Wider pots or more soil what do you think?

[jidoka]

So my take...and take it for what you think it is worth. The secret to growing big plants is serious nutrition provided on a constant basis. You cannot grow either a fat kid or a linebacker unless you feed them. The difference is the quality of that nutrition, not the calories.

And the calories can be measured as soil ec like this



There are two paths to go by. There is the screws path where you just add water. In that case you can go lower EC but bigger root ball. Smart pot has you covered

Or you can go smaller pot and feed and run higher ec. In that case shallow is better

 

[Dankwolf]

So my take...and take it for what you think it is worth. The secret to growing big plants is serious nutrition provided on a constant basis. You cannot grow either a fat kid or a linebacker unless you feed them. The difference is the quality of that nutrition, not the calories.

And the calories can be measured as soil ec like this

View attachment 455231

There are two paths to go by. There is the screws path where you just add water. In that case you can go lower EC but bigger root ball. Smart pot has you covered

Or you can go smaller pot and feed and run higher ec. In that case shallow is better

Well put . Could not have said it better my self.

 

[Ibechillin]

^agree 100%, the difference in the fat kid and the linebacker is keeping the metabolism running 24/7 with good watering and ph habits like i explained the bottom of page 1.

You **** up the PH or under and over water the linebacker starts smoking bong loads all day and chilling instead or going to football practice turning into the fat kid.

Cellulose, hemi cellulose and pectin take Ca to form. B and Si increase the delivery of Ca

If you never get enough Ca you might not know

Also how different is the n-p-k-Ca-mg-s on those 3 formulas? If those are close how much difference do you expect a label to make

I started using a tissue lab in CO. They had never measured Ca at 1% or more. Avg K was 7%. The big problem was immediately obvious

The bottle dudes followed each other down a very weird path. And the mix your own guys did not go far off that path...including glow

take a look at where those narrow leaf varieties come from.

There ain’t much better than a 100F GH with 80% humidity to grow them in. Get your Ca saturation to 75% and stand back

Thanks Jidoka.

From blog.nutri tech.com

"American consultant, Gary Zimmer, coined the term “Calcium the trucker of all minerals and boron the steering wheel” and he correctly highlighted the critically important, synergistic relationship between these two minerals. It is a simple fact that you will be disappointed in your lime response if your soils are boron deficient because calcium does not provide its many benefits in the absence of boron. During a recent trip to New Zealand I was speaking with a dairy farmer who had made a considerable investment in lime but had seen very few benefits from the exercise. Upon further investigation I found that his soil tests revealed a massive boron deficiency! In fact, he had just 0.1 ppm of boron in his soils when he required a minimum of 1 ppm. He had created this deficiency through burning out his organic matter reserves with large applications of urea and then leaching boron with centre pivot irrigation. Organic matter is the boron storehouse as it is the only component of the soil that has the positively charged sites to attract and retain this negatively charged trace mineral (anion). As your organic matter declines so does your boron, as it is the most leachable of all trace elements. However this dairy farmer’s boron neglect cost him more than a poor lime response. There was virtually no clover on his entire property because legumes are boron-hungry and will struggle when boron drops to these levels. The lack of clover was also related to urea abuse as legumes never thrive in high N situations. When most people think of legumes they think of nitrogen fixation and the associated reduced requirement for applied N. However, legumes offer more than this. Legumes constantly release organic acids which are invaluable in solubilising locked-up phosphorus (over 70% of applied phosphate becomes insoluble) and they also make calcium more bio-available which is beneficial to both soil organisms and plants. So you get nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus from legumes and you don’t get a good legume to grass ratio without boron. These calcium and legume links should offer enough motivation for you to manage boron nutrition but this highly leachable trace element provides several other benefits."

Source Link:
https://blog.nutri-tech.com.au/the-role-of-boron-much-more-than-a-synergist/

Follow this link for more good info on what the different companion plants do for the main crop:
https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/benefits-companion-planting-cannabis/

The companion crops you use depend on environment, indoors mostly nutrient helping companions. outdoor/greenhouse pest detterent companions also.

 

[jidoka]

So constant feed in 5 gal pots looks like this.

Which is better...depends on situation

What is the dif between fat weak kid and athlete nutrition, another question completely

 

[Ibechillin]

Indica/Sativa Landrace Origins

Source: softsecrets
https://www.softsecrets.com/gb/grow/grow-reports/facts-know-indica-sativa/

Indica family, which traditionally come from:Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, etc.

Such plants are very dark green (due to their mountainous origin), with large palmate leaves: this allows them to convert as little sunlight as possible into as much growth energy as needed. Buds are dense and large, a result of tightly-spaced internodes – an evolutionary defence mechanism that enables the plant to stay warm in cold or high-altitude settings. Large, dense buds also keep the seeds warm and protected, encouraging new generations to flourish.

