More in-depth on Building soil and no till

[Johnny-carcinogen]

Hello everyone, I’m starting this thread so I can have a more in-depth understanding about building soil and the amendments I’m going to use. Also hoping to help others who might have questions. My understanding of organic growing mainly stems from rudimentary soil building and using subs super soil recipes. Recently I watched a couple videos from Mn. Nice and mendo dope about no till and this year it’s got me excited to start a no till grow.

Growing specifications:
The grow will consist of 10 40 gallon square smart pots, outdoors and will more then likely use a blumat water system and collect as much rain water as possible, and use well water for the rest. The plan is to start ten auto flowers in the pots, after initial harvest 5 more autos and 5 jilly beans will be potted into containers and that should take us to the end of the growing season.

The soil:
so by my math I would need 400 gallons of soil total however room ontop is still needed for composting and cover crops. So I’ll end up making roughly 375 gallons of soil. The recipe is as follows:
-17.5 cubic feet of peat moss
-17.5 cubic feet compost and worm castings
-17.5 cubic feet of lava rock or other mean of aeration
26 1/4 cups each of the following
-Kelp meal
-Neem meal
-Crab or crustacean meal
A 2-1-1 ratio of the following totaling 210 cups
-105 cups glacial rock dust
-52 1/2 cups gypsum
-52 1/2 cups oyster shell flower.
Finally 6.5 pounds of alfalfa meal.(more or less depending)

now the compost and worm castings will be locally sourced so I may go a little less on the compost and keep about half of that worm castings still.
After mixing all these together it will “cook” in the smart pots for a month prior to planting anything in the soil.
Questions I have:
When do I plant a cover crop? (Was going to use daikon radish and let those basically fully grow in the soil and rot, as Mn said they act as “ nutrient bombs”in the soil and growing clover to mulch back into the soil.
*would I add worms after the cooking phase?
*does this seem like a good recipe? I found the ratios from Mn Nice and just multipled them to fit the amount I was making.
*what would a proper watering cycle look like? I found a 11 day watering cycle chart but I must have forgotten to save it but it basically looked like this
Day 1: water
Day 2: no water
Day 3: water and top dress
Day 4: no water
Day 5: water
Day 6: no water
Day 7: water and top dress
Day 8: no water
Day 9: water
Day 10: no water
Day 11: water
And so on and so on,
*does that look right for the first season of building this soil?
*how will growing auto flowers change water or feeding habits?
I will continue to update this thread as I go along as well as any input front you fine folks would also be much appreciated as experience is one of those magical things.

 

[Northwood]

So this is for outside? This might be a really stupid question, but why not just amend your natural soil in your backyard and leave a tiny piece of land better than when you first arrived? Cannabis does really good in the ground outdoors.

 

[Johnny-carcinogen]

So this is for outside? This might be a really stupid question, but why not just amend your natural soil in your backyard and leave a tiny piece of land better than when you first arrived? Cannabis does really good in the ground outdoors.

We were also going to try some in the ground as well, and we also have a field we are going to be growing in. The reasoning for using fabric pots is because the soil type we have here. It’s predominantly clay, which isn’t ideal for cannabis. However we are going to try and see how well it does when we dig a hole and fill it with some of this soil and let the plant do it’s thing.

 

[Northwood]

We were also going to try some in the ground as well, and we also have a field we are going to be growing in. The reasoning for using fabric pots is because the soil type we have here. It’s predominantly clay, which isn’t ideal for cannabis. However we are going to try and see how well it does when we dig a hole and fill it with some of this soil and let the plant do it’s thing.

Well clay has an amazing caption exchange capacity. Drainage is the only issue. If you can amend it with organic matter and something mineral with larger particle size (like fine sand) you could built some epic soil in time. For a second there, I thought you were going to answer "I live in an Arizona desert". That's more difficult. lol

Outdoor raised beds might be another option that incorporates some of your natural clay soil. Heck, with my indoor no-till I have to buy my clay!

Edit: I will also add that fabric pots are a pain in the ass for water outdoors in mid-summer sunny days. Your watering schedule will be like: 10AM - water, 2:30 PM - water, etc. Also watering schedules found online are useless because they depend on your unique situation (pot size & type, soil type and water holding capacity, plant size, humidity, wind, sunshine hours, etc.). How often to water just comes from experience with your own setup - not someone else's.

 

[Johnny-carcinogen]

So for watering we were thinking of using a blumats system. That way it’s more automated. I agree the potential for some truly amazing soil is possible and is not out of the question which is why we will be trying some in ground as well. The area that we live in has some very unique clay soil which I’m excited to try. Depending on that will determine our route next year. I would have to assume that this soil mixture put into the ground would work well for creating “epic” soil pockets to grow in?

 

[Northwood]

I would have to assume that this soil mixture put into the ground would work well for creating “epic” soil pockets to grow in?

I'm sure it will, and with the added benefit that you can grow nice plants from the outset. But real soil building of course takes a long time outdoors. It's definitely a multi-year project. Some things you can do to speed up the process is to always maintain several inches of mulch over the soil, and in your clay consider growing some cover crops for organic matter. If your field of clay soil is now growing lots of healthy looking weeds, nature might already be taking it there. A lot of the regenerative agriculture videos on YouTube are quite good. You may want to check out a few of those too.

 

[Johnny-carcinogen]

I'm sure it will, and with the added benefit that you can grow nice plants from the outset. But real soil building of course takes a long time outdoors. It's definitely a multi-year project. Some things you can do to speed up the process is to always maintain several inches of mulch over the soil, and in your clay consider growing some cover crops for organic matter. If your field of clay soil is now growing lots of healthy looking weeds, nature might already be taking it there. A lot of the regenerative agriculture videos on YouTube are quite good. You may want to check out a few of those too.

I really enjoy his videos actually and have been trying to watch as many as I can. The other thing I have recently read is how well water that’s in area with high limestone contains high amounts of cal. So between using rain water and well water I think the best corse of action would be to eliminate the oyster shell flour and the gypsum and only use the amount of crustacean meal listed above because of the cal content and the way it interacts with the plants much like frass does and if any cal def show just top dress with OSF.