Osmocote, my favorite plant food - easy peasy, complete

[Brother Nature]

I'm loving using osmocote in my soil mix. Being able to feed only water through out the flower cycle is pretty handy, last run cost me just over $52 for soil and ferts, netted 18oz's off of that and am happy with all of it. People happily pay $400 an O for and I just nod and smile when the leafly types tell me they know it's flushed well and organic because of how the ash looks after a burn. I used to follow the forum and 'grow guide' advice to a T and I grew good plants then, but now I have the same or better quality at a fraction of the input price. With life being busy and time a premium, I don't really see a better way to grow for myself.

Wedding cake cross, coming down today, followed by a 2-3 day drying Sour Diesel (I trim the main leaves, then do the sugar ones after drying cause I like hash).

 

[Kimes]

@Old Uncle Ben You inspired me to try out Osmocote. Here in a local store in I found a 19-10-9 (6 months) by Scotts, mixed it up in Peat Moss and Dynomyco on a Royal Jack Auto by Royal Queen Seeds.
After flowering some Calcium deficiencies showed up and now in the advanced flowering stage some leafs are turning yellow.
So from this experience I can conclude that Osmocote does deplete fast at higher temperatures (82+) and needs to be re-amended. Also it contains no Calcium and that element needs to be amended.

I was wondering if mixing in Azomite could fix my Calcium needs? Right now I'm amending with Biobizz CalMag.

Mixing few spoonfuls of dolomite and gypsum per gallon helps with my peat moss grows, and they are dirt cheap too! And now i found pre-chalked peat moss so no need for that either.. ideal ph 5.7, no nutes so adding tomato fertilizer (dirt cheap with added mycoriza too) or osmo helps.. (next run I try that, couldnt get the exact same Osmo as Ol' Ben uses, but hey...)

I am sure Ol' Ben knows better, waiting for his feedback too, good question there, pal. thx for that

@Brother Nature looking real sweet there..

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

I just go by personal experience,ive flushed,not flushed and the flushed buds just plain burn better...

Suggests you're over feeding them in the first place. Got any pix?

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Cool man, it's been a long time. Back in the OG days I was the middle of that thread, your buddy the nam vet and his search for the trippy old school sativa's. I can't remember his name but did that thread ever continue somewhere? I was fully engrossed when the site went down lol

Talking about the Dalat dude? Can't remember his name but he sent us a bunch of seeds from the Dalat valley of Vietnam. Still have a few.

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

I'm loving using osmocote in my soil mix. Being able to feed only water through out the flower cycle is pretty handy, last run cost me just over $52 for soil and ferts, netted 18oz's off of that and am happy with all of it. People happily pay $400 an O for and I just nod and smile when the leafly types tell me they know it's flushed well and organic because of how the ash looks after a burn. I used to follow the forum and 'grow guide' advice to a T and I grew good plants then, but now I have the same or better quality at a fraction of the input price. With life being busy and time a premium, I don't really see a better way to grow for myself.

Wedding cake cross, coming down today, followed by a 2-3 day drying Sour Diesel (I trim the main leaves, then do the sugar ones after drying cause I like hash).

View attachment 18984152 View attachment 18984153 View attachment 18984155 View attachment 18984156

Looking good!

Am finishing up my harvest for recent garden, all small plants. Got a shit load of fat dark seeds from a back cross of 1990 Master Kush X Afghani 90. Today I'll harvest the last of 'em, a Kwik Seeds Afghani Mix female. Crossed a 1990 Master Kush X Afghani 90 male with it so the offspring should be interesting. With the C99 backcrosses plants, my cross of Peak 19 and C99 from 22 years ago, the indicas....I should be going a good pound of dried bud.

Speaking of hanging down, I hang most from labeled coat hangers for convenience. A lot is dried on screens.....all fan dried over about 2 weeks. I use an OLD Monopoly game top to shake the seeds down for collection. Old school I am, haven't changed a bit.

BTW, I immediately store my stash in the crisper. I swear a "final" cold cure intensifies the high, or maybe it's just my imagination! We smoked some Cannacopia Lapis Mtn. indica (re-vegged) that's been in cold storage and with 3 tokes off a small bong it about laid us both out. Rarely happens but I had a weed "hangover" the next morn.