Sativas originate from hot and humid tropical environments near the equator and adapted to resist heat and mold.

They grow tall and stretchy, the leaves are long and thin fingered and are light green. Especially equatorial varieties which have less chlorophyll and more yellow pigments in order to protect the plant from intense light, temperate varieties are darker green. Long internode spacing and airy buds allow optimal airflow to stay dry and cool.

This thread has turned into kind of a running log of everything i know, wanted to add this in as well.

 

[Ibechillin]

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[Ibechillin]

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[Ibechillin]

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[Ibechillin]

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[Gr33nSanta]

So my take...and take it for what you think it is worth. The secret to growing big plants is serious nutrition provided on a constant basis. You cannot grow either a fat kid or a linebacker unless you feed them. The difference is the quality of that nutrition, not the calories.

And the calories can be measured as soil ec like this

View attachment 455231

There are two paths to go by. There is the screws path where you just add water. In that case you can go lower EC but bigger root ball. Smart pot has you covered

Or you can go smaller pot and feed and run higher ec. In that case shallow is better

Ive almost always grown water only and big pots, Id say your post is spot on! Good info with the EC!

 

[Ibechillin]

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[Ibechillin]

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[oti$]

I'm digging the discussion. I think delta9nsx has similar ideas about shallow but wider footprint root systems in his newr ppk threads. I've had some of my best yields in 4×8 by 12" deep coco beds. I was hitting about 2lbs per light with 16-25 clones with a week or two veg, scrogged. I'll be lurking and learning.

 

[Ibechillin]

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[Ibechillin]

Thanks DoubleTripleOG, just what this thread needed! well maintained Trees in Small Pots!

I've been using Jack's Bloom Booster 10-30-20 as a stand alone one part, in veg right thru till flush in bloom for a couple years now with excellent results. 1/4 teaspoon per gallon when using Happy Frog soil and 1/2 teaspoon per gallon with Pro Mix BX.

The year I did this, I had about 60 plants in this plot. Tended to them every day or every other day. Kinda a hybrid between the two styles mentioned in the thread title.
Kosher Kush - got 10 ounces out of this 5 gal pail.

This Exodus Kush came in at just over 2 lbs.

This a group that were in 7 gal grow bags. I cut the bottoms off and set them on top of a hole I dug that held 2 cu.ft. of soil(a whole bag) for each plant.

I pulled about 30 lbs. out of the swamp that year.

 

[LungCooking]

i prefer the deeper one

 

[Sforza]

Hand watering Losing little water to evaporation, hand watering is more efficient than automatic irrigation with timers. Households that water with watering cans and garden hoses use 33 percent less water outdoors than homes with automatic sprinklers or drip irrigation systems. To reduce evaporation when watering with a hose, attach a water breaker nozzle and a wand extension. Water breakers allow gardeners to turn hoses off when moving between plants, and wand extensions apply water directly at plant bases. Watering cans with long necks and fine rose sprays also reduce evaporation by applying water slowly to plant bases, reducing runoff and evaporation from the soil surface.

I have found that the Dramm 14804 One Touch Rain Wand with One Touch Valve is ideal. You use your thumb to adjust water flow. Much more precise and comfortable than the type that requires that the user keep a grip on a lever to keep the water flowing. On the lever grip type of watering wand, there is a bail that can be flipped over the lever, but I found that to be awkward to use and prone to slipping off.

 

[CrushnYuba]

I want to bring up a point that i have not really seen mentioned yet. Whatever shape your roots are is how wide your plant WANTS to grow. Yea you can use trellis and topping to try to force them to grow wider but it only works to a certain extent. I hate topping. It slows growth. If u give them the root space from the start, they will grow wider then tall.

Also roots want to grow out more then down. Clones even more so then seeds. They will eventually fill all their root space but really only when they run out of lateral space.

it's entirely unnecessary to go passed 18" deep. And anything over 24" is begging for root rot problems. Much less then 16-18" is a problem because the top layer of soil does dry out.

I think for growing big plants, nothing crushes it like a wide mound that is 18" in the center. And it can tap into the clay below. Its just the shape that roots want to grow. Tapering out. Breaking up the clay below and feathering some soil into it definitely helps.

 

[Ibechillin]

Thanks CrushnYuba.

I do something like
1 part lava rock
1 part perlite
1 part coco
1 part fir bark or peat
1 part cow manure compost
1 part green waste compost

For amendments per yard
37.5 lb of shutzman chicken pellets
10 lb of fishbone
2 lb calphos
2 lb langbeinite
1 lb potash
10 lb alfalfa
Ph balance with lime if necessary. But that should be balanced without it.

No compost tea, no liquid feeding. A couple light top dressings if you are feeling frisky. That will give you more nutrients available the first year at 1/2 the price. Next year get a soil sample and balance minerals to Albright ratios.

