton of money on top tier compost, EWC's, mostly 'Down to Earth Amendments to old recycled Pro-Mixes. Now with the help of this thread Fermented Plant Extracts and 'Keep it Simple' tea maker. Foliar Sprays of assorted sprouted, aloed, Ful-proed, obsessive compulsive disordered behavior since my other life is on hold until this crop is in kind of madness...

This is also documented over in the Side to side experiments of 'Regular pots/ cups vs Airpots" thread.

The plant(s) involved are cuttings of a Sour Bubble I started Last January.

About 2 weeks ago there was a lower branch that kind of 'faded out' and I thought maybe its just following course and a bottom branch had died.

Then This:
View Image


The horizontal rail is at 8 ft tall
I dealt with root pith when some were small but culling took care of that.
The plant was culled and an inspection of the soil showed roots intact, seemingly strong no sign of rot or softness of roots. Top root bed about 4 inches with associated companion plants consisting of an array of aromatic herbs. Dill, garlic, rosemary, basil. None of these being affected.

My question for this group is about recycling this soil. My understanding is that pith is tough to get rid of.
Any thought out there about this...
watering was done via Blumat in an enclosed 50 gallon tree pot.
All plants are in individual 65gal smartpots or very large pieced together airpots at about 65 gal. None of the other plants are showing any sign of weakness.

Are you sure you mean pith?

Pith is the soft stuff inside the stems and roots:

Botany. The soft, spongelike, central cylinder of the stems of most flowering plants, composed mainly of parenchyma.

You sure it was a root disease? I've seen plants that have done that when girdled, often unintentionally, for example, you set up a bamboo cane and a bit of string, that ends up being way too tight when the plant is 4 foot taller.

If it was a fungus, silica clays are an excellent defense, sprinkle around the base of your plants.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Buffaloam

thanks Coot

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

Buffaloam

thanks Coot

YS - how are you using it? Teas? Top feed? I have a bag of their compost that in down to play with - didn't like how it smelled in tea, but I'm open minded!

 

[YosemiteSam]

I used it along with some ewcs as my humus component in a Coot style soil mix. 1st step for me down this road is moving my moommas into the mix and then go from there. I also used old rice hulls from a local brewery as part of my drainage amendment.

Wkly bio teas and occasional ewc teas are going to be my "feed"

Sure as fuck it has made watering a whole lot less work.

At this point I am not totally happy with my ewc...gotta get to work on my own.

 

[Neo 420]

Buffaloam

thanks Coot

Been trying to source some Buffaloam for 2 weeks. Went to whole foods and they just stopped carrying it for the season. Bought a bag of the whole foods compost (to see the texture) and it was horrible. More wood sticks than a forest. Interestingly enough they do put clay in their compost.

 

[DARC MIND]

satellite sativa (socal g13 x haze)

mt.hood huckle berry

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

I used it along with some ewcs as my humus component in a Coot style soil mix. 1st step for me down this road is moving my moommas into the mix and then go from there. I also used old rice hulls from a local brewery as part of my drainage amendment.

Wkly bio teas and occasional ewc teas are going to be my "feed"

Sure as fuck it has made watering a whole lot less work.

At this point I am not totally happy with my ewc...gotta get to work on my own.

I've got a semi-local worm farmer who sells castings by the barrel, but I'm increasingly just throwing in a pound of worms per bin an trustin em to make it happen. Are you doing any ACTs?

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

I'm on page 30 of this thread. It's true love.

Just wanted to sum up what I've learned. Thought it might be cool to list CC's soil mix, mineral mix, and cloning solution all in the same place. Hope you don't mind Coot.

Soil mix-
50% spaghnum peat moss
25% EWC or compost
25% aeration amendment

to 1 cu. ft of mix the following is added

1/2 cup neem seed meal
1/2 cup kelp meal
1/2 cup crab shell meal
4 cups mineral mix

Mineral mix-
4x gaia green glacial rock dust
1x bentonite
1x oyster shell flour
1x basalt

Cloning solution-
1oz. fulvic acid
2oz. aloe juice
1tsp Dyna-grow Protekt silica

A couple days before you plan to plant rooted plugs, aerate 2tbs alfalfa and 1tbs kelp meal for 36-48 hrs. Then add "cloning solution" to this and water in freshly rooted plugs.

The info on pH, CEC, dolomite lime, etc, has been absolutely priceless.

I'm still a little hazy on how I should be recycling my soil though.

Is it okay to add back the mineral mix everytime I recycle?

Great job to everyone who has added to this thread.

P.S. Coot if this pisses you off or you want me to change anything just let me know. I just thought it would be handy to have this all in the same post. Really appreciate you sharing.

Alfalfa's saponin levels are about 30,000 ppm - there's the foaming you're seeing.

Try Horse Chestnut powder sometime - 150,000 ppm - only add 1/4 tsp to a 5-gallon tank of water or do your brewing outdoors - seriously.

CC
Originally Posted by ClackamasCootz
BlueJayWay

Try this:

1/4 cup Barley seeds (not pearled barley from Safeway)

Sprout like you would any seed like Alfalfa, Mung beans, etc.