Here's some C99 on a garbage can lid, 2 gallon baggie.

Change gears, waiting for tomorrow's eclipse although we're expecting clouds, bummer! I'm dead center in the middle of the path in the Texas hill country. Expecting a million or so in our small tourist town. Aint about to go there!

Uncle Ben

 

[Old Piney]

Saw your post on Dakshinkali while doing a search on that strain. Did you ever grow it? Am thinking about getting some from KwikSeeds, also Thai, etc.

Not yet this year I'm gonna run Nanda Devi, too many seeds to grow

 

[yahooman]

Suggests you're over feeding them in the first place. Got any pix?

I dont use synthetics anymore,all organic so no flushing for me.

 

[yahooman]

Agree yahooman,flushing isnt just for toilets!Remember you from UDG!

Your name sounds familiar,too bad udg went down,such a wealthbof outdoor knowledge not to mention some killer outdoor strains

 

[yahooman]

Ahh, the contentious issue of flushing.
Organically grown cannabis; well, you don't flush that. So why would you in any other medium.
And please don't say, its the accumulation of heavy metals, as Organically grown is very heavy in the metal dept.
And why is cannabis the ONLY plant on the planet that is said to need flushing. Its bro science as they say. And again, why deprive your plants of nutrition in the final weeks ?
You could just taper off on the amount of nutrients given.
There are now studies that have confirmed that flushing is not necessary.
( just to say , been growing for many decades now, haven't flushed for god knows how long. My flowers look, smell, and above all, taste amazing. Never a complaint. )

Because in organics the soil feeds the plants naturally,with synthetics the nutes feed the plants,those nutes do have salts and they do accumulate.im no newb here

 

[yahooman]

Because in organics the soil feeds the plants naturally,with synthetics the nutes feed the plants,those nutes do have salts and they do accumulate.im no newb here

I thought you guys knew your shit....

 

[yahooman]

Suggests you're over feeding them in the first place. Got any pix?

Yup,must be obi one

 

[Kimes]

Because in organics the soil feeds the plants naturally,with synthetics the nutes feed the plants,those nutes do have salts and they do accumulate.im no newb here

I've understood that with organic growing one feeds the soil with bonemeal, woodchips, eggshell powder, composted food scraps, bloodmeal, feathermeal, guano etc and the microbes in the soil process that into usable nutrients like NPK etc. Or in nature the soil microbes, fungi and worms/critters process raw materials like fallen twigs, leaves etc slowly into usable NPK etc... The plant roots and leafs then take what they need

And in soilless grows the medium is usually pretty inert and one "places" the missing NPK etc manually with fertilizers.

With regular soil growing one amends the soil either with organics or synthetics, the plant then takes what it needs.. Some companies make "slow release" pellets which mimic the way nature does it.. Like OsmoCote if I got it right, there are many other manufacturers too of course..

Both ways work fundamentally the same way from the plants perspective, but the other way is less processed and instead of factories or labs the work happens in soil itself with microbes etc..

Am I clueless now or what...? Too old to get back to school..

I would understand pesticides or herbicides etc be a problem needing some flushing (if that helps I dunno) but with growing weed I am truly clueless whether the flushing helps or not. With same logic (to get nutrients away from buds) the organic should be flushed too I suppose as that prcess is still very active in the late flowering in soil, indoors at least.. Outdoors the cold weather slows down the processes underground, I think..

edit: yeah stupid babbling, never mind

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Not yet this year I'm gonna run Nanda Devi, too many seeds to grow

I hear ya, can't kiss all the pretty ladies.

I must have 10 generations of seeds I could sow. Still have the Ace Golden Tiger X Panama stuff, etc. to do.

I have that one in my cart. Good luck with that one brother, sounds really special.

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Because in organics the soil feeds the plants naturally,with synthetics the nutes feed the plants,those nutes do have salts and they do accumulate.im no newb here

The "organized" soil feeds the plants because of the nutrient SALTS, chemicals it contains, otherwise you wouldn't have kaka to toke.

