The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

[Mcgruff]

Hey turbo14,

This year I only have a couple bags of new soil, almost everything is ammended. Last year I did about 15 in just straight Mendo Mix. I definately had to feed later but I would say I got a solid 1 1/2 months to 2 where everything grew perfect and I didn't add anything except occasional cal-mag. I would say if around that time you top dressed with chix manure and worm castings you might be able to make it until flower without very much feeding. I would get the mendo mix before you need it because right now its still composting and warm.

 

[Mcgruff]

This is what I added to my old RG Mendo Mix to ammend last years. To each 2 yards of soil mix I would add

1/4 new soil
2 bags stutsmans
6-7 cups kelp meal, 3#
Bone Meal- 2 gallons, 1 quart 12#
Blood Meal- 5 cups- 2.5#
2 cubic feet worm castings
5# Perlite in bags
Mix of 12# gypsum and 8# dolemite

This is similair to a mix done by tatagu14 on this site but I added to it

 

[D. B. Doober]

This thread is amazing. Bookmarked. Keep on growing

 

[Primalraindrop]

The first

The first

Just started the process of transplanting clones into there 200 gallon pots and hanging lights over them that will be on till june 14th.
This lady is Tangarine Dream.

 

[mendolocal]

How long do u leave ur light s on

 

[Primalraindrop]

I pull a tarp over and have lights on from 6pm till midnight. seems to work well. There just CFL's

 

[Dreambig]

What do you guys think about the numbers on the compost?

 

[Luther Burbank]

Dream - good cec on both, especially the compost, although the OM% for the amended seems high to me. Your MG is a little high in both but if you're on sandy soils that'll help bind things. If you're on clay you may want to add some Ca source to pull that Ca into further saturation dominance. Huge amount of K on that compost but that's hard to avoid with compost. Only a real issue if you're on some lands here in PNW with K toxicity. Your compost looks ace on both phosphorus akd trace minerals. The pH is a little too basic for my liking but I don't have any ideas other than perhaps excess Mg.

 

[somoz]

Hey AEA guys, a couple of questions for you. I haven't run the Sea Crop before and was doing some research on it and ran into two different brands....the AEA version from Dr. Kempf and the other one from Dr. Murray. Has anyone used both, and have critiques on the differences between the two. Also, is there a spot that carries AEA on the shelfs? Haven't seen it at ag mart locally.

 

[Cep]

I haven't been told exact details but Kempf and his crew are working retail for those products. Whether it's going to be in grow shops or larger ag suppliers that canna guys have access to is undecided. I'm not familiar with Dr. Murray though. Is it a matching name product or also something similar to AEA's? I think, for now, and maybe even month longer you'll need to order from AEA's site but don't quote me.

 

[milkyjoe]

What do you guys think about the numbers on the compost?

Not to be a dick here but like 98% of compost you will find it is crap. Almost all I have tested has the same problem...too much P and way fucking too much K. Major cations antagonize each other...so if you have too much K you end up forming cell walls out of k instead of Ca and you get pest and disease. You have too much P and one of two things happen: a) you get low no3 content and poor photosynthesis or b) your excess P ties up Ca and the K runs wild.

I would not use that compost for anything.

 

[milkyjoe]

Hey AEA guys, a couple of questions for you. I haven't run the Sea Crop before and was doing some research on it and ran into two different brands....the AEA version from Dr. Kempf and the other one from Dr. Murray. Has anyone used both, and have critiques on the differences between the two. Also, is there a spot that carries AEA on the shelfs? Haven't seen it at ag mart locally.

Kempf does not make sea crop...he distributes it. Not his product period.

Dr Murray is the dude that found sea minerals were good for plants. As far as I know he does not distribute anything.

Sea Crop is a product that has had some of the Na removed...reduce it down to a solid and it is 12% Na. That is the lowest of all brands I am aware of...so if you are going to use sea water it is the best imo.

Anyways, less Na is mo better so use sea crop (no matter who you buy it from) is my opinion. Secondly it is very strong on the Na front so be damn careful if you do decide to use it...no matter who sells it.