Once they're sprouted (about 2 days) add to 1 gallon of water and let that sit for 3 or 4 days and it will turn cloudy. Strain and mix 2 cups of this 'tea' to 14 cups of water = 1 gallon.

Spray your plants from top to bottom and hit the soil.

Let me know what you think. This works equally well using alfalfa, wheat, oat, etc. seeds.

"Enzymes"

CC

Pest Control- Grab a bunch of cilantro. Add it and some water to a blender. Make a slurry. Add to 1gal water and allow to sit for no longer than 48hrs. Add 1 cup "tea" to 15 cups water = 1gal. Then add 1/4 cup aloe juice and 1tsp protekt. Spray the fuck out of em before lights off.

 

[YosemiteSam]

You need to chuck that bio tea mix in there Rancho...it is truly awesome.

 

[BlueJayWay]

Get a huge tote or smart pot and put soil in it after harvest, water with teas if its gonna be sittin awhile, I have a compost tumbler I will use to mix it back up with new ewc rice hulls and whatever amendments I choose, if needed. If you have the space it can all be dumped on a big tarp and use a shovel, whatever, to mix it all back up.

I'm really liking no till in large containers, so far 3 runs and no remixing soil, just topdress. I will see how long it could go, I think some here have gone years in a no till situation.

 

[shmalphy]

One thing I learned about worm castings recently, is that if you sift what comes out of the bin with a fine screen you get a much nicer finished product. I was using it with all of the large chunks and bedding mixed in, and it was working great, but since I sifted them they just look much more impressive, and are easier to use in teas without clogging the watering can.

My horizontal flow through bin is working great. I have a ton of worms in there, now, I keep adding them when I find them outside. Makes my whole operation streamlined because all of my amendments get thrown in the bin and I have a ready to use well balanced product.

 

[DARC MIND]

worms

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

Ghost Train Haze #5

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

Humbled and Inspired.

"Inspiration moved me blindly"

I thought I knew alot about how to grow some cannabis. This thread made me realize I was clinging to old myths about growing cannabis. It's honestly hard to get my head around some of the knowledge presented here. CEC is one that really gets me. I really only partially understand the concept. The myth of wet/dry cycles, the myth of dolomite lime etc.

I've decided that once I get my bills in order that I'm gonna go back to school for horticulture. I'm tired of putting in thousands of hours of reading only to have to decipher the 75% of the B.S. that I read. This thread has already changed my life.

I simply cannot thank all of you enough.

Rancho

 

[Gascanastan]

Humbled and Inspired.

"Inspiration moved me blindly"

I thought I knew alot about how to grow some cannabis. This thread made me realize I was clinging to old myths about growing cannabis. It's honestly hard to get my head around some of the knowledge presented here. CEC is one that really gets me. I really only partially understand the concept. The myth of wet/dry cycles, the myth of dolomite lime etc.

I've decided that once I get my bills in order that I'm gonna go back to school for horticulture. I'm tired of putting in thousands of hours of reading only to have to decipher the 75% of the B.S. that I read. This thread has already changed my life.

I simply cannot thank all of you enough.

Rancho

Awesome news~
.....I'm glad we reached some folks when so much ignorance abounds the information age and stupidity is as abundant as hydrogen in our vast and ever expanding universe (multiverse)

If we reach anyone who didn't 'get it'... then something productive and informative enough to change lives was accomplished here....just when I'm personally ready to give up a large percentage of hope that human beings as a species are 'by default' fucking up one of the earths most sacred plants making myth-based decisions supplied by a hydro-store pimp and ignorantly avoiding real world based horticultural practices when cultivating this here cannabis plant.........then suddenly out of nowhere light comes.

Rancho,thanks man....excellent indeed....go forth and teach others that grow off-line....spread the word that living soil IS and WAS always where it's at.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Nice work everyone.

Flicking through the Maximum Yield i got from the local grow store they are full of references to organic growing, biological activity, microbes, humic acid and even fermented liquid organics to supplement a guano top dress situation! Most of the mainstream nutrient ads in there are also gearing towards organic and biological growing. Nice.

The revolution is here ladies and gents and of course it is not being televised.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

Awesome news~
.....I'm glad we reached some folks when so much ignorance abounds the information age and stupidity is as abundant as hydrogen in our vast and ever expanding universe (multiverse)

If we reach anyone who didn't 'get it'... then something productive and informative enough to change lives was accomplished here....just when I'm personally ready to give up a large percentage of hope that human beings as a species are 'by default' fucking up one of the earths most sacred plants making myth-based decisions supplied by a hydro-store pimp and ignorantly avoiding real world based horticultural practices when cultivating this here cannabis plant.........then suddenly out of nowhere light comes.

Rancho,thanks man....excellent indeed....go forth and teach others that grow off-line....spread the word that living soil IS and WAS always where it's at.

