Slownickel lounge, pull up a chair. CEC interpretation

[orechron]

Nothing wrong with trying. If you're in the northern part of the state I can give you numbers to shoot for on a soil test that will help grown more mold resistant plants.

 

[Dankwolf]

Nothing wrong with trying. If you're in the northern part of the state I can give you numbers to shoot for on a soil test that will help grown more mold resistant plants.

I am not sure where i will be next year . i am currently looking to buy some property. Advise on mold resistance would be appreciated but i am thinking i should get a soil test first on the mix i paln on using any advise on who i should go through i have never had a soil test before ?

 

[jidoka]

Slow...lets say i get to 3000 ppm Ca. What levels of k and mg would you shoot for.

I may take a shot at hitting "sufficient" levels of those 2 and then jacking ca as high as i can based on pH

 

[Dankwolf]

The mix i planed on using ?

The mix i planed on using ?

2 parts sun shine orgainic mix with yucca for wetting agent
1part perlight
1 part red lava rock cleaned and graded down to 1/4 pieces sourced localy
1 1/2 tbs per gallon lime
1 tbs per gallon high n down to earth bat guano
1 tbs per gallon high p down to earth bat guano
1 tbs per gallon sea weed from down to earth
1 tbs per gallon humic acid down to earth
1/2 tbs per gallon bentonight from local source
1 to 1 1/2 cups per gallon worm casting with rock dust high in k
1 cup sand cleand source localy

Mixed thourghly. Then watered down with water mixed with 1/4 tbs high brix per gallon and 1/4 tbs earth juice micro per gallon . i let that sit in 800 gallon potter for about 20 to 30 days mixing every 5 by hand and adding water ass needed .

And i plan on feeding with earth juice grow , bloom and catalyst as needed. Any input welcome i am just getting into mixing my own soil ?

 

[jidoka]

Does sunshine organic mix already have perlite in it? If it does you are going to end up with more than 50% drainage stuff in there. At that point you are straight bottle feeding. That is a disaster outdo

Edit...it does however explain why you need 4x the amount of that earth juice.

Think cootz mix or top soil

 

[Dankwolf]

Does sunshine organic mix already have perlite in it? If it does you are going to end up with more than 50% drainage stuff in there. At that point you are straight bottle feeding. That is a disaster outdo

Yes it does have vary little perlite . i use this mix indoor but i water every day to . i was concernd about that amount of airation outdoor as well but i planed to irrigate on a timer . so should i go 3 parts ss mix 1 part perlite 1 part red lava rock for a 60/40 mix ?

I thought about coots mix but the reviews on it are all over the place due to geographical location i assume .

Is there a problem realying on liqued feed ?

 

[jidoka]

Check out schrews thread.

The mixed reviews come from the retarded amount of gypsum. Use 6 lbs of vansil w10 in place of oyster shell and gypsum

 

[plantingplants]

So the more drainage, the less CEC, the smaller the battery, the more often you have to feed. Making sense now. Slow advocates a lower CEC to make it easier to manipulate nutrient levels (steer the boat) during different stages.

Jidoka, do you have any topsoil analyses you wouldn't mind sharing? I wanted to test my local source but I don't have any idea of what it looks like on paper.

Dankwolf, careful changing things up. There's a new learning curve for every new variable you change.

 

[SkyHighWormGuy]

Slow,
1st off thanks for this thread. 2nd, I gotta say I'm a little shell shocked after reading this thread top to bottom. Not because it's info way above my pay grade, which it is...but because I was actually thinking I was growing plants optimally, to or near their full genetic potential.

Basically,
I thought, previous to reading this thread, that the plant could be (and in my organic system Was) in control of the "feeding". I thought that the idea was to supply a full range of nutrients within the soil, and the plant would take exactly what it wanted, when it wanted it.. Nothing more or less.. Via the relationship of the soil biology and root exudates.

Maybe I'm right, but you are able to "push" the plant further than it would go on its own?

I grow in a coots type mix and have for years. It makes great meds. Yields could improve, I feel. I would never trade quality for yield, but apparently you don't have to.

