Satori Comparison Grow - Organic vs. Soilless/Synthetic

I've recently grown, cloned, and sexed some Satori plants. I have two females in 3rd week of flowering, and I took 3 clones from one of them. The clones are healthy and are 18 days old.

I've never grown Satori before.

I’m a long-time organic grower who’s wanting to try full-blown hydroponics, and my first step in that direction will be a soilless grow with synthetic nutes. However, I still have some good organic Super Soil left, so I’ve decided to do a comparison grow just for fun. Organic vs. soilless/synthetic, with 3 clones from the same mother, under the same lights, and under the same conditions. The only difference will be grow medium and nutes.

I expect the soilless/synthetic grow to win in terms of yield, but I’m interested in seeing yield differences and comparing taste.

The organic Super Soil I’ve always mixed is pretty potent. My grows go from seed/clone to harvest using nothing but un-ph’ed tap water. No additional nutes or additives of any kind. I’ll give the recipe in a later post, as it’s too long for this introductory post. I will grow two of the clones in this Super Soil.

The other clone will be grown in ProMix HP and Advanced Nutrients (AN). I’ve been wanting to try AN for a while now, if for no other reason than to mark them off my checklist. I bought the smallest bottles possible in case I don’t like them. I’ll list the exact AN products I bought in a subsequent post.

I will post the details of my grow thus far, and grow room specs, later today.

Here are pics of the mother, the clones in rockwool, and the 18-day-old clones just after planting last night:

Grow Details Thus Far:

I ordered my Satori seeds a while back, and planted 4 seeds, hoping for 2 females. They were all raised in organic soil. I damaged one of the seedlings due to careless handling, so I planted another seed.

By the time these 4 plants were about 8 inches tall, one began stretching very badly, so I culled it. When the 3 remaining plants showed pre-sex, I took 3 clones from each and put the parent plants in the flowering room.

All 3 parent plants turned out to be female, but the clones from one looked "better" than clones from the others, so I ended up keeping 3 clones from the same mother.

I cloned using 1.5" rockwool cubes, un-ph'ed distilled water, Take Root powdered rooting hormone, and Clonex mist.

I planted them in their respective grow mediums last night at 18 days old.

One was planted in pure, uncut ProMix HP. I will feed it Advanced Nutrients. And I will post the exact products used in a later post. I watered them last night with a weak grow solution.

The other two clones were planted in pure, uncut Roots Organic soil. They will get transplanted into Super Soil somewhere along the way when they are mature enough.

Grow Room Details:

The plants will veg in a 32"x32" tent under T5 lighting.

My flower room is a 3.5' x 3.5' x 8' closet painted flat-white, with a 600-watt Hortilux Super HPS, powered by a Lumatek digital ballast. I will use one of my large Sunlight hoods.

My Super Soil Recipe:

• 2 large bags Roots Organic soil
• 20 lbs EB Earth Worm Castings
• 16 red cups (about 1kg) organic rice hulls
• 420g fish bone meal (Down to Earth 3-16-0)
• 420g bat guano (Happy Frog 0-5-0)
• 420g blood meal (Down to Earth 12-0-0)
• 100g neem seed meal (Down to Earth)
• 80g potassium sulfate (0-0-50)
• 200g Ancient Forest Alaska Humus (General Organics)
• 200g xtreme mycorrhizal granules
• 200g azomite
• 100g sea kelp (Algamin 1-0-2)
• 70g dolomite lime (30% cal 3% mg or 75/12)
• 50g alfalfa meal (Down to Earth 2.5-1-1)
• 20g humic acid powder (Down to Earth)
• 8g Epsom salt

I cook it for at least 45 days before using it.

I use pure Roots Organic soil until my plants are ready for their second transplant, at which time I use 50% Roots Organic and 50% Super Soil. On their 3rd and final transplant, I use 100% Super Soil.

As mentioned in an earlier post, this recipe takes my grows all the way through harvest using only un-ph'ed tap water; no additional nutes or additives of any kind.

However, the plants also stay green until harvest, which may mean the soil has too much nitrogen. I've read that green leaves thru harvest can be a sign of heavy nitrogen, which stimulates green leaf production/maintenance. And this can (supposedly) interfere with flowering efficiency. I don't know for sure.

Advanced Nutrients Products I'll be Using:

• Connoisseur PH Perfect Grow A & B
• Connoisseur PH Perfect Bloom A & B
• Hobbyist Bundle (VooDoo Juice, Big Bud, B-52, Overdrive)
• Final Phase

I bought the smallest bottles of each in case I don't like AN.

I hate ph'ing. The happiest day of my grow life was the day I threw my ph meter and ph-up-down in the trash can.

Everyone feel free to post, comment, ask questions, etc.

This is my first time using rockwool to clone. I had 6 of 9 clones take root within 2 weeks. Not as successful as I had hoped, even though I had planned to keep only 3 of them to grow out anyway. I may have over-watered since it was hard for me to know when the rockwool needed more water.