That's just the thing man. Misinformation is everywhere. It's almost like its a government conspiracy or something. I've been an organic grower with a big ego for years now. I've been helping several people with their own grows. Now, I'm gonna have to look them in the eye and tell them that alot of what I "taught" them is simply wrong.
I figured I would hear some criticism about going back to school for horticulture. Not here. Not in this thread. Everytime I see a plant now, I wonder what kind of FPE or other miracle is contained inside. A half dozen organic growers will no longer be using myth-based gardening practices. I've decided to stop being a dickhead as well, just gonna stick to the threads where I belong.
I have a friend up in NorCal that grows 20-30 large outdoor plants. Bottled nute organic (until the rules change soon) all the way. She spends 10,000k every year on bottles of shit that end up in a landfill. She has friends that own over 100 goats. What I'm getting at is that I really need to get her off the crack. I about shit myself when I heard how much she spends on the ladies.
Got a little off track there.

Keep up the good work. People are learning and growing.

Rancho

 

[YosemiteSam]

some old organic soil (peat, compost, ewc, pumice) with caso4 and caco3 added pretty much equally and fed with coot teas (mostly alfalfa/kelp along with some comfrey, stinging nettles and sprayed with aloe and Albion micros. I will do a better job of "mineralizing" in the future thanks to this thread.

Been a challenge cause they are only in 20 gallon pots...but careful watering in a very narrow moisture range has worked pretty well.

 

[shmalphy]

Trying to get a friend off the bottles, he told me the other day that his recycled soil "went bad" because it was growing white fuzz. I told him not to worry, that indicates biological activity, and it would be rare to have soil turn irreversibly bad. He said it was too late, he threw it out (where? I dunno)

People are stuck in their ways. That is all there is to it. It is the same with dog food, people feel it is somehow easier or better to buy a big shiny bag of processed food that is shipped across the country as opposed to asking the butcher for some scrap or what have you. The dog would be much happier eating the raw scraps from your food, if not healthier.

Working on a new batch of EM (effective micros) which combines BIM (beneficial indigenous micros) with LAB (lacto bacillus)

ingredients
2 cups organic rice
2 cups molasses
3 oz rice wash
27 oz organic milk
healthy garden soil

I took 2 cups of rice, washed it in water, strained and saved the water, and cooked the rice.

I sprinkled some soil from the garden outside on the cooked rice, and put it next to the rice water and let them both sit for a week.

The rice will be covered in fuzz, and the rice water should be fermenting by now. Add the rice water to milk at a ratio of 1 to 9 rice wash to milk. Add molasses to the fuzzy rice, and let both sit another week.

Now the milk will have separated, take the solid mass off the top and feed it to chickens if you have them. The serum at the bottom will be yellowish and viscous. This is your LAB culture. You dilute this 20 to 1 then use the diluted form 1 TBPS per gallon. It makes a lot! When used as a foliar, it can actually consume the debris on a leaf surface and feed it to the plant, very cool stuff!

The rice and mollases will have liquefied. You can strain it, and mix it with the LAB, to make EM or use it alone as BIM which is a beneficial bacteria to improve soil.

I extrapolated the recipe from here: http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20040401/Hamilton

 

[shmalphy]

CEC is one that really gets me. I really only partially understand the concept.

Thought this might help, from my notes

What is CeC?
Cation exchange capacity shows the soils ability to supply three nutrients which are critical to plants; calcium, magnesium, and potassium. It measures the soils ability to hold cations, or elements with a positive charge, using electrical attraction. Cation concentrations are expressed in centimoles of positive charge per kilogram of soil (cmol(+)/kg). You want at least 10 cmol(+)/kg, but soils with large amounts of clay and organic matter can be as high as 30 cmol(+)/kg. There are five exchangeable cations which are shown on soil tests listed as a percentage of CeC. The ideal ranges for them are as follows: calcium 65–80% of CeC, magnesium 10–15%, potassium 1–5%, sodium 0–1% and aluminium 0%.


Colloids
Clay and humus particles are called colloids, and they hold a negative charge. Because of their large flat surfaces, they can potentially hold a lot of cations. The stronger the negative charge that the colloids have, the more cations they can hold and the higher the CeC. When the roots come into contact with colloids they pick up cations, which are replaced on the colloid by cations in the water. If you have an abundance of a certain type of cation in your water, that will replace the cations on the colloids

Improving CeC

Adding organic matter to the soil is by far the most effective way to improve soil CeC. Humus is the end product of decomposing organic matter, and has a CeC value that is 2-5 times greater than that of montmorillonite and can be up to 30 times greater than that of kaolinite clay. Leaving crop stubble, green manure, and mulching are great ways to increase soil humus and hence CeC.


Two cations that are harmful to plants are aluminum and sodium. Aluminum is only a problem if the pH of the soil drops below 5. Sodium is a bigger concern because when exchangable sodium exceeds 5% of the CeC, clay particles become unstable in rainwater which causes dispersion. Dispersive soils are characterized by cloudiness in water, poor drainage, and their tendency to set hard upon drying.

Low CeC in combination with high sodium levels will cause leaching of the soil because the cations are not being held onto the colloids, so they end up being drained away in the soil water.