First timer - organic grow questions

m4s73r said:

So first thing, I would supercrop that to let the rest of the plant catch up a bit. Just my opinion.
What is your light source?
Based on what i'm seeing so far you could be overwatering, but I doubt it. I think your light is to close to those tops and your humidity is low.

If your watering till the pot is heavy with no run off at all then I say Good job. If you ever want a measurement always do 5% water to soil. So 1 gallon of water per 20 gallons of soil. Easy. With small fabric pots I went 10 percent. Mainly due to run off from fabric pot. I got sick of it when I did 25 gallon no tills and i just suran wrapped the pots. left the bottom fabric.

Secondly. Small fabric pots like that are horrible for organic grows using living soil. 2 main reason. Cannabis drinks water fast. so you need something that wont dry out. IF you were to dump those pots you would find a lot of dry soil in them. Since we are already there, I would make sure to water with a whetting agent. Either yucca or aloe. that will make sure all your media gets properly hydrated. Peat can be a PITA once its good and dry.
Third your soil mix. Looks good. Couple of things to consider adding in as you go along. Vermiculite. Its got an amazing cation rate, holds A LOT of water, and adds silica to your mix. I use it in my HugelKultur bed. Consider it part of your 1part Perlite.

Third, You really, REALLY need to go to the local nursery and buy a bag of composted mulch. Ask them for the best shit they got. Make sure its composted good. Ask them to show you some. I get Back to Nature Cotton Burr from mine if I need it. $10 2 Cubic Ft. And fill the tops of all those pots with that. Clear just enough away that its not on the stalk of your girls. But unless you plan on spending money on nutrients and bottle you need to get to mulching bro. Like big time. you should have grown a cover crop over those and killed it off before you put plants in it.

I like what you got going on. Ive subed your post look forward to seeing how this turns out. Check my sigs, I got a couple of 4x4 Organic no till beds going on.

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Rurumo said:

Mulch is great, but straw is as good a mulch as any, just try to find stuff you know wasn't sprayed with anything too sinister. As for watering, have you looked at the schedule they use in this thread? https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/no-till-gardening-revisited.1400505/
They water in aloe, silica, and fulvic acid according to a schedule, I forget what it's like because I just do my own thing that is pretty similar. One of the best things besides regular mulching, is adding malted barley powder as a topdress. Also, if you search that thread, MOFO does give some good watering advice somewhere in there, in terms of quantity/how often, etc. Good luck!!

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Unclebilly said:

thanks for the tips man! As for my light it’s a custom led fixture I built from eb strips and and a 320w mean well driver. I have a separate write up on that build.
I have about 800-900 PPFD on most tops. The tall ones are 1000-1200 PPFD as of yesterday.

I want to keep it organic and I don’t really want to use any bottled nutes. My plan was to keep no till pots, but quickly learned 5 gallons is way too small for that. So top dressing with composted mulch will provide the soil with nutrients needed in flower? As well as help retain moisture?

Is that the idea?

To be honest I’ve only seen a little runoff once in these pots. And my humidity is mid 40’s. And about 76F lights on and around 68-70 with lights off. I lowered my humidity from around 55-60 after veg state based on some stuff I read on here.

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m4s73r said:

Second, we need to have 2 levels in a bed, Soil and mulch.

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Northwood said:

That made me think about the soil in my bed/pot and the changes I've seen over time. I have 3 levels now. If I remove the mulch and half-eaten decaying matter, there is a very dark granular kinda layer that the cannabis roots really love getting into later in my cycles. The younger red wigglers seem to be most common in that layer. It's gradually become about 4" thick between the mulch and soil , and has no resemblance to peat moss at all.

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m4s73r said:

Interesting. didnt really experiance that in my 25 gallon pots. Unless that just worm castings? granular makes me think EWCs? And it could be that with a long time, worms would compost that much into castings. LOL. That would be interesting to find...Ever had it tested?

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(1) Microaggregates are silt and clay particles tightly bound by organic materials. This providers a long-term pool for organic matter.

Breakdown Timeframe: decades/centuries

(2) Macroaggregates are a collection of silt/clay particles, microaggregates, and organic matter. Plant roots, mycorrhizae and earthworms are major contributors to the formation of macroaggregates. These larger aggregates have a shorter breakdown time, providing a organic matter source for roots, bacteria, and fungi.

Breakdown Timeframe: 1-10 years

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Northwood said:

I have worms making castings in the basement to be used for outdoor veggie garden, and its texture when wet is like paste and will adversely affect drainage if I overdo it or don't mix liberally with garden mineral soil. I only added my worm castings when originally formulating my no-till indoor setup; mainly as an inoculant.

In my indoor grow, that middle layer keeps its granular porous texture even when swimming in wetness. I top water only BTW, and this layer drains much better than peat moss. I think it's likely that every molecule of initial grow medium in my pot has gone through a worm's body at one point or another. I also have european night crawlers in there and also regular garden worms collected from the garden outdoors. Although my initial base mix had at least 20% coarse perlite in it, there is no sign of perlite in this layer at all. Everyone complains that perlite will float to the top of their pot with top-watering, but it seems my perlite is sinking to the bottom. I have a theory for this. The perlite is too large to fit into the worm's body, so as the worms travel around, they deposit castings in the upper soil horizon where the food mostly is. So the perlite isn't really moving down itself, it's the organic and inorganic particles that are small enough to run through a worm that are being moved upward.