I've used only Rapid Rooters for cloning in the past, with 80-85% success rate. I like Rapid Rooters better. Except they don't stand up on their own like rockwool cubes do.

TBoneJack said:

This is my first time using rockwool to clone. I had 6 of 9 clones take root within 2 weeks. Not as successful as I had hoped, even though I had planned to keep only 3 of them to grow out anyway. I may have over-watered since it was hard for me to know when the rockwool needed more water.

I've used only Rapid Rooters for cloning in the past, with 80-85% success rate. I like Rapid Rooters better. Except they don't stand up on their own like rockwool cubes do.

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Try letting the rock wool almost dry out between waterings. Contrary to popular belief you can over water that stuff, I've done it before. My clones noticeably look better after a good dry period with rock wool cubes. I used RX Green Solutions cloning program last round and had very healthy clones that didn't droop or yellow.

I realize that discussions of Advanced Nutrients (AN) sometimes escalate to flame wars. I've probably read every pro and con internet post regarding AN. But I'm just the kinda person that's gotta find out for himself.

I have a good baseline of repeated good-yield (for soil) grows to compare against AN.

I've not used a ph meter much in many years of organic growing. So when switching to hydro, I wanted to try AN first since they claim their nutes are "ph perfect".

I'll finally see for myself.

Definitley will be watching this. I was really excited to go organic, but Im worried the yields could be considerably lower. Your soil recipe looks legit, your happy with it?

Why change from organic?

Kind Sir said:

Definitley will be watching this. I was really excited to go organic, but Im worried the yields could be considerably lower. Your soil recipe looks legit, your happy with it?

Why change from organic?

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I really love my soil recipe. As far as I'm concerned, organic growing can't be any better. It was a solid producer. If hydro doesn't work out for me, I'll definitely return to my exact-stated soil recipe.

But the labor involved in mixing my own soil, and carrying heavy pots of soil, has had a negative impact on my upper back and neck. I eventually want to go fully hydro, where I'm simply pushing around wheeled tubs of water. And this soilless mix with synthetic nutes is just a first step in the fully-hydro direction.

And I need bigger yields. I want to transition to 100% vaping cannabis oil, and not smoking anymore.

I forgot to mention that I'll be using tan Smart Pots in which to grow the clones. I have several each of the 5-gallon and 7-gallon sizes. I haven't decided which size I'll use yet. Probably the 7-gallon size.

I'm a big believer in the heat-reduction and air-pruning qualities of the fabric pots, and the tan color reduces heat even further. Just MHO.

Day 22 Update:

Well, the unexpected has happened. The clones in pure Roots Organic soil (the rightmost two) show new growth, while the clone in ProMixHP-AN has shown no growth in two days.

Organics 1, ProMixHP-AN 0.

TBoneJack said:

Day 22 Update:

Well, the unexpected has happened. The clones in pure Roots Organic soil (the rightmost two) show new growth, while the clone in ProMixHP-AN has shown no growth in two days.

Organics 1, ProMixHP-AN 0.

View attachment 3473126

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How old are those clones in the cups?

KC_Grow said:

How old are those clones in the cups?

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22 days old when the picture was taken last night.

Nice cant wait to see this one

Day 24 Update:

Last night, just after I typed the above post, I went to AN's web site and looked for grow support commentary. What I found was a phone number to call for support. So I called. And got an answer within 2 rings.

A man answered, and talked with me at length about my situation and their recommended feeding. And I also asked for an email for reference, and he was kind enough to send that as well. Here's what he said:

Don't start feeding the Connoisseur formulas until the clones develop roots and two new sets of new leaves above the old growth, before that time give them B-52 at 2 mL/liter and a low dose of Voodoo Juice 2 mL/gallon, it will help speed up rooting and new vegetative growth, once they get the second set of new leaves give them Connoisseur stating at 1/4 strength (1 mL/liter) and increase gradually until you are feeding at full strength (4 mL/liter )at week 4, and apply both the B-52 and Voodoo Juice at 2 mL/liter.

They advocate slowly increasing nute strength so as to allow the plant to say when it's at good nute levels.

But since I had already been feeding at 1 milliliter per liter, I increased it to 2 milliliters per liter tonight.

I don't have the B-52 or VooDoo Juice yet, but I have them ordered.

Here's a pic taken tonight. The ProMixHP-AN plant is on the left. The organic plants are on the right. Keep in mind that these are clones from the same good mother, and that they all started at about the same size.

Your on your way now

they look kinda lime-green to yellowish. overwatered too.

how do you plan to remedy these deficiencies?

UncleBuck said:

they look kinda lime-green to yellowish. overwatered too.

how do you plan to remedy these deficiencies?

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They may be over-watered. This is the first time I've ever cloned in rockwool, and I could tell it held more water than the Rapid Rooters I had used before. And the rootball is currently mostly contained within the rockwool, so maybe I am over-watering.

Based upon your previous good advice on harvesting my Dr. Greenthumb Bubba OG at the correct time, I once again thank you for good advice.