 

[xtsho]

So I just bought an 8 lb bag of the Indoor/outdoor 15-9-12 off of Amazon. The delivery page said I'd get it by 10:00pm tonight. Pretty cool if it shows up by then. I plan on using mostly outdoors in the garden and for all of my container plants. I couldn't find that particular product it in stock anywhere locally. But I didn't really look. It was just easier to get it online. $31 for 8 lbs did seem kind of steep in price though.

 

[xtsho]

I don't care what anyone says about them. I love Amazon. Order at 5:00pm and get it delivered at 8:30pm.

I'll give my review after this years outdoor gardening season. Looking at the feeding rate it doesn't look like it takes much so a little goes a long ways it appears.

 

[greenleader]

Mixing few spoonfuls of dolomite and gypsum per gallon helps with my peat moss grows, and they are dirt cheap too! And now i found pre-chalked peat moss so no need for that either.. ideal ph 5.7, no nutes so adding tomato fertilizer (dirt cheap with added mycoriza too) or osmo helps.. (next run I try that, couldnt get the exact same Osmo as Ol' Ben uses, but hey...)

I am sure Ol' Ben knows better, waiting for his feedback too, good question there, pal. thx for that

@Brother Nature looking real sweet there..

Thanks for your feedback. I will try to source gypsum or dolomite in my area, but I will also be getting a bag of Azomite as it is quite cheap here. It will be interesting to see if it works.
I found a supplier that lists Calcium in the contents of the Azomite and it also makes me wonder why Calcium is not part of an Osmocote mix..

 

[Thegreengrower64]

Because in organics the soil feeds the plants naturally,with synthetics the nutes feed the plants,those nutes do have salts and they do accumulate.im no newb here

This comment proves otherwise . Go watch the vid I put up, if you ego will allow it.

 

[Brother Nature]

Because in organics the soil feeds the plants naturally,with synthetics the nutes feed the plants,those nutes do have salts and they do accumulate.im no newb here

Not attacking you here my man, but this statement kinda proves the opposite of what you are trying to say.

Organics is a great method to grow weed with, but it's not the only nor is it the most efficient. You're in a thread inhabited by some long time growers, many of which also are professional horticulturalists and some even have degrees in plant sciences, very few commenters in this thread need to be told how to grow. Your methods work fine, no one's going to argue they don't work, but many are going to argue they aren't necessary and are costing you more than you are getting in return. Cannabis is a simple plant to grow, it's not some magic unicorn of the plant world that requires some strange voodoo to grow it best.

In my opinion, too many people come into growing cannabis without ever having understood how to grow other plants properly, so it becomes a lot easier to emulate and mimic what you see is being done well. This is fine, but also leads to stagnation, this segment of this forum isn't about being stagnant or sticking to the growers status quo, it's about trying different things to get the same or better results. Some of us are achieving this quite well, others maybe not so, but there's much to be learned here, even if you disagree.

Happy smoking bro...

 

[CharlesU Farley]

I've understood that with organic growing one feeds the soil with bonemeal, woodchips, eggshell powder, composted food scraps, bloodmeal, feathermeal, guano etc and the microbes in the soil process that into usable nutrients like NPK etc. Or in nature the soil microbes, fungi and worms/critters process raw materials like fallen twigs, leaves etc slowly into usable NPK etc... The plant roots and leafs then take what they need

And in soilless grows the medium is usually pretty inert and one "places" the missing NPK etc manually with fertilizers.

With regular soil growing one amends the soil either with organics or synthetics, the plant then takes what it needs.. Some companies make "slow release" pellets which mimic the way nature does it.. Like OsmoCote if I got it right, there are many other manufacturers too of course..

Both ways work fundamentally the same way from the plants perspective, but the other way is less processed and instead of factories or labs the work happens in soil itself with microbes etc..

Am I clueless now or what...? Too old to get back to school..

I would understand pesticides or herbicides etc be a problem needing some flushing (if that helps I dunno) but with growing weed I am truly clueless whether the flushing helps or not. With same logic (to get nutrients away from buds) the organic should be flushed too I suppose as that prcess is still very active in the late flowering in soil, indoors at least.. Outdoors the cold weather slows down the processes underground, I think..

edit: yeah stupid babbling, never mind

You are far from clueless and from what I can tell, there's no need to go back to school. I bet you're doing just fine.