 

[Smoke&toke8]

Hi, was wondering where to get some soil analyzed around chico area.

thx

 

[Luther Burbank]

Milky I have to disagree with your suggestion to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are issues there with his compost, but especially without further info about his soil, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving out that sort of doom and gloom.

 

[Cep]

^^^ Depends. Mainly on how much of that compost he plans on using. Of course you would have some screwed up plants if you were planting straight into that stuff. I don't think his season would be a total bust if he cut 10-20% of it into the tested soil. Will the plants be in perfect health? Probably not. It's not "ace" on P or trace minerals. I wouldn't want Iron over 100ppm.

@Dreambig
What I would do if I HAD to use those two tested materials is cut some of that compost into the soil, no more than 20% though. What that would do is bring the low K in the soil closer to 5% and raise the low B. Your Ca should be a higher base % but the soil is already loaded and alkaline. Over the coarse of the season if your plants get big they will mine some of the stuff out and you can have a test done beginning of next year, maybe adding some lime (not dolomite) to adjust Ca.

Or, you can look for different inputs. If it's not too late for you in the season find a better mix. Milky is right to caution you on the compost. Most mixes available are simply unbalanced. I.e. TGA "supersoil" that I just had tested out of curiosity is a complete mess. My ideal situation (other than starting with perfect soil!) is to start with deficient soil and incrementally work up to the numbers I want.

Good luck with what you choose.

 

[milkyjoe]

Too much of something in the soil is like too much salt in the soup...you are stuck with it.

I am going through the exact same thing trying to find good compost. i have decided on no more than 10% and i finally found a pretty good one, a vermicompost from Build a Soil.

And it is a really common problem. The guys at Nova Crop Control say Ca shortages from too much K is the most common deficiency they see and it has a huge influence on plant health.

The plant will grow fast and greeen but it will lack cell wall integrity and the sap ph will be too low making it susceptible to mold/fungal disease particularly late in the season.

 

[Dreambig]

Thanks guys what I should of also added to that last post how I planned on using it. So I'll repost the reports to make it a little easier to understand. I plan on using the compost colum with the greenhouse column. The other samples/ columns are for my indoor mix.
I was gonna add roughly 25 gallons of the compost to my the 200 gallons of greenhouse soil 1:8 ratio roughly... Also I was gonna add azomite, glacial rock dust, greensand, alfalfa meal, and kelp meal. I have some lama poo, horse and cow manure to play with as well.

I think I need more post before I can post more than one pic at a time. But take the the far right sample from each report and that's what I plan on combining greenhouse to compost. Thanks for the help guys I appreciate the input.

 

[Dreambig]

Here's the report with the greenhouse sample.

 

[Luther Burbank]

What sort of CEC are your beds? - for those of you testing.

 

[boobs]

420

420

hey guys, here's a project we just started. 4'x32' cedar beds, 1/4" hardware cloth on bottom. hoops are 8'x72' nothing too fancy (3/4in sun resistant conduit, channel bolts/nuts, 3/4in brackets for attaching to wood base and side boards, wiggle wire for attaching the clear poly, t's and cross joints for attaching the center beam and there's a 1/2in metal tube that is within that). soil mix is 30% diestel compost, 30% sphagnum peat, 30% red lava rock, 10% local topsoil. amended with (per cu ft) of 1/2cup each of down to earth kelp, dte crab, ahimsa neem, gypsum, oyster shell flour and 4cup of some rock dust from rockdustlocal. mixed it with a rototiller and little pitch fork in place, was pretty easy. going to put drips in sometime. using 5mil panda, seems to slide on easy because of how light it is but definitely need some duck tape huh.

weight of amendments
http://buildasoil.com/blogs/news/11485089-how-much-does-each-amendment-weigh

just planted~

there's lots of strains, gg4, cherry pie, gsc, twist og, legend og, bubba og, phantom, candyland, amnesia haze, wifi alien, blue dream, sour grapes, . others?

got some swami seeds for the full season