I've also noticed a gradual reduction in the volume of my grow medium. At first I thought this was compaction because peat moss is pretty stable to decay, but I think once peat moss is pH buffered and processed by worms that move bacteria and nutrients around it becomes more palatable to microorganisms. Yet my drainage has improved from year-to-year, even with top-applied additions of clay (calcium bentonite) after each grow cycle. I know this sounds a bit ironic, but I think the addition of clay has helped drainage.

Here is my hypothesis:

My original intent with bentonite was to increase cation exchange capacity due to the physical properties of the clay itself. I think it's done much more than that. I believe the structure of that granular black layer is due to macro-aggregation. And you can't have macro aggregation without micro-aggregation first. Micro-aggregation happens when microorganisms glue microscopic mineral particles together with "glue" and also bind decayed organic matter into these structures. I don't think aggregation would happen as quickly without a stable component that can act as a "seed", much like how a pearl forms around a grain of sand in a clam. I think that's where the bentonite comes into play here. I've never seen aggregates like this in years-old compost piles outdoors, only under the compost pile starting where the compost (or what people might term "humus") meets the mineral soil. This is why I think the mineral component is important for aggregate formation. The NDSU provides the following definition of soil aggregates:

Link Here

The success of soil restoration efforts is often measured by the degree of aggregation that occurs in soil over time. The fact that carbon can be locked away for centuries in microaggregates provides long term carbon sequestration as well. Soil aggregates are very sensitive to mechanical disturbance such as tillage and plowing which is why conventional agriculture has resulted in a loss of stable soil carbon, a loss of soil tilth/friability, and susceptible to compaction with all the drainage issues it causes - not to mention a reduction in CEC. It is the loss of soil aggregates that have necessitated the need for soil restoration in the first place. There has been a lot published in the scientific literature on the topic, including this one: Impact of Restoration and Management on Aggregation and Organic Carbon Accumulation in Urban Grasslands

So when people talk about "building soil", this is what I think of and to me it's a process that takes years and it's not something anyone can duplicate by just mixing things together for their initial grow medium. Because we can maintain optimal year-round temperatures and moisture, it makes sense to me that this can happen more quickly indoors though than outside in temperate climates with seasons and wet/dry cycles. Aggregation is a process that is dependent on biological activity after all.

I've become curious about the process of aggregate formation. The "glue" secreted by bacteria and other organisms are made up of exopolysaccharides (EPS): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01636/full It takes considerable energy for microorganisms to produce EPS, and that paper goes into the functions and benefits it provides in return for this energy expenditure.

I guess it would be possible to get my soil tested for EPS, but the cost would be rather prohibitive for a 4-plant recreational grow. But it would test my hypothesis if I did. I doubt this soil layer has many free nutrient ions that could be extracted and measured with a standard soil test (esp. N), so I doubt that would provide me with much useful information by itself.

Yes, I know this is probably a bit much for a thread entitled "First timer organic grow questions" Lol

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green_machine_two9er said:

Great advice here so far!
I don’t have much to add except...
Sometimes I first run “coots” soil mixes I find nutrient availability to be lower then subsequent runs with recycled soils.

on first run pots I like to top dress nutrients right away. Use your kelp,crab, and neem. Something like 1/2 teas. Per gallon soil. Then cover with 1/2 inch ewc. Then your mulch layer orstraw.

my theory is pretty simple. Add mynutrients fornext cycle, but adding it this cycle so some % of it breaks down from the top. Supplementing nutrients value in the soil itself.

I always stay one cycle ahead.Thinking on the molecular level of breakdown. Even if your peice of crab shell is”dissolved” that doesn’t mean the plant has gotten close to taking all the nutrients out of that peice. It’s stuck in limbo working with the micro herd over long periods of time to become depleted.

good luck stick with it! Ditch the fabrics next run. And close the gap on top of containers with the mulch or something to act as moisture lock.

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Unclebilly said:

Damn! Information overload.. I’m trying to digest it and research all the points mentioned. I love the knowledge that floats around this forum. This is my very first grow and I’m trying to keep it organic and free of bottled nutrients. But I’m getting worried about these things still drooping on the new growth after 3 days. What immediate intervention should I consider? I will be mulching. But does this look like a nutrient deficiency? I guess I don’t know when they will be “hungry” or when they would deplete the soil of the nutrients. I should have used way bigger pots looking back

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m4s73r said:

drop a pic, what do you mean by drooping?

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Unclebilly said:

Damn! Information overload.. I’m trying to digest it and research all the points mentioned. I love the knowledge that floats around this forum. This is my very first grow and I’m trying to keep it organic and free of bottled nutrients. But I’m getting worried about these things still drooping on the new growth after 3 days. What immediate intervention should I consider? I will be mulching. But does this look like a nutrient deficiency? I guess I don’t know when they will be “hungry” or when they would deplete the soil of the nutrients. I should have used way bigger pots looking back

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