The Big Thread on the Uses and Misuses of Pre-Fertilized Potting Soil

[LittleBigGrower]

Wow, thanks for that Cap, really helping sort out this Pre-fertilized Potting soil dance.
Had my fingers crossed that the Pre-ferted soil wouldent be a major disadvantage, as thats what we are using in our mix for our first grow.

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Hiya Cap....Sorry, no link mate, But if you do a Google for Supernatural Brand Terraponics, that should take you there. Its quite interesting to read, and u can get their bags and either use em jhand watered, or they sell an air powered flood and drain table...sounds interesting also, but thats nothing to do with this, anyway, just letting u know.

 

[Guest]

Cool zepp, sounds like a good setup you have

Glad to be of service LBG, feel free to ask questions about anything I dont cover.

Thanks Harry, I'll look them up.

=========================

The seed experiment is going srongly. I orignally was ony going to do planters with the PFPS but in the end I decided to include eight cups of my recycled soil. The green is organic, the yellow is Miracle grow and the unmarked is the recycled soil


The lesson here is to not put too many seeds in one paper towel. The roots grow together and can only be untied by damaging some.



All of them are placed under the fluoros for warmth.

 

[Guest]

lol, nice catch John! No I never let em get that long in keepers because they do grow into the fibers of the towel and you have to rip em apart. None of these beans will be kept, they will be part of two experiments and then killed

It's been 24 house since I put em down, I'm going to go get a pic and see how they're doing. My guess is 12 of 24 have popped, one of the advantages of planting seeds with a big taproot.

 

[Guest]

All right, 14 of them are up.

-4 of 8 in the recycled soil
-4 of 8 in the Miracle Grow
-6 of 8 in the Schultz Organic

These images are very large and detailed and you can see every seedling in my gallery

 

[SuperToker]

fox farm ocean forest is good stuff but it is strong for small seedlings/clones. i don't like any other "soil" that i've bought. i don't use this either anymore but its good stuff if soil is what your planning. lots have success with some of the walmart/sam's brand soil's as well.

 

[Guest]

Oh boy, I have so much to catch up on. I have realy let this thread die off and there are days worth of pics and text to write up.

So anyway, the seedlings handled the soil perfectly, with all 24 being above soil in 36 hours or less.

The PFPS in my experiment is clearly not toxic to seedlings or bare roots in any way whatsoever.

 

[Guest]

Now, in my second experiment, there are some marked differences. Remember these were fully grown into the small cups they were rooted in and transplanted to each kind of PFPF, chemical and organic, four plants in each. Each plant was topped down to nothing to better judge the new growth

After a week, they looked like this. Red is the chemical Miracle Grow and green is the organic Schultz. Both were watered with plain water only

 

[Guest]

And then a few days later, things were even more different, with the organic plants looking great and putting on lots of new, thick growth. They look great! The MG plants are not doing so well. Leaves are discolored, new growth is slow on three of the four. Roots have struck as fully as those visable in the organic oil and look just as bone white and healthy, but the plants look awful. I wont even make clones out of them

 

[Guest]

I liked the organic plants so much I decided to keep them in my growing rotation. Timing should be just about right for the big harvest coming up in early april. I trimmed them down to a single strong branch and then tied that branch vertical so it could resume growth as a single cola plant. This will be interesting to see if it does do just that.

 

[Guest]

My next experiment was to stick the same kind of cuttings as used in experiment one in some PFPS that is NOT cut with perlite at all. Straight out of the bag. I dont recommend this soil mix for growing, but if anything in the PFPS world is going to be bad for bare roots, it'll be this stuff, undiluted. A mixture of mostly small and medium, and one very large, clones.





It's been five days and I can tell you no one is showing any detrimental effects yet. I'll be popping some out of the Chuck E Cheese cups and checking for roots later today. They'll be moved under more intense light as well.

 

[Guest]

Hello! I forgot to update this thread!

All plants rooted just fine. In fact, I was very happy with the way the soil held together, much better compared to soil with 1/3 perlite in it. Some examples

 

[Guest]

I kept ten of the 12, which are now growing away in veg. Here you see them six days after transplant




Yikes! Look at that dirty ass floor ^^ I'm ashamed

 

[kov]

Actually great you forgot to update for some time Caprichoso! This way it popped up from the abyss of archives, at just the right moment for me humble soul to cast an eye on it :wink:

It actually serves me well, since I usually take a lot of bashing for using pre-ferted soil with no perlite mixed in it, for growing plants from seed :smile:

Great you made an experiment with it, do update from time to time, I'll be glad to learn some more.

rgds, kov

 

[dociron]

Just bumping a classic thread,, I noted this one elsewhere today, lol
under "anonymous"
It's that time of year in the northern hemisphere, the Home Depots are
settin' out new stock as we sit here, lol.....

This was and still is an eminately useful thread,,

Thank You Cap..​

​

 

[panamajuice]

CAPRICHOSO,
This thread is just an incredible help, THANK YOU!.

I was looking for some preferted soil to make things a bit easier and bough some SCHULTZ organic soilmix... I wasn´t sure what to expect but now that I see your results I´m gonna use it for all my plants in my next grow...

Can you let us know how those clones ended up looking?, The SCHULTZ soil made them look green and lush, the MG didn´t cut it I guess...

 

[Guest]

BRAVO!! BRAVO!!

BRAVO!! BRAVO!!

:::THE CROWD ROARS:::

ENCORE!!​

just dropping by to thank you for my favorite thread, as a lurker..

thanks to the thread resurrector, i've been huntin for this thread for ages!!

right up my alley..

be well

 

[Secret Room]

Great thread, I had been looking for unfertilized potting soil hard to find now. I was happy when I discovered the organic that's what I have been using. This thread confirms that it is good dirt. I've been happy with it so far.

 

[mybrownhorse]

Help!

Help!

I'm a newbie, not a smoker, just growing to see if I can!! I have a friend who will trade wine for weed if I get any! I started these 4 plants from seeds, have no idea if male or female yet, growing inside and I was using just regular potting soil mix with rabbit manure (my husband was told it's a great fertilizer!) below the plant when I transplanted them to bigger pots. Problem is, I went to my local supermarket yesterday and seems it's a hard time to get soil around here now! So I had a friend pick some up in another place but it's Scultz potting soil plus, I went ahead and transplanted these plants today and again put my scoop of rabbit manure beneath, silly me didn't research until now! I read different things, some say not to use soil with slow release fertilizer and here I am double fertilizing! Should I replant if I can find just regular soil somewhere? Or have these plants grown enough to be able to handle what I just threw at them!!