That's just what has worked best for me over the years. Kind of part coots mix, part Tom hill mix, with a dash of my own style.
Get it in bulk delivered by dump truck. Each truck and transfer can bring 40 cubic yards. Couple of them and your gold.

For amendments per yard - cubic yard of soil = 173.57 gallons

300 gallons is 46.67 cubic ft, so if you want assume roughly a 7'x7' area of soil mound, so to keep it easy, we'll just use 50 square foot.

43560/50 = 871.2, so this is our volume multiplier.

37.5 lb of shutzman chicken pellets (4-3-2)
37.5 x .04 = 1,306.8
37.5 x .03 = 980.1
37.5 x .02 = 653.4

10 lb of fishbone (3-16-0)
10 x .03 = 261.36
10 x .16 = 1393.92

2 lb calphos (0-3-0)
2 x .03 = 52.27

2 lb langbeinite (0-0-22)
2 x .22 = 383.33

1 lb potash (0-0-50)
1 x .5 = 435.6 (I'd consider increasing this to 2.5 lb total =1089)

10 lb alfalfa (3-2-2)
10 x .03 = 261.36
10 x .02 = 174.24
10 x .02 = 174.24

N-P-K = 1830-2601-1647 (2300) per cubic yard (174 gallons) ratio of 4-5.7-3.6 (5)



dank.Frank

I pull 5-10lb plants ALL DAY with just
Chicken manure
Bone meal
Langbeinite
Alfalfa
No compost tea. Couple simple cheap top dressings in late veg and flower. Watered on drip.

Manures are pretty balanced to start. Allot of my mixes start with chicken manure 3-3-2 or 4-3-2 as a base and then i build off that. Good chicken shit like shutzman farms can be your main amendment. If the poo is even somewhat aged, you can use allot. Just throw it in the hole and mix it up.

I regularly plant a tiny clone or seedling into a soil mix that the BASE was 30% cow manure and still put allot of amendments in. They just took off.

Similarly, i frequently use a mix on starts that i added 40lbs of chicken manure per yard to.

Goat poo has more nutrient then cow, but not even close to chicken.
I would be trying to mix it in. If you can't, just plant and then top dress it on asap.

precipitated bone meal 0-18.5-0 with like 20% calcium and langbeinite 0-0-22 with 10% mag. High numbers and cheap. Instantly available and water soluble enough that you can mix with water and water in if you want.

Precipitated bone has no smell. Its bone meal that is reacted with acid to be more water soluble. Its also called dicalcium phosphate. It's instantly available and doesn't need to break down like regular bone meal. There a version of dicalcium phosphate that uses mined calcium phosphate instead of bone meal. I get 50 lb bags for 50$ of the bone meal preparation. Not the easiest thing to find. Sometimes it's sold as a cattle feed supplement.

Langbeinite is a mined rock dust. Potasium magnesium sulfate. No smell either

These 2 ingredients together are basically a complete organic flower booster. P, k, ca, and mg. Also has a good bit of sulfur. I use it as a top dressing, but it can be watered in.

For the potassium magnesium sulfate there are different size partial grades. standard fines that's better for amending or slow release top dressing. And there are ultra fines that are smaller particles. Better for watering in or instant release top dressing.

Re amending used soil:

I have had great success going half back with meal per cycle and quarter back on dusts


it is dependent on soil/plant ratio

I would count guanos as meals and gypmsum/lime/oyster shell as dusts



I also use DE and molasses as C sources as needed, my basic premise with LOS containers being it is far easier to add than to remove.

Just wanted to mention there are alot of alternative (cheaper) sources for many different nutrient items. It doesnt have to be expensive to give your plant everything it could benefit from, some things are even dual purpose saving you money on insect and mildew/mold prevention.

Neem seed meal npk 6-1-2 is good veg food, as well as pest/mildew/mold repellant and can make foliar sprays/Teas.

Kelp Meal can also be used to make your own foliar sprays/Teas.

Hardware/Farm/Feed stores are a great resource for amendments!

Epsom salt 7lb bag $7 (Pennington brand for lawns)
Dolomite lime 40lb bag $3.00
82 brix+ molasses 1 gallon jug $10 (evolved habitats brand)
40lb bag Diatomaceous Earth with Calcium Bentonite $17.99 (Red Lake Earth brand)
50lb bag alfalfa pellets (npk 2-1-2 triacontanol hormone for branching) $12.99 (dumour brand)
1 gallon phosphoric acid (ph down) $15 (labled milkstain remover for dairy equipment)

Down To Earth brand amendments can be found a good deal cheaper than most grow stores and with free shipping from ebay.
If you know anyone with horses/chickens they will probably gladly let you clean the stalls out.

 

[Switcher56]

Made a ton of additions, see next post.

check out soil mechanics Different world but the principles apply Shallow pots all the way (within reason)