I'm very interested and will begin studying the links and compiling notes when I arrive back home to Colorado.

I have never done a soil test, I am willing to do one now.

Also, what am I missing here:
It seems you are trying to figure out exactly what a cannabis plant needs, nutritionally, for its entire lifecycle. That is a great thing to know, if it's possible. The confusing part to me is this: how different are the nutritional needs of an equatorial landrace sativa vs. an afghani indica landrace? Or are they exactly the same? How could that be? I'm cornfused, big time.

Thanks again for the thread, I like stuff that makes us think, question, reevaluate, etc

 

[Dankwolf]

Jjdoka: i have read shrews thread front to back and some parts two or three times . but i will go back now that i am getting a better understanding.

Planting plants : thanks for the explanation on cec . i have been trying to grasp the basic idea but that makes it alot easyer to understand and the rest makes a lot more sense now .

I used to run with down to earth soil mix and amended to the point all i needed was water . i got tiered of haveing to adjust each particular mix for each strain (major head ache ) and i hit a wall sort to speak as far as growth aswell (would not have been ballsy enough to do a soil test back then ) . thats why i went to the mix i use now its easyer to adjust per strain.

I have alot of reading to catch up with you guys as far a soil mixing . i will come back when i have a better understanding of cec and its relation to ferts/calcium/mag

 

[Dankwolf]

So the more drainage, the less CEC, the smaller the battery, the more often you have to feed. Making sense now. Slow advocates a lower CEC to make it easier to manipulate nutrient levels (steer the boat) during different stages.

This is exactly why i went with the mix i have now is i can "steer the boat " so now i am confused one guy says i need a higher cec and slow says he like lower cec like i am already running correct ?

 

[jidoka]

No...your soil weighs 1/4 what slows weighs. You have no battery. That is why you need to constantly feed

 

[plantingplants]

Sky High, jidoka has mentiond studies done by nova crop control that show how drastically different nutrient requirements can be in the same plant fromvariety to variety (in food crops). I think you have to pay to access their data though.

Dankwolf, glad I could help. Wish I could grow as well as I can absorb informstion lol. If you're 1/10 skill, I'm 0.1/10. Time will tell.

 

[Dankwolf]

Sky High, jidoka has mentiond studies done by nova crop control that show how drastically different nutrient requirements can be in the same plant fromvariety to variety (in food crops). I think you have to pay to access their data though.

Dankwolf, glad I could help. Wish I could grow as well as I can absorb informstion lol. If you're 1/10 skill, I'm 0.1/10. Time will tell.

Lol what ever a bit modest i see. every one has there area's that there best and or knowledgeable in. its places like this we get to learn from each other and hone are skills .

The more i learn the less i know. 1/10 or 10/10 is about perspective . good thing we all dont think we are 10 out of 10 if not we would all still be smoking seeded brick weed lol.

 

[Dankwolf]

New soil indoor run + wife dam near killing it at 3 weeks when i was on vacation

New soil indoor run + wife dam near killing it at 3 weeks when i was on vacation

 

[SkyHighWormGuy]

Sky High, jidoka has mentiond studies done by nova crop control that show how drastically different nutrient requirements can be in the same plant fromvariety to variety (in food crops).

That makes sense, and is how I imagine things work. Within cannabis it must be the same.. I think.

I am thinking I am misunderstanding what Slow is doing.

 

[slownickel]

So the more drainage, the less CEC, the smaller the battery, the more often you have to feed. Making sense now. Slow advocates a lower CEC to make it easier to manipulate nutrient levels (steer the boat) during different stages.

This is exactly why i went with the mix i have now is i can "steer the boat " so now i am confused one guy says i need a higher cec and slow says he like lower cec like i am already running correct ?

Dankster,

Several of the members have sent in their soil samples. They are scattered around on this forum. I will stick them all in an excel file and post them in the near future.

What you will see is a heavy trend.

Maui... makes your lips water just saying it. 85% Ca naturally occurring if I am not mistaken in the base distributions using the CORRECT soil analysis procedure to eliminate the variables that have been fogging up the lens so to speak for years and which when eliminated can give us a much clearer path to follow.

I have seen over the last 30+ years in scales that you can't imagine, this same "gauge" working over and over, but sometimes it would miss and miss hard. We would know it missed by running trial strips with more and more, less and less. EVERY time it was the same. In EVERY situation, in EVERY farm, if we put on the right form of calcium, there was always an amazing response. Sometimes the response wasn't what we expected, but we got one anyways. And in each and ever situation, the calcium response was there just another variable out of place.

Like the Fe/Mn ratio. Imagine a soil with 150/20 and you add calcium carbonate to a very acid soil. The ratio goes to 140/3 as the little bit of Mn nearly disappears causing a Mn deficiency to take fotos of and put in a text book. This is because the soil is made of iron. Red clay. Sticks to a magnet when dry. The Ca response was there, just we had another problem that had to be addressed at the same time.

Big plant growers soil analysis results overall? All had Ca% in the high 70's, some low 80's, some with 50%'s and 60's. Everyone that did good vs problems had lower Ca in the poorer resulting soil.

Our job is to prevent all this from ever happening. The plant can NEVER recover from a Ca deficiency at any time. Calcium is not translocatable within the plant. The plant can recover from a K, Mg or even micros. Ca no.

The science has been out there for a long time. Just that the PGA guys recently added to the information base and have really honed in the skill set, especially if tied in with lots of other neat ratio work, etc...

We all have to do trials.

The minimum amount of calcium to get to a good crop is 2000 ppm using [email protected] The more you have, the more nutrient dense your crop can be. This is the floor level. From there on, you can achieve high Ca in the plant provided you move from one base saturation to another and then return and then do it over again. Starting with high Ca, bringing up K to mature foliage prior to flowering, then bringing Ca back up again at the start of flowering. This is critical at this moment in time as the plant is sprouting new roots to send the Ca to the new growth and would be off spring... seeds. Ca uptake is key to get big buds and then you bring K back up to fill in those buds. P needs to be maintained until a couple of three weeks prior to finish.

What are the downsides normally of a higher CEC?

1. Lack of airspace, making overwatering by stonies a big problem.
2. The higher the CEC, the more N is stored. Basically you can calculate that your soil/medium can suck up 10 times the CEC number in N. So if you have a CEC of 10, the soil can hold 100 of N. This complicates greatly the maturing process. I have seen folks start up monster bags from the previous year with more than 100+ppm of N from the previous year!
3. The higher the CEC, the more costly it is to move the CEC as you need more nutes. And if you already have a conductivity problem and lack of Ca to begin with, this will result in a lot of burnt leaves and loss of both yield and quality.

And we know nothing until it is tested. This idea of weight per volume still irks me a bit. In the same area, that weights half as much, we have a nutrient level that is absurd in these cases. Look at Jidokas analysis for one. Note the levels levels discussed in the media articles around the internet are 20% of what Jidoka has. He has no room to apply fertilizers, especially K.

Given that there is compost, worm castings, peat, biology booming, etc., this is not a media, this is an active organic material base holding a lot more nutes compared to pure medias based on nearly pure peat planted for a house plant and then sold off.

Not good science using those concepts. From what we have seen, these hybrid medias that you all are mixing up react just like soil. If there is not enough Ca, conductivity is often high due to Mg build up, plugging up pore spaces, pure peat can't have those type problems if you water correctly until it decomposes and collapses.

 

[orechron]

I can attest for the collapsing, high organic matter medias. I had to mix in by hand a bunch more Ca to grow my last crop in what has turned into pure worm castings. Slow can you explain how Mg contributes to high conductivity in this situation? Myconductivity is highish (1.2) but why wouldn't the Mg incorporate itself into the tcec?

 

[jidoka]

Slow...if my cec is high enough to incorpoate 3000 ppm Ca and still have enough mg and k to grow the crop do i even need to manipulate that back and forth

 

[jidoka]

I would also say using albion or other amino chelated ca the plant can recover