Question about worm compost

[Big Nasty]

I call it soil.
Looks pretty good.
Maybe a sprinkling of Epsoma.

I can't find that brand in Italy but i'm going to use an organic potting soil made of irish peat,coco fiber,blond peat and bark humus lightly fertilized organically.

 

[Big Nasty]

I see you talking about Char ....

White man has been using fire to destroy the native vegetation in Australia for a while now. After piling up grass and leaves and sticks around the trunk of a grand old tree ... and prior to striking the match they say: "This should knock her back a bit".

There is Char in the soil pretty well wherever white man has been . And there are wildfires here too. Nature is on the back foot!

I've been taught that hardwood ash is a good amendment,i've never tried char before.

Stupid and irresponsible people here set fire where they find wild asparagus,it takes a year for the asparagus plant to grow back and several year for the piece of land to recover fully.

 

[Big Nasty]

So the experiment started 2 weeks ago,50-50 seedling soil and compost.

-4 Deluxe orange Lineage Genetics reg

-4 Green haze ACE reg

The mix seems to be slightly hot for a hybrid and too hot for a pure sativa even if the hazes are slowly getting better.
The final containers are three 9 lt and one 6,5 lt for each strain,i'm hoping to get a nice DO male to pollinate a nice haze female.
The % of compost are 30,50,70,90 for the DO and 10,30,40,50 for the GH,only 3 GH left to repot.

 

[Cvh]

 

[Big Nasty]

3 weeks from seed:the plants look good,i had to water less than pure soil so less work for me
By the look of leaves the media should last enough for the orange,not sure about the haze.250 hps btw

 

[h.h.]

3 weeks from seed:the plants look good,i had to water less than pure soil so less work for me
By the look of leaves the media should last enough for the orange,not sure about the haze.250 hps btw
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Looking good.
I kill plants just to watch them die. Still it can be painful.
Love the experimentation.
Don't remember if you mentioned your source for the castings.

 

[Big Nasty]

Looking good.
I kill plants just to watch them die. Still it can be painful.
Love the experimentation.
Don't remember if you mentioned your source for the castings.

Didn't your momma tell you not to play with plants? Great JC

Thanks mate,the castings are homemade,mainly depleted soil,char,kitchen scraps and a couple of amendments i have always wanted to try,can't even remember how much stuff went into the bin.
There are worms in the pots as well,hope they survive long enough,maybe i should feed them.

 

[Big Nasty]

a couple of pics of the 5 week,5 days of 11 on/13 off,still a bit overfed but overall the plants are looking fine.

 

[starke]

 

[Big Nasty]

2 weeks from the switch to 11on/13 off
The hybrids are looking good while 2 of the haze with 10 e 30% of compost are suffering,the medium stays wet too long for them and now i wish i used more compost from the start at the risk of burning them.
female 50% compost

female 70%

fermale 90%

male 30%

 

[Big Nasty]

Green Haze 10%,repotted with more compost,not looking good so far

30% compost,this should be male,smells of lemon7lime when rub the stem,maybe i'll use it

female,40% compost,the shortest of the hazes

female,50% compost,very nice plant,i'll pollinate her with the DO male

 

[h.h.]

Zinc deficiency due to compaction.
Not necessarily strain related.
There may be a difference in density between pots.
Without amendments your soil isn't going to be as forgiving.

 

[Big Nasty]

Zinc deficiency due to compaction.
Not necessarily strain related.
There may be a difference in density between pots.
Without amendments your soil isn't going to be as forgiving.

You're right,it doesn't get dry,not even after 10 days.it lacks the aeration i included in the compost,probably too poor to feed the plant properly,i added a handful of lava rocks in layers and repotted in a smaller pot to see if it improves somehow.At least this is a useful info for the future

 

[Cvh]

2 weeks from the switch to 11on/13 off
The hybrids are looking good while 2 of the haze with 10 e 30% of compost are suffering,the medium stays wet too long for them and now i wish i used more compost from the start at the risk of burning them.

When I was looking for some info about the soil make up of tropical rainforest regions. I came across the info in the quote below.

It looks like that tropical rainforest soil is very nutrient poor and that only the first 1 to 2 inches (2,5 - 5 cm) consist of decayed organic matter (compost). The rest below is just sand, rocks, clay and other things that are lacking in nutrients.

For me this explains why Sativa's doesn't like nutrient rich soil and also likes a good drainage. Only the top part is nutrient rich and can hold water, the rest below is just drainage material which hold water poorly and barely contains any nutrients.

It might be a fun experiment to replicate the make up of tropical rainforest soil in a pot and plant a Sativa (dominant) plant in it.

For example fill a pot for the most part with sand and rocks and then add a 1-2 inch layer of compost on top.

I don't know if anybody has tried this yet but maybe they will respond better then.

Soil in the tropical rainforest's is very nutrient poor. The topsoil is only one to two inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) deep. The only reason plant life is so lush is because the plants store the nutrients in themselves rather than getting them from the soil. When plants decay, other growing plants tap the nutrients from the dead matter and reuse nutrients left over from that plant. This is why farmers can only use the rainforest's soil for one or two years after they clear cut it, before all nutrients are stripped from the soil.
The reason the soil so infertile is because it is more than 100 million years old, and has taken a beating from the elements. After time, rain washes minerals out of the soil, leaving it more acidic and nutrient poor. Soil exposed to the heat and condensed sunlight turns it into red clay. Other soils just cannot deal with minerals, and turn it into compounds useless to plants. There are some fertile patches of soil in the rainforest's, but they are scattered throughout the thick vegetation.

 

[Big Nasty]

Hi Cvh,from what i see these plants don't like being watered as often and i probably went too conservative with the compost % and hence both nuts and drainage;they're in a way stronger and more resilient than a standard hybrid but also easier to screw up,but are